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“As well as one can know Ahnah. She’s private. Loves to paint with watercolors. She made me that.” She pointed to a painting of a sunset over the water.
“It’s very nice.” Ahnah had loved to color as a child, and Ty had shown her how to do what he’d called doodling. He was pretty good with a pencil and a blank canvas. He’d taught her how to make flowers. They were pretty easy. A circle for the middle, then loops all around. Guess she’d kept up with the hobby.
“Bexley is straight back on the right. I’ll let her know a federal agent is here.”
“Thank you.” He trudged down the hall, his feet heavy and stalling out on him. Standing in front of her door, he debated texting Violet to switch places with him. He could recuse himself for being close to the case, but that was the coward’s way out, and Ty wasn’t yellow. He raised his fist to knock when the door opened, his hand in midair.
Ty lost his faculties. His breath.
Dark eyes met his. Her long curly black hair was still thick, massive and uncontrollable.
“Tiberius,” Bexley breathed, wide-eyed. Her cheeks paled, and she blinked a few times as if she wasn’t sure that what stood before her was actual flesh and blood.
His name on her lips retrieved a tsunami of good memories. Hopes and dreams and promises of a future with one another, which included a big family and no one ordering them around or deciding their futures without their consent.
Little lines had sprouted around her eyes and she was curvier than at seventeen, but he couldn’t deny she was still beautiful with eyes a little too big for her face, overshadowing her pert nose and thin lips.
He had to speak. Form a word. Anything.
“Hey Bex.”
Bexley Hemmingway stood frozen. Seeing Tiberius in person was the moment she’d dreamed about and dreaded. She stood dumbfounded for what seemed forever, then her brain finally kicked in, and the biggest fear concerning Tiberius being here became a reality.
“Ahnah.” He was here about her sister. Had they found her? Was she alive? Bexley had been going out of her mind for a week.
“She hasn’t been found yet.” He held up his credentials and spoke with cool professionalism, but his green eyes were windows into his soul, and he was uncomfortable and confused with every right to be. She’d disappeared as dead and never once contacted him, and then there was the awkwardness of the fact she’d been forced to marry his father.
She had her reasons even if over the years she’d warred with them. Had she made the right call, or was forging ahead without him the biggest mistake she’d ever made? She wasn’t sure. “I’ve seen you on TV before—a few years back. Press conference.” She didn’t bring up she’d seen a viral video of him in regards to a killer they didn’t catch in Virginia. No point kicking him while he was down, and seeing her would be a big low spot for him.
His gaze was searching, angry and heartbreaking, but she couldn’t look away. Bexley had to own up to her choices—all of them. And she didn’t want to look away from him. He’d always been a handsome boy, but now he was a striking man. Muscular, his face chiseled and strong with a lawn of scruff shading his lower face. A possibly defiant act, if even subconscious. Men in the Family of Glory were to be clean-shaven at all times. This look fit Tiberius in his well-tailored suit and shiny red tie, and it clued her in to the fact he’d probably not gone back to the Family had the Prophet been forgiving. Sometimes he was when it came to Tiberius. Ty had always been his father’s favorite.
If he was here to investigate, that meant he’d be on the island and in her business for more than a few moments. Days maybe. Weeks even. “How long will you be here?”
“Am I bothering you? Am I an inconvenience?”
No and yes. “Of course not. I... I didn’t realize the FBI would be involved and especially not the SCU.”
“I’m not at liberty to discuss intimate details of the case. I’m here to talk about Ahnah. Can I come in?”
Bexley was all but barricading her office. “I’m sorry.” She swung her arm and motioned him inside. “Yes, of course. I don’t have a client for another fifteen minutes.”
He sidestepped her, and she caught a whiff of understated cologne and body wash. She stood at the threshold while he nonchalantly perused her office, but she knew him well. He was going far deeper than the casual observer. Tiberius had a keen eye for detail. She’d always admired that in his drawings. She’d saved every single one he’d given her. Some things couldn’t be tossed out and forgotten. Couldn’t be left behind.
Pointing to a blue club chair, she asked him to have a seat. Then she sat behind her modest oak desk. Sea colors were her favorite, and she’d set up her office in coastal shades that evoked a sense of peace and tranquility. But not even the soft robin’s-egg-blue walls could calm her nerves now. To hide her trembling hands, she balled them into fists and tucked them into her lap under the desk.
Tiberius lowered his frame into the chair, his jaw ticking. He removed a notepad and pen from his inner suit coat pocket and laid the notebook on his lap; he clicked the pen, retracting the point several times.
“I have no idea where to start.” Did he want to talk about Ahnah? The fact that Bexley and she were alive? How far back would he go, and how much would she tell him? She owed him one hundred percent of the story from that night he was disfellowshipped to today, but she wasn’t sure she could trust him with the whole truth. She’d need more facts about his life and where he stood regarding the Family before she loosened her lips too much. Just him being here, knowing she was still alive, could put her in danger.
His jaw pulsed again. “Well, we can start with the fact you’re a liar.”
She wasn’t expecting the barbs so quickly. But that was Tiberius. Flying off the handle before collecting facts. No wonder he had a viral video out there about a serial killer. “I see you’re still quick to jump to conclusions and impulsivity.”
He slung his hand in the air toward her. “I see you still can’t do anything with your hair.”
Her...hair? She lightly touched it and then laughed through her nose. No filter. How did he even do this job? It required patience and waiting and a whole lot of filter.
Ty waved off his remark. “Sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
