Page 15 of What They'll Say About Us

As I got out of the cab and stood on the sidewalk in front of the building, I felt a wave of nerves. I hadn't seen Liam in nine years, and things had ended badly between us. I didn't know how he would react to seeing me now. He might not care at all. It had been a very long time. He could be with someone else. He could be engaged or married. I had purposefully never looked him up.

As I stalled, my phone buzzed. "Cassidy," I said, happy I could buy a little more time before I had to go in the bar. "What's up?"

"You're on speaker with me and Morgan. Ray threw us out of his office," she said. "As in, he got a security guard and forced us to leave the building. He said he was going to take out a restraining order against all three of us, and that if we continued to look into his sister's death, we were going to find ourselves in a lot of trouble."

"He was even angrier than he was this morning," Morgan put in. "I don't know what his problem is, but he definitely does not want us investigating Paige's death."

"Maybe I need to talk to Alina again to find out why Ray is so outrageously angry about it," I said. "He could have just told you he had nothing to say without getting so dramatic."

"He was amped up the second we walked in the door," Morgan added. "We didn't have to say more than hello to get him to explode."

"Maybe he had something to do with Paige's death," Cassidy interjected.

"His actions are strange, but I can't imagine why Ray would have wanted to kill Paige. She always looked out for him. She was a good big sister."

"Maybe he was doing something she didn't like," Cassidy suggested. "And he didn't want her to tell anyone."

I understood why she'd make that point, but it didn't add up. "It doesn't feel like that's what was going on, but it's a theory we should explore."

"I agree," Morgan said. "I'm going to see if I can find any of Ray's friends who are still in the area and were at Northwestern with him. What did you find out?"

"Detective Colton Barclay was not very helpful. He said he trusted Detective Cabot to have run a thorough investigation. Unless I have a new clue or new evidence, he's not going to reopen the case. I did ask him to send me the files. He said he would, but then he got a call, so I don't know if he forgot about me as soon as I left the office, but hopefully not. I just got to Liam's bar. I'm about to go inside now. I'll text you when I'm done."

As they hung up, I slipped my phone into my bag and then headed into the bar. I didn't know how Liam would react when he saw me, but I had no intention of showing my nerves. My life was going pretty well right now. And I looked damn good, too, thanks to my addiction to Pilates and walking the streets of New York instead of taking the subway or a cab. If I had to see my ex, at least I could show him that my life had turned out good even without him in it.

With that mental pep talk behind me, I stepped inside, taking a moment to look around. The bar ran the length of one exposed-brick wall, all dark wood and brass rails polished to a shine that said Liam still cared about details, and beyond the scatter of small round tables, a low stage waited at the far end under a single ghost light. The floors were old wood, scarred and honey-colored, the kind that had been something else in a former life. Vintage concert posters lined the brick in plain black frames: Buddy Guy at the Checkerboard, Muddy Waters, and a faded Aragon Ballroom bill. The interior was warm, somewhat masculine, and musically oriented. It felt like the Liam I used to know.

I started when I saw him come out of a back room and into the bar area, and I couldn't stop my heart from skipping a beat. I'd forgotten how attractive he was with his wavy brown hair and sharp brown eyes. He'd filled out since our college days, but he was fit, with broad shoulders enhanced by a T-shirt, and long, lean legs encased in comfortable jeans.

A flood of memories rushed through my head, leaving me shaken and off-balance. Liam had been my first serious relationship. I'd had boyfriends before, but no one with whom I'd felt such deep, sometimes scary emotions. I'd never been comfortable with that depth of feeling. I'd always been afraid of it. I'd always expected it to end. And I hadn't been wrong. It had ended. Maybe because in some way that had made leaving him so much easier.

I didn't know how long I stood there staring at him, but suddenly he turned, as if sensing my gaze, and when our eyes met, I could see the flash of recognition, even with ten feet between us. For a few seconds, we just looked at each other. And then two women crossed between our line of sight, breaking the odd spell between us.

I needed to talk to him, but I also felt like I needed a moment, so I sat down at the nearest empty table and drew in a deep breath.

A moment later, he pulled out the chair across from me and sat down. He was so close…too close.

"What the hell are you doing here, Tessa?"

It wasn't the warmest of greetings, and somehow that made it a little easier.

"I need to talk to you."

"I can't believe you came back to Chicago."

"I had a conference here."

"Yeah, I heard. You're a podcaster now. I'm not surprised. You've always liked to talk and to entertain. But that doesn't answer my question. Why are you here, in my bar?"

"My podcast covers true crime stories. Alina MacIntyre, Paige's sister, came to see me yesterday. She asked me to put her sister's case on our podcast. We're officially looking into Paige's death. Alina doesn't believe it was an accident. I need to find out if she's right or wrong."

Liam stared back at me, his gaze completely unreadable, reminding me of how I'd felt in those last weeks of our relationship when I'd gone from feeling like we were completely in sync to feeling like we were strangers who had never slept together, never been intimate. It was so strange. I'd never understood what had happened.

"That's a mistake," he said. "Paige's death was an accident. Why dredge it all up now? You can't bring her back."

"Alina wants justice, and the more I've thought about it, the more I've wondered if it really was an accident, or if we all just wanted to believe that because it wasn't as terrifying as thinking someone killed her."

"If there had been evidence of murder, the police would have found it."