Page 118 of The Hardest Hit

Eleanor smiled. “I’ll leave that to you three then. I certainly never figured it out.”

Dominique thought it was the first time she’d ever heard her grandmother admit to not knowing something.

“You’re right,” Dominique said. “I’ll have to talk to the boys. There must be something we can do. We obviously can’t leave Jackson to his own devices.”

Eleanor shook her head. “Leave the poor boy alone. Doesn’t he have enough to contend with?”

“Nonsense, Grandma. We only want him to be happy.”

Aiden Deveraux

Aiden’s phone vibrated on the table and he picked it up. Evan was discussing wine with the sommelier. There were only two modes of discussion for sommeliers when faced with Evan—defeated or excited to have a fellow enthusiast to obsess with. This one was flailing the wine list in excitement.

Olivia is scary smart. She just did a chemical breakdown on the bathroom soap off the top of her head.

Aiden saw Evan look his way when he laughed at the text message. The sommelier ran down Evan’s list, and Evan nodded approvingly.

“That should take care of us,” said Evan, leaning back in his chair as the sommelier left. Aiden thought Evan looked happier and more relaxed than he could ever remember him. “Funny message?”

“Ella says your girlfriend is scary smart.”

“She is,” agreed Evan.

“Yes, but that’s coming from a woman who is both scary and smart herself. So I’m saying Olivia’s smartness maybe sort of in the stratosphere.”

“We like smart women,” said Evan with a shrug. “And yes, she is that smart. Lord knows what she’s doing with me. I think I may have bribed my way into her heart through cooking.”

“That actually works?” asked Aiden. “Damn it. I don’t want to learn how to cook.”

“I think you got yours on lock by solving her father’s murder,” said Evan. “I think you’re good.”

“Oh. Good point. Whew.”

Evan snorted and shook his head.

“Evan?”

“Yeah?”

Aiden hesitated and then shook his head. Why was he even trying to bring this up? They were having a perfectly nice evening. Why did he try to ruin everything? “Never mind.”

“What?”

Aiden didn’t want to say it, but he couldn’t shake the thought. “I know we just got this all resolved and I don’t want to open up any more trouble, but I can’t help thinking…”

“Thinking what?” asked Evan.

“Why shouldn’t we look at the plane crash files?” Evan didn’t say anything, and Aiden fiddled with his water glass nervously. “You barely even dug into the plane crash. I mean, not really, and Grandma flipped the fuck out and went the nuclear route.”

“That wasn’t the only reason,” said Evan.

“Yeah, yeah,” Aiden agreed, nodding. “But… I can’t help thinking that it seems odd. I’m not trying to start anything, but I just… If I were working on a case and something like this came up, I would tear into it. It would bug me and bug me until I did something about it.”

“Well,” said Evan, straightening his silverware, “fortunately, we have Jackson, so you don’t have to.”

“You already talked to Jackson?” asked Aiden.

Evan shrugged. “He also thought it was… an overreaction.”