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"Then he could have been bribing Eddie Foreman," Nik guessed.
"Which gives Maddix Nelson a perfect motive for murder," she concluded sweetly.
Nik grimaced. He couldn't argue the point; if he didn't know Maddix, he would be at the top of Nik's suspect list. Hell, if he didn't know Maddix, then he would have been investigating everyone supposedly at that meeting.
When had he begun allowing personal associations to interfere with his job? Nik asked himself as he made a mental note to put Kira and Bailey on the chief of police and two council members. As Mikayla stated, Maddix had the perfect motive and his friends had some damned good reasons to lie for him. They were in bed with him where business was concerned, and that often made for damned fine alibis.
"If Maddix killed Eddie Foreman, then the best way to prove it is to follow the 151
evidence trail," Nik told Mikayla. "It will lead us where we need to go. We'll talk to Holbrook, see what happens there; then I want to check Jarvis Dalton's alibi. He was lying; I'm just not sure what he was lying about."
"I don't think Jarvis is smart enough to pull off a murder, even one that simple." She shook her head before turning hurt eyes on Nik. "But Nik, I saw what happened. I saw Eddie die. I saw who killed him. Why can't you believe me?"
"It's not a matter of belief, Mikayla," he breathed out heavily. "It's a matter of evidence. But you're right: Maddix may have a hell of a motive. One thing is for damned sure. If he did it, I'll find out. And I'll make sure he pays for it."
"How could he not have done it?"
Nik shook his head. "Trust me, amazing things can be done with makeup and latex now. I know. Everyone knew you were coming to pick up Scotty. Anyone could have been waiting for an opportunity to kill Eddie and place the blame on Maddix." He held his hand up. "I'm not saying they did. I'm saying it's possible. I'll have Maddix checked out deeper, as well as his friends and neighbors. I won't overlook him. I'm following rumor and evidence at this point, which has to be done no matter who killed him."
"There were no attempts to kill me when no one believed me," she stated soberly.
"The first attempt came after you began investigating me." He nodded. He knew that, and it enraged him. The thought of one of those bullets actually striking her fragile body was enough to send terror racing through him. The world couldn't bear to lose Mikayla, he thought. Too many fairies had already been destroyed.
Hell, he couldn't keep thinking this way. She wasn't a fucking fairy; she was a tiny, independent, too-trusting woman, not some mythological creature of innocence. That's what his head said; other parts of him, such as his heart, his soul, were saying something entirely different. Mikayla was the epitome of everything a woman shouldn't be in this day and age. Innocent, sweet, trusting, caring. Her very nature was going to end up getting her destroyed, and he was terrified there wasn't a damned thing he could do to stop it.
"Nik?" she interrupted his musings softly. "You didn't answer me. Why else would anyone try to kill me if it isn't Maddix?"
"Why would Maddix hire me if he didn't want the truth learned?" Nik countered.
"I can't overlook that one, Mikayla. Maddix knows what I am, what I'm capable of, and he knows if he killed Eddie, then I'll find out. And he'll suffer." It was a warning he'd already given the other man. It was a warning he would follow through with.
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Chapter 16
Reed Holbrook refused to see them and Jarvis Dalton's alibi was a lie. Mikayla watched Nik as the day progressed into evening and they returned to the house. Not long after Bailey and Kira arrived for measurements and the final decisions on the dresses they wanted. This only delayed Mikayla's chance to figure out his attitude. He was stone cold. So cold, so icy, that the chill enveloped her and left her wishing she'd worn a jacket, despite the summer air.
From the moment he had made his statement concerning Maddix Nelson, Nik had only grown colder. She was walking in her home with Frosty the frickin' Snowman. She stood in the foyer after his friends left, watching him silently as he watched her from the kitchen. She was tired. The drive to and from D.C. had been filled with enough tension to thicken the air and make breathing seem like work. Bailey and Kira's concerned curiosity while they were here hadn't helped matters in the least. The colder Nik became, the more it hurt. He was blocking her out, distancing himself from her. It felt like a breakup, except she'd given Nik far more than she had ever given another man. And it wasn't a breakup, because he was still here, tormenting her with his presence and the remembered feel of his hands against her flesh. The warmth of his body shielding her own.
What happened? The need to ask, to demand an explanation, was on the tip of her tongue, but the words wouldn't fall from her lips.
He was, at this moment, completely unapproachable.
"I'm going to shower."
She had to get away from him before she made a fool of herself. Before she demanded answers she had no right to demand. Before she cried, where she had no right to cry.
She had walked into this with her eyes wide open. He had warned her he couldn't love her, and she had promised herself she wouldn't love him. As the hot water from the shower washed over her body, she reminded herself of that promise. She wasn't in love with him, she told herself. But if she wasn't in love, then why the hell did it hurt so bad? Why did her chest feel tight, her body heavy from the ache inside?
She leaned her head against the wall of the shower and fought back the tears. Two nights he'd spent apart from her, and she missed him to the point that sleep had been almost impossible the night before. She could feel another such night coming on. She'd never imagined it could be so easy to get used to a man sleeping in the bed with her. She'd slept alone all her life. But sleeping with Nik had seemed as natural as breathing. And she missed him.
Sniffing back the tears that would have fallen, Mikayla finished her shower, dried her body and her hair before dressing in summer cotton lounging pants and a loose, sleeveless T-shirt.
Moving into the kitchen, she paused at the doorway, watching as Nik pulled out 153
the casserole she'd put in the oven that morning and set the oven's timer back on. It was still warm; the cheese, hamburger, and macaroni casserole scented the air and reminded Mikayla that they had eaten very little that day. Within minutes they were sitting apart from each other, still silent, as they ate. The tension was only growing between them. It wasn't an angry tension, but one thick enough to cut with a knife. Secrets shrouded it; silence intensified it. It was a silence that wore on Mikayla's nerves and left her struggling to hold back the resentment she could feel growing inside her.
"What do we do next?" she finally asked as he sat back from his meal and appeared ready to leave the table.
