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Was it weird that it hurt my feelings?
Very weird, said Inner Bitch.
Christy didn’t need my help, either. But she had the good sense to accept it anyway. I walked her inside with my arm around her shoulder.
“I don’t like that Jeremy’s going back up there all alone,” she said.
“He’s a police officer,” I replied, even though I was as uneasy as she was. Jere said he’d had an odd feeling when he’d driven up to Paul Quaid’s cabin earlier. He’d been compelled to go back. But Mason had to go to the morgue, where the autopsy on poor Eva Quaid was wrapping up. The ME had promised to wait for him to arrive, and to share her findings when he got there. Jen Scott had backed up my “consulting unofficially” line, and we were in.
“You don’t need to stay with me, you know,” Christy said. The door creaked when I pushed it open and we stepped into the foyer, then to the stairs. “This place is great.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I think you’d call it an English garden out back. There’s a hot tub with a view.”
She frowned, looking at Mason, then at me again. “This really was a romantic getaway, wasn’t it?”
“Until it became a family emergency,” Mason said. Then he met my eyes. “But frankly, kid, our whole lives are a romantic getaway.”
I gazed back at him and Christy rolled her eyes. Then Mason’s expression turned serious. “We have to call your sister, Rache. You know that, right?”
“Not yet,” Christy said. “We need to make sure Jere is okay. That’s our priority after finding Misty. Traumatizing my mother is way low on the list.”
As soon as she said it, my phone pinged. I glanced down at it, then smiled and turned it toward Christy.
Jeremy: Checking in. All good so far. Don’t let Christy send you after me. She’s the one in danger.
I raised my eyebrows and tilted my head, the universal body language for I told you so.
“Whatever.” She plodded up the stairs and waved a hand back at me. “I’m fine. I can use any bedroom, right?”
“Yeah, except the one Jere’s using. You’ll see his stuff.” I sighed and turned to go back to where Mason waited with a mug in his hand. I smelled chocolate.
He always knew what I needed and when I needed it. I’d never been able to read him the way I could read everyone else. But over time, it had started to feel like we were renting space in the same brain. I didn’t have to read him the way I read others. I just knew him.
And he knew me.
He said, “Would you have preferred vodka?”
“Nope. This is perfect. Besides, I locked it up soon after Jere got here.”
“I think he’s in control. I don’t think seeing it around the house would trigger a relapse.”
“Having it around the house while knowing he’s addicted to it would just feel callous to me,” I said.
“I thought so too. Went to move it, but you already had.”
“You’re too good to be real, you know that?” I cupped his face and leaned up to kiss him.
When our lips parted, he said, “So how’d it go at The Sapphire Club?”
“We made them remove the cover closing mechanism. Took it right off the wall.”
“Detective Scott let you do that?”
“She’s the one who ordered it. She took the thing with her for safekeeping. I mean, I’d have preferred to take a sledgehammer to it. Her way was less satisfying, but it didn’t result in jail time.”
“Always a plus,” he said. He turned me in his arms, and we walked toward the master suite with our cocoa, and our bulldog shuffling along beside us, following the scent of chocolate. “Surveillance show anything?”
“It was mysteriously turned off,” I said. Anger yanked on my neck muscles. I tilted my head left, then right trying to ease them. “Nobody saw anything. The owners are each other’s alibis, and I suppose Jeremy would’ve seen if any of them had left their private room to go upstairs. He said Jones ran up just ahead of him, and the other two were still in the VIP room.”
