Page 13

“Oh.” He rolled his eyes. “Some arsehole jumped me at the caravan.”

“What?” I blinked, not believing what I was hearing. “You were robbed again?”

He waggled his hand. “More like an opportunistic mugging. The jerk was waiting when I stepped out of the caravan. Apparently, Clark’s Beach has had a few issues this summer. Some local walking on the beach saw it happen and scared the guy off. He grabbed the box I was carrying with Davis’s stuff, including the laptop, but that was it. Could’ve been worse, I suppose.”

I stared at him, gobsmacked. “Could’ve been worse? Are you on drugs? What the fuck, Nick?”

All he did was shrug, but the way his gaze slid off mine told me he was more worried than he was letting on.

“So, not that box, I take it?” I nodded to the one by his feet.

He shook his head. “No, that was still in the Audi. It’s all the stuff they found during the accident investigation. The guy couldn’t have had time to check the car before I came out.”

What were the odds of so much happening to one man in just a few months? Nope, something was definitely off. I stood, my shirt clinging like a limpet to my damp skin. “I don’t buy the random thing, and I don’t think you do either. But I’m also not having that conversation out here. Bring that box into the air conditioning and show me what you’ve got.”

He frowned. “I don’t like air?—”

“Zip it.” I stabbed a finger his way. “I refuse to melt into a puddle just to humour your irrational fear. Get your butt inside or leave. Your choice. Still walking, by the way.”

His jaw ticked menacingly. “What’s in the box is none of your damn business.”

I rolled my eyes. “Of course not. That’s why you brought it from the car to my deck, just so you can refuse to show it to me. Now shut the fuck up and park your belligerent arse inside on my sofa. You can hang your hat on the rack just inside the door.” And with that, I left him standing there and headed inside. He’d come or he wouldn’t. Stubborn fucker.

The cool interior lit up my skin like stepping out of a sauna, and my lungs did a little happy dance in my chest. I was almost to the kitchen when I heard Nick muttering something no doubt rude, and I turned to find him hanging his hat as instructed. I swallowed a smile.

When Nick caught me watching, he scowled. “Jerk.”

I couldn’t help but laugh, which only deepened his scowl. “Take a seat.” I gestured toward the larger of two couches and he collapsed onto its soft cushions with a groan of relief that sparked a warm surge in my belly.

My visceral reaction to the man had passed the point of borderline discourteous and was well on the way to unconscionable perving. But since it wasn’t a button that I could simply turn off, I didn’t know quite what to do about it. Bury it, seemed appropriate, not to mention timely, so that’s what I did.

Or tried to.

But the sight of him spreadeagle on my couch, eyes closed, looking all kinds of hot and wilted and sexy, was hard to ignore. I cleared my throat. “Tell me again how much you hate air conditioning?”

He flipped me off without opening his eyes.

“Yeah, I thought so.” I let him be and headed for the kitchen. “I’ll bring us a cold drink and then you can show me what’s in that box.”

“Make that drink a beer and I might consider it.”

I huffed. “Yeah, I’ll get right on that... not. Water. We’re both dehydrated.”

He groaned and called after me, “How about a coffee?”

“Nope.” I opened the fridge door and basked in the icy breath that shot out to meet me. “It’s not good for your body in the heat. Maybe later.”

Another groan. “Jesus fucking Christ. Has anyone ever told you you’re a bossy sonofabitch?”

I chuckled. “Once or twice.” I put a jug of cold water on a tray along with a container of carrot sticks and celery that I always kept on hand. I added glasses and plates, a tzatziki dip, some hummus, a bowl of air baked crackers, and a bunch of green grapes. I stared at the tray for a few seconds before going against my better judgement and adding a plate of chocolate chip cookies.

I carried the tray into the lounge and set it onto the coffee table.

Nick opened his eyes and considered the offering. “God almighty,” he grumbled, pushing himself up to take a better look. “You’re serious about all this health shit, aren’t you?”

I pointed to the cookies. “I bent the rules just for you.”

His mouth quirked. “There are rules?”

“There are always rules.” I poured two glasses of ice water and handed him one. Our fingers brushed and it absolutely did not send a shiver up my arm. “Remember the ex-boyfriends’ list of grievances discussion?”

Nick nodded.

“Well, let’s just say the issue of rules also featured on those lists.”

Nick barked out a laugh. “Do they extend to the bedroom?”

Heat burst over my cheeks. “I refuse to answer that since it’s none of your fucking business.”

A huge grin split his face. “Oh my god, they do, don’t they? Damn. We are definitely having that conversation at some point.”

My brows dipped. “In your dreams. And you don’t have to sound so delighted. It’s not funny.” I bit the end off a carrot stick and crunched angrily.

“Yeah, it kind of is.” He bypassed every single healthy item on the tray in favour of two chocolate chip cookies.

“You’ll regret that when you’re sixty.” I indicated the cookie heading for his mouth.

He waggled his brows and bit it in half. “The only thing I’ll regret—” He talked around the mouthful. “—is your harping on about it. Mmm.” He inspected the cookie in his hand. “These are pretty good.”

“My mother’s recipe.”

His eyes widened. “You made these?”

“Why? Do I look incapable of throwing a few ingredients together and putting them in an oven? It’s hardly rocket science.”

“I disagree,” he argued. “I can’t cook for shit, which you know, by the way.”

I chuckled. “Yeah, the sheer number of takeout containers in your house gave it away, along with how loudly you yelled at me for ordering those organic meals.”

His cheeks pinked and he reached for a third cookie. “I might owe you an apology for that. Turns out, they weren’t half bad.”

I smiled around a mouthful of celery. “High praise indeed. Feel free to have some carrots with that chocolate.”

He shot me a horrified look. “And we were getting along so nicely. Which begs the question of why make cookies if you don’t eat them?”

“I like to cook and Gazza likes to eat as long as it’s not too unhealthy for his diabetes. I swap out what I can to accommodate him,” I explained simply. “It’s a match made in heaven. Now, are you going to show me what’s in that box or not?”

He finished his cookie and sighed. “Fine. Get over here so we can both see the laptop.”

“Since you asked so nicely.” I grabbed my reading glasses and circled the coffee table to sit at his side, our thighs touching, the concentrated heat emanating from his body making my skin prickle.

He went still for a moment, long enough for me to wonder if he felt it too. That unmistakable crackle of interest. Maybe he did, because he shuffled sideways just enough to create a gap, then pulled a laptop from the box.

Turning to face me, he considered my glasses for a second, then reached back into the box to retrieve a pair of his own. When he slid them in place, I absolutely did not stare, because damn, if Nick Fisher without glasses was hot, Nick Fisher wearing a pair of black-rimmed readers made every cell in my ridiculous bibliophile soul giddy with pleasure.

“This laptop is Davis’s original,” Nick explained, “but I emailed a lot of what I found in the new one to both our emails. We can start there and work our way through the box.”

I watched him closely. “And you’re okay with me looking through his stuff like this?”

Nick shrugged and turned back to the laptop’s screen. “I’m not precious about any of it, not really. I just can’t seem to actually throw it out. It seems too final, somehow.” He typed in a password seemingly oblivious to the fact our thighs were back touching and that I was blatantly ogling him. Then the home screen opened and he leaned forward. “I sent most of—” He stopped mid-sentence and turned to face me. “What?”

I blinked and quickly switched my attention to the screen. “Nothing. Sorry. Go ahead.”

He hesitated, then turned back to the laptop. “I forwarded most of what I found to my personal email but copied one of Davis’s as well. This thread is the exchange between Lachlan and Davis that I was telling you about. Take a look.” He angled the screen so I could see and we both leaned forward, shoulders brushing.

I read the thread and my heart sank. It was pretty damning. But it wasn’t conclusive. I turned to Nick. “You said he had a desk calendar with dates circled when he stayed at the caravan?”

Nick opened his hands. “It was taken with the rest. Everything from the caravan was in that box.” He hesitated. “Except—” He dug around in his jean’s pocket then slapped a driver’s licence and passport on the table. “—these. But the calendar was pretty clear. Davis was at the caravan three or four days every week for six weeks, and I had no idea. He was lying to me, Madigan. By omission if nothing else. He always told me when he was heading down this way.”

“Maybe,” I agreed. “But you don’t know exactly what he was doing. You’re just assuming the worst. You said he was very tight-lipped when he was planning a new book.”

Nick shook his head. “Only about the plot itself, not about where he was working or who he was talking to. I knew my husband, Madigan.”

He had me there, although I was tempted to point out that he apparently didn’t know Davis as well as he’d thought. Instead, I said, “Fair enough, and I admit the emails don’t look good, but they’re still not definitive. What else did you find? Tell me everything.”

And so he did, going into detail about the desk calendar and the question of whether the L.K. was this Lachlan from the emails. He talked about finding the research folder with Davis’s passport and driver’s licence and surprisingly little else for almost two months’ work. The screensaver photo. The passwords. The laptop account. The missing phone. Davis not consulting Nick about the money laundering aspect of his new book. He even told me about the half-empty bottle of lube, something I could’ve well done without.

When he was done, Nick fell back on the sofa with a heavy sigh. “ Now try and convince me Davis wasn’t having an affair.”

I didn’t answer because I didn’t know what to think. If it wasn’t for the fact that the so-called evidence flew in the face of everything Nick had believed about Davis, I might’ve been convinced as well.

“Let me see those emails again.” I pulled the laptop onto my knees and went through the exchanges for the third time. When I was done, I tapped the screen with my finger. “These last few don’t sound like Lachlan was pissed off about being ghosted. They sound like he was scared.”

“Scared?” Nick slid the laptop from my knees onto his. When he finished reading, he closed the lid and tossed it on the sofa. “I don’t see it. Maybe he was simply scared of losing Davis. Maybe he was... in love with Davis.” His voice broke on the word and pain sliced through those beautiful grey eyes. “Maybe they were in love... with each other?”

“Stop it.” I turned sideways on the sofa, resting my elbow on the back and putting a little more distance between us. “You need to take a breath and look at this objectively. You’re not thinking clearly.”

Nick shuffled sideways as well and threw open his hands. “No? What the fuck am I supposed to think? It seems pretty clear to me. My husband was having an affair and I never suspected a thing. I believed every bit of the bullshit that came out of his mouth about loyalty and faithfulness being so fucking important to him. Our promise that we’d always talk to the other first if we ever felt tempted. That we’d try to work things out before we acted on anything. And I believed it, Madigan. I fucking believed it. What kind of idiot does that make me?”

I raised my brows and tilted my head. “Do you really want me to answer that?”

He fell silent, glaring long enough to make me wonder if I’d made a mistake in trying to lighten things. Then he snorted and lobbed a carrot stick my direction. “Fuck you, Madigan.”

I caught the carrot and took a bite. “You make it too easy.”

He chuckled. “You’d make a terrible therapist, just so you know.” He reached for another cookie and wafted it under my nose in an exaggerated fashion before taking a bite.

I eyeballed him, unimpressed. “Your telomeres are shrinking as we speak.”

He frowned. “My what?”

I sighed. “The proteins on the end of your chromosomes that protect you against the effects of ageing. Every time a cell divides, the telomeres get shorter and shorter until poof, they’re gone and the cell dies. And voila—” I tapped the lines at the corners of my eyes. “—wrinkles and shit. Fruit and veg help lengthen them.”

Nick snorted. “Are you for real? What about the whole I-don’t-care-what-people-think bullshit?”

Heat crawled up my neck. “I think we already established that I was lying through my teeth about that. No one wants to be seen as shallow, right? Besides, I’m only pointing out the benefits of eating well if you want to slow the process.”

He grinned. “So, you’re saying I look old?”

“I—no,” I flustered. “That’s not what I meant. You’re the one who said there’s nothing wrong about caring how you look, and if you want to keep your good looks, you need to eat healthy.”

A sly smile slid over his face. “So, you’re saying I’m good-looking?”

I scowled. “Stop twisting my words.”

His expression sobered. “Is growing older something you think about a lot? Because I have to say it sounds exhausting.”

Maybe. “Of course not.” The lie earned me a knowing smirk and I groaned, “Okay, sometimes, yes. But it’s not about wanting to look younger, it’s about conserving what I have.”

Nick considered that. “You want to know what I think about when I look in the mirror?”

I did, more than he knew, and so I nodded.

Nick drove out a harsh sigh. “I think about Davis leaving that morning and not knowing how his life was about to change forever. Not knowing that he would never see me again, not in a way that really mattered. Not knowing that it was his last day of truly living.” Nick’s voice cracked and his expression crumbled. “Then again, the fucker was likely cheating on me, so what the hell would I know?” He gave a humourless laugh and reached for the plate of cookies, offering it to me. “Balance, right? I’m not saying I’m any better at it than you are, but isn’t getting older supposed to be about giving less fucks, not more?”

I stared at the remaining cookies then back at Nick. “Damn, you’re good.”

He grinned. “Right?”

I snatched a cookie from the plate and took a bite. It was delicious. “Go on then.” I pointed to the celery sticks with my half-eaten cookie. “Balance.”

Nick sighed and eyed the celery sticks with obvious distaste. “If I choke on one of these things and die, I’m blaming you.”

I grinned. “I’ll take that risk. Besides, you’ll be dead. What are you gonna do?”

“Haunt you.” Nick finished the celery stick wearing an expression that bordered on disgust. “Happy now?”

I nodded. “Delirious.”

He eyed me warily. “All bullshit aside, do you really think I’m reading too much into this?”

Did I? I thought about the question before answering, “Honestly, I don’t know. I get why you think he was having an affair, but it all feels too much. Davis could’ve seen someone without going through all this other rigmarole. I mean, who gets a new laptop under a new account just to keep an affair on the down-low? A new phone? Sure. But this kind of reads like one of Davis’s spy novels.”

Nick’s gaze drilled into mine. “You really think so?”

Not wanting to offer false hope, I said, “In truth, I don’t know, but like I said, the whole thing feels... off somehow.”

His eyebrows bunched. “Explain?”

I wriggled more upright. The move brought our knees together and that sizzling point of contact returned. Whether Nick realised or not, neither of us moved. “Well, for a start, I don’t buy this bullshit about two robberies in completely different locations being bad luck,” I told him. “No one is that unlucky, Nick. They have to be connected.”

His expression wavered just long enough for me to know the idea had occurred to him as well. “But if they’re connected, then it means someone followed me today, the same someone who broke into the townhouse. That’s a bit of a stretch, wouldn’t you say?”

I shrugged. “Any more than you thinking Davis was having an affair?”

Nick grimaced, that earlier bewilderment back in his eyes.

I rested my hand atop his. “I’m sorry. That was harsh. I agree the theory is a bit out there, but I think it’s worth considering, don’t you? And if you include the break-in after the accident, then that’s three, Nick. That can’t be coincidence.”

Nick’s gaze narrowed and I could see his mind working. “But that was so long ago.”

“I know,” I agreed. “But hear me out. Davis has an accident and your house gets broken into, right?”

Nick nodded.

I continued. “Then he dies and it happens again. And now, on the first day you visit his writing hideaway since the accident, you get mugged? Come on. Tell me that doesn’t sit uncomfortably for you, especially when the common denominator in all three is Davis.”

Nick sat there shaking his head. He opened his mouth like he was about to argue, then closed it again. Finally, he fell back against the cushions and closed his eyes.

“Nick?”

He raised a hand. “Just give me a minute.”

I reached for the jug of water to refill my glass, saw the driver’s licence and passport sitting alongside, and picked them up instead. The licence photo was unusually flattering, showing Davis to be a handsome man with dark eyes and a cheeky edge to his expression.

But when my gaze slid sideways to his details, my heart began to pump loudly in my chest. The name on the licence wasn’t Davis Minton. It was Miles Morrison. I removed the rubber band and opened the passport. Same photo. Same name.

“Nick.” I knocked my knee against his. “Nick, have you seen this?”

“Seen what?” he grumbled, opening his eyes.

I held out the passport and licence for him to see. “They’re not made out to Davis Minton.”

“What?” He jolted upright and snatched the documents from my hand. “What the fuck?” He looked up in confusion. “Who the hell is Miles Morrison?” He took another look. “And this isn’t Davis’s birthday either.” His gaze snapped up. “What the fuck is going on?”