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“ Y ou didn’t have to come and pick me up,” I said to Adam as I trailed along the path after him to his front door. “You live ten minutes away. I could have walked.”

“And if I’d called and said, hey, Ray’s made the guest room up for you and Phil, come on over, you’d have said…?”

I didn’t bother replying. We both knew I’d have said no thanks and grimly driven myself to the hotel to be miserable and alone.

I felt a sudden, fierce surge of gratitude for Adam’s high-handed bossiness.

And his kindness.

He put his key in the lock. The door popped open before he could turn it.

“Charlie!” Ray said. “Come in, come in!”

Phil barged past me with his usual lack of manners, all but headbutting Ray in the groin with his enthusiastic greeting. Ray laughed and caught him by the collar, pulling him out of the way and ushering us in.

“So.” Ray opened his eyes wide at me.

“So,” I said.

“Dead guy in your bedroom, huh?”

“Yup.”

“Been there,” Ray said.

Adam snorted and shut the door. “Just ask him, Ray.”

Adam had taken my bag from the back seat before I could grab it. He put a hand on Ray’s hip and dropped a quick kiss to the side of Ray’s head, so easy and casual he probably didn’t even know he’d done it, before shuffling him aside to carry my bag down the hall. Phil beelined after him.

“No, no. It’s…he probably doesn’t want to talk about. Unless?” Ray’s big brown eyes opened even wider. “Do you want to talk about it?” He nodded encouragingly.

“I’m good.”

“Excellent.” Ray did his best not to look disappointed. “I’ve made up the guest room. If you’d rather sleep in the sitting room, I can make up the sofa instead.”

“Why wouldn’t I?—”

“Charlie,” Adam called down the stairs. Phil sat at the bottom, gazing up at him adoringly but going no further. “Come on.”

Understanding dawned. “Oh, you mean because you had a guy under the boards in your guest room?” I said to Ray.

He winced.

I waved it off. “It’s fine. I’ve got to get used to it sooner rather than later. Considering I’ve lived the last two years with a bunch of corpses in the wall watching me sleep.”

“A bunch ?” Ray said. “In the wall ?”

“Don’t tell anyone.”

“I know the drill.” Ray led the way up the stairs. “A bunch, though? Yours were all in the same place? How many’s a bunch?”

“Liam won’t say. It’s more than one. Kevin thinks—” I broke off. “Never mind. It’s more than one. Let’s leave it at that.” I paused and said to Phil, “You coming, buddy?”

Phil lay down with a sigh.

“Is he not allowed upstairs?” Ray asked. “I thought he’d be a bed hog.”

“He’s allowed. He just won’t do it.” I contemplated Phil. “I used to think it was a stairs thing. Now I’m wondering if it’s a dead-body thing.”

Ray paled.

“There are no more dead guys up here, babe,” Adam said, appearing at the top of the stairs. “I checked.”

Ray swallowed hard. “Did you…did you check the walls?” he asked.

Adam’s gaze flicked to me and back to Ray as we joined him. “No,” he said, “but now I know what I’m doing tomorrow. Thanks, Charlie.”

“Anytime.”

Adam set my bag beside a small chest of drawers and scooted Ray out before he could shake me down for any more information. “We’re having risotto for supper,” Adam said over his shoulder as they left. “Come and join us when you’re ready.”

“Thanks.”

I wandered over to the double bed and sat down heavily. The scent of laundry detergent puffed up around me. Knowing Ray, he’d made the bed up with fresh sheets seconds after Adam headed out to pick me up.

I frowned, wondering how Adam had even known that I needed somewhere to stay in the first place. Then I heard the front door bang downstairs, Jasper bellowed, “ Where is he ?” feet pounded up the stairs, and I knew.

“Charlie,” Jasper gasped, bursting in and rushing over to me. He hauled me up from sitting, yanked me against his body, and hugged me. “Oh my god.”

I patted his back. “It’s all right,” I said.

He squeezed me harder.

“Okay, that’s enough,” I growled, and attempted to pinch his side. I couldn’t find any loose skin or fat to work with, but he got the hint.

“First things first,” he said, releasing his anaconda grip and holding me by the shoulders to duck down and meet my eyes. “I am not writing an article about you.”

“Good to know.”

“Ralph from the Inquirer called and asked me to come out of retirement for it.” He blinked rapidly. “Not kidding, I nearly blacked out when he said a body had been found at your address. Charlie . I thought you’d died .”

“I didn’t die.”

“Good. You’re not allowed to, in case you didn’t know. Anyway, I turned Ralph down flat.”

“I don’t care,” I said tiredly. “If you want to?—”

“Nope. No. Not a chance.” He pulled me in for another hug, held on for a brief scuffle as I tried to get free, and then made a sympathetic sound when I went limp in his arms.

I rested my head on his shoulder and fully submitted to the hug. Who was I kidding? This had gone on way too long for a hug.

I was being cuddled.

The strength and heat of his solid muscled body against mine was reassuring in its familiarity. Less because Jasper and I went around getting all up in each other’s personal space, and more because he reminded me of Kevin.

Kevin, whose goddamn insistence about improving my home had dropped me into this nightmare. Kevin, who had screwed up my life and then promptly abandoned me.

I certainly hadn’t seen that coming.

In fact, if you’d asked me three hours ago, I’d have scoffed in your face at the mere suggestion that Kevin would run at the very first hurdle.

Even if that hurdle was a mummified cowboy.

My arms around Jasper tightened. I supposed it was better to find out now rather than later.

“Jasper,” Adam spoke quietly from the doorway. “Come on downstairs and see Phil. Charlie could probably do with a few minutes to himself.”

“Yeah, okay,” Jasper said after a moment of hesitation. He shuffled me over to the bed and pushed me down. “Do you want me to stay with you tonight?” he asked.

I wanted Kevin to stay with me. I sighed, and shook my head. “I’m good.”

I was so far from good it was insane.

With obvious reluctance, Jasper left. I sat there on the very edge of the mattress, staring at the centre of the room.

That was where the second of Ray’s dead guys had lain for who knows how long before Ray, doing a spot of DIY, had found him. Just like the first one—that Kevin found—the body had been packed in a plastic storage tub filled with cat litter and wedged under the floorboards.

I mean…?

Who the hell was stashing bodies in the floors and now walls of random Chipping Fairford houses?

Liam had investigated the first body; a team had come up from London to help out when Ray found the second body; it had made the national news when Ray’s dad dug up the clown in the garden.

Shit.

Jasper wouldn’t write any dodgy articles about me, but I was about to be in the papers anyway. What a fucking nightmare.

The worst part of it?

I didn’t even care all that much about the bodies. Yes, it was objectively creepy as hell. I’d been sleeping every night in my bedroom, a few feet away from the sightless, dried-out raisin-eyes of however many mummified cowboys were standing in their little boxes and stuck behind a false wall.

I wasn’t happy about it.

It would definitely take some getting used to when I went back home and started sleeping there again.

But the worst part of it was, Kevin had left me to it.

I had a feeling he wasn’t coming back.

I woke up, frowned at the unfamiliar room around me, and then screwed up my face with a groan. Ugh. I was at Adam and Ray’s, and instead of going downstairs for a nice risotto dinner, I’d fallen asleep.

I hated naps. I rarely had occasion to indulge, but whenever I did, I woke up like a bear in spring. Cranky as hell and in desperate need of food.

I rubbed my face and went to roll off the bed, flailing when I got tangled up in the thick blanket that someone had put over me. I fought my way out and looked down at myself with surprise.

Someone had wrapped me up in a blanket like a burrito. Not content with that, that someone had also taken off my shoes and my hoodie, leaving me in jeans, socks, and a t-shirt. I must have been out of it if I hadn’t woken up at the manhandling, because in general, I was a light sleeper.

The room was dark and the curtains shut. I stumbled over to the window and opened them, blinking stupidly at the blue-and-pink beginnings of a glorious dawn sky.

I’d slept the whole night?

My stomach gurgled aggressively, letting me know that yes, I had indeed slept the whole night, I hadn’t eaten since lunch yesterday, and my blood sugar was positively subterranean.

Deciding I needed to fix that first and then I could get on with freaking out, I headed downstairs. I’d been to Ray and Adam’s often enough and knew my way to the kitchen.

Adam was already up and honestly, it was almost worth all this fuss to see his epic bedhead and his slitted, bleary eyes as he leaned against the kitchen counter, cradling a cup of coffee and staring vacantly out of the window. Since I didn’t get a hello from my dog, I assumed Phil was out there doing his morning things, and Adam was keeping watch.

I’d never seen this soft, unguarded version of Adam before. It was endearing.

I’d known him since he was one of Amalie’s scrawny, spotty little friends—along with Jasper, who’d been less spotty but more scrawny.

Adam had been a bossy little gremlin back then, and he’d somehow metamorphosed into this beauteous specimen of manhood. Still a bossy gremlin, but one who was so insanely good-looking that not only did he get away with it, fashion designers and photographers had thrown scads of money at him to lounge around wearing their clothes and looking pissed off about it.

That had been in his late teens and early twenties. Now he was in his late twenties, and all signs pointed to him growing even more disgustingly handsome as he aged.

Today, though, his copper-blond curls were going everywhere, and I now knew that his preferred sleeping position was on his face, because he had wicked pillow creases.

“Morning,” I said.

Adam grunted and took a sip of coffee. “Morning. Good sleep?”

“I think I blacked out,” I said, and headed over to the Nespresso machine. I sighed down at it.

“Help yourself.” Adam waved vaguely at the cabinet beside my head. “Cups.”

“Thanks. And I’m sorry for last night. I should have been taking care of Phil, not dumping him on you.”

Adam set his cup down and yawned, then lifted his arms up and overhead for a long, languorous stretch, twisting at the waist. “Don’t worry about it.” He dropped his arms and shook himself. “He had Ray and Jasper squabbling over who got to take care of him. Jasper tried to take him home. I thought they were going to get in a slap fight for a while there.”

I smiled and switched on the machine. “Obviously, Ray won.”

“Yeah. He had the edge. He works from home. He’s going to keep Phil with him for the next few days, by the way. That’s already sorted. No need to bother with any arguments.”

I selected a Nespresso pod from a small basket beside the machine, and frowned at it before dropping it and poking through for another.

Adam came up beside me, and snagged one. “Strongest of the lot,” he said, handing it to me.

“Thanks.” I poked it into the machine, helped myself to a cup from the overhead cabinet, and got it going.

Adam and Ray’s kitchen was warm and welcoming. It was cosy, yet beautifully designed. It should be. Ray was a graphic designer and Adam was an architect. They’d remodelled the place a couple of years back.

Although our houses were both old Victorians, built at the same time and in a similar style, compared to this house, mine looked like a hovel. No wonder Kevin always—nope. I took a sip of steaming coffee to distract myself. None of that. No thinking about Kevin.

Not yet.

Adam got a carton of eggs out of the fridge. “Scrambled on toast do for you?” he said.

What was this, my birthday? Normally I snagged one of yesterday’s bagels at the coffee sh?—

I looked up at the clock on the wall with panic. For fuck’s sake. The shop!

I put my cup down hard, sloshing hot liquid over the rim, and lunged for the door.

Adam stepped in my way, hands up. “That’s already sorted too. The shop’s open, everything is fine, everything is under control.”

“What—who—” I grabbed his arms and shook him.

Adam had the nerve to look amused. “You’ve got nothing to worry about,” he said soothingly. “Jasper is on the job.”

I choked on air. “You didn’t let him—” I glared at his smirk. No. He didn’t. Jasper would have wanted to, but Adam knew as well as I did that sometimes Jasper’s enthusiasm got in the way of Jasper’s common sense. “Pippa?” I guessed.

“Yep. She called your phone last night when you didn’t go back?—”

I gripped my hair. “I forgot to close up! Holy shit! I just…I forgot . I never forget. I can’t ! Adam!”

“Uh-huh.” He took hold of my shoulders, turned me around, and sat me down in one of the kitchen chairs. “I think it’s best if you assume that everything is fine. Trust me. I’ve got it all under control.”

“I can’t believe I forgot,” I said, staring up at him. “I don’t forget things. I don’t get to forget things. I’ve never not closed up. Not since Amalie left.” Amalie. Fuck. “How many times has she called?” She might be off doing cool-girl stuff in cool-girl places, but she had plenty of Instagram followers in Chipping Fairford. It was too much to hope that she hadn’t seen at least one post about it.

Adam shook his head. “Probably hasn’t heard yet.”

Then again, she’d have to look at other people’s posts rather than her own to hear the gossip.

“Where even is my phone?” I said.

Adam gestured at the counter over by the fridge. “Charging.”

“Wow. You really have got everything under control. You’re like the world’s best personal assistant. It’s always been a head-scratcher, but I finally understand what Ray sees in you.”

He slid me an amused smile. All six feet and three inches of lean, muscled handsomeness with tousled copper-gold curls and bone structure exquisite enough to make angels want to scratch out his pretty eyes with jealousy.

“Yeah,” he said. “That’s what Ray’s into. My skill with a to-do list.”

“Well, you know what they say. Takes all kinds.”

He laughed. “You want the rundown?”

“Please.”

“Okay. The bag you brought has toiletries and clothes to last you four days, although my guess is you’ll be home as soon as tomorrow. Pippa closed the shop last night, opened this morning, and is planning to do the same tonight and tomorrow. She told me to tell you not to even think about going in, but I’ll leave the pair of you to argue about it. She also wants you and Phil to go and stay with her. You’re staying here. Ray’s looking after Phil, Liam will come by the coffee shop to update you mid-morning, and that about covers it.”

No wonder Ray was chilled out these days. I’d always assumed Adam was shagging the anxiety out of him. Nope. Adam was organising him.

“Apart from Kevin,” Adam continued.

I went rigid. “I don’t think I want to talk about Kevin right now.”

“All right,” he said amiably. To my astonishment, and—if I was brutally honest—to my disappointment, he left it there, and went to call Phil.