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London had never felt quite so far away before. Zach had spent plenty of time in the city. He liked it. He always had. Well, every time he’d been here before now. And, staring at his computer screen where he could just make out some of the gardens back home behind Mina and Faith who were sitting in Faith’s kitchen with the French doors open, he’d never wished quite so badly for a teleport. The sky he could see above his sisters’ heads was brilliant blue, not gray like London had been almost the entire time since he’d arrived. Not that he’d seen much sunlight with all the time he’d been spending in the studio.
He’d thought the drizzling rain and clouds had suited his mood, but seeing the sun only brought home everything he was missing so badly.
But he was here now. He’d made his choice. He had to live with it. The work he was doing with Davis was great. The part of him that was the music knew that. That it was good. Even if the rest of him couldn’t feel it yet.
It would come. It was what he kept telling himself. He’d feel it. Feel satisfied. Feel happy. When he wasn’t so tired. He just had to get past this stupid stage where everything just felt … empty. And learn to sleep again. He’d been here for ten days. Too long to keep blaming jet lag. He’d never really suffered too much from that. And jet lag didn’t come with endless memories of Leah running through his head or the creeping knowledge that maybe the cost of his choice was too high. Or the constant battle to not pick up his phone and check if she had called him. But he didn’t want Faith and Mina seeing any of that so he summoned a smile for his sisters and saluted them with his coffee mug.
“Shouldn’t you be drinking tea?” Faith said, smiling.
“I haven’t been gone that long,” he said. “They haven’t converted me yet.” Her smile flickered briefly but he didn’t let her see that he’d noticed. “I’ll stick to coffee.”
Plenty of triple shot espresso was about the only thing getting him through each endless day. Davis didn’t believe in wasting time. They’d broken for dinner just now but they’d be starting up again in an hour. But he hadn’t been hungry, so he’d decided to reply to the message Faith had sent the night before.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“Maybe we’re just checking up on you,” Mina said. She leaned closer, as though she was studying his image. He hoped Faith’s screen needed cleaning. He hadn’t shaved since he got here and between that and the long days and lack of sleep, he wasn’t going to be winning any beauty contests any time soon.
“I’m fine,” he said. “But checking up on me doesn’t take both of you.” He shifted in his seat. His sisters had been checking in with him—separately—just about every day since he’d arrived in England. So far neither of them had raised the subject of Leah. He hoped today wasn’t the day when they’d finally decided to tag team him on the subject of his spectacular fail in that department. He didn’t need to be told.
“How’s it going over there?” Faith asked after a few seconds.
Small talk. Not exactly what he’d expected from her message. Was she stalling? What was going on? “It’s good,” he said. “Davis is brilliant. How’s it going there?” CloudFest started in three days. But Faith looked surprisingly calm. Of course, this year, she hadn’t had to deal with things like him pulling out at the last minute. And she had Caleb now. Someone she could rely on. Someone who loved her and would be there for her.
“We’re good,” Faith said. Then she shook her head slightly. “So. We heard from the lawyers again. About Ree Vacek.”
He’d forgotten all about Grey’s mystery payment. He had enough on his plate without trying to figure out the weirdness that was his dad’s legacy. “They found her?”
Mina nodded, eyes serious. “Yes. Turns out she still lives in Illinois.”
“And?” They wouldn’t have called him if that was all the news they had. Not unless they really were just checking up on him.
Faith’s expression turned frustrated. “And she declined to tell us anything about the money.”
Well, shit. He hadn’t spent much time thinking about what might happen if they found Grey’s mystery woman. But the vague thoughts he’d had definitely hadn’t included her not wanting to play ball. “She declined?”
“According to the lawyers she said it wasn’t anybody’s business,” Faith said.
Maybe he should have been relieved. But he wasn’t. Because “none of your business” didn’t sound to him like the answer of someone who had nothing to hide. “Did they find out anything about her?”
Faith shook her head. “Not a lot. She works for a realtor. Her husband’s a lawyer. They’ve been married over thirty years. Two kids.”
In other words, not the sort of woman who sounded like she’d had a wild fling with a rock star. “Can we find out more?”
Mina shrugged, leaned a little closer to the screen. “They found the kids’ birth certificates. The husband is listed as the father on both. The oldest one—a girl—was born seven and half months after they were married but they wouldn’t be the first couple to have that happen. All very normal and boring.”
“Except for the half a million dollars Grey paid her,” he said. “There’s got to be something more there.”
“I agree,” Faith said. “But we can’t make her tell us. We’re not the mob. She hasn’t done anything wrong. There’s no proof she extorted the money or did anything else to Dad to get it. She’s certainly not threatened to reveal anything or ever asked for anything more since. I don’t like it any more than you do, but I’m not sure there’s anything we can do about it without straying into an area that’s all kinds of gray.”
Zach winced. All kinds of gray. When it came to understanding Grey—and untangling whatever this was that he’d left behind—that was far too appropriate. Faith’s point was reasonable, but looking at her—and at Mina who was more obviously not happy—he didn’t think she was as calm about the news as she was making out. “What are we talking about? If we wanted to find out, I mean.”
“More digging. Private investigators. That kind of thing. I’m not sure I want to go there,” Faith said.
Beside her, Mina nodded, though her mouth was flat. “If there’s a secret, it’s her secret. Dad didn’t tell us before he died. So maybe he thought it was her secret too.”
And trying to find out what that secret was had the potential to hurt Ree Vacek, whoever she was, and her family. Grey had hurt people his entire life. Zach wasn’t proud of himself that he’d just added to that legacy by hurting Leah. So maybe it was time for the Harpers to turn over a new leaf. “Okay. If that’s what you both think, then I agree. If there’s something there, we’ll find out eventually. Or we won’t. Let’s leave it alone.” As he said the words, he knew it was the right thing to do. The first thing that had made him feel something approaching happy since he’d left Lansing.
The near identical smiles of approval Faith and Mina shot at him only cemented the feeling.
