Exhaustion can do strange things to you.
“We need to talk,” I announce. My throat goes instantly dry and my heart starts to pound. Walt is right in that I need to tell David about the baby and somehow slow down this lunge toward disaster that our relationship appears to be caught up in. We’re here and I’ve had some decent sleep. This is as good a time as any.
David waits until the final drops of coffee have plopped into his mug from the machine, picks it up, and swallows a mouthful, then flinches from the burn. “I have my own ideas about that, but what is it you think we have to talk about, Liv?”
“All we do lately is argue,” I say, weary of this battle. He clearly went to bed angry with me and now he’s awakened still irritated. How are we supposed to get past this unhappy place if he’s unwilling to move beyond it? I really have no idea how to begin.
He props a pajama-clad hip against the counter. “I suppose that’s my fault, too.”
Perfect example of why we can’t get past this rut. “I apologized to your mother.”
He sips his coffee, nods. “She told me. I appreciate that you made the effort.”
“So you’re still angry with me about missing dinner, even though I’ve apologized repeatedly.”
“No, Olivia. I’m frustrated because you’re never home for dinner anymore. For anything, really. It’s like you don’t want to be here.”
I can’t tell him that he might be more right than he knows. “It’s this case.” I shake my head. “It’s different ...”Horrifying,I don’t say.
“So you were working last night?” He looks directly at me as he asks this question. The accusation is stark in his beautiful eyes.
“Yes. You know this without asking.” I hold my own mug of coffee so tightly, I fear it may crack at any second. “When I came home, you were already in bed.”
“You were at the farm.”
For a moment I’m rattled that he somehow knows this when we haven’t talked about exactly where I was. What the hell? “First, what difference does that make, and second, how can you know this? Do you have some sort of tracker on my phone?”
“First,” he echoes, an edge in his tone, “you just said you were working, which was apparently not entirely true. Second, your iPad dinged with a notification that the security system at the farm had been disarmed. Is there anyone else who would be there?”
Okay. He has me there. I hesitate for a moment. Do I want to tell him about what I found? If I don’t, he’s never going to trust me, but to tell him feels like a betrayal of my father.
Stop, Liv. This is the man to whom you’ve said yes to spending the rest of your life. This is the father of the child you’re carrying. Why the hesitation?
“I found some notes my father made regarding a victim in the Fanning case—the one I’m working on. I’m sure there’s a perfectly logical reason for him being involved in any way, but I have to know what that reason was.”
“So your father is a person of interest in your investigation now?”
I think about that for a moment. It was a smart-ass remark, but a valid point. “In a manner of speaking. We haven’t found anything that concretely ties him to the case, but we have to look into whatever part he played.”
“‘We’ meaning you and Walt?”
The sarcasm in his tone leaves me both baffled and angry. “He is my partner. How many times do I have to point out that fact?”
“So you and Walt were at the farm, together.”
Somehow he makes the detail sound lascivious. “When I found the notes, I called him immediately. Making a judgment one way or the other about something my father did or didn’t do in this situation would be the wrong thing to do. I’m personally involved, my objectivity is compromised.”
“Aren’t you and Walt personally involved?”
“What?” Obviously David really is only interested in fighting. “We’re partners.”
“And friends. Good friends. Isn’t that personal?”
I slam my mug down on the counter. Coffee splatters. “I don’t even know why I try. You want to fight. You don’t want to understand what’s happening with me right now.”
He walks slowly toward me. Any other time I would have considered this sexy, but right now I just want to run away from the frustration and uncertainties. But I can’t. I owe it to him—to our child—to figure this out. What in the world is happening between the two of us?
“Why didn’t you let me know? Text? Call? Something?”
