Page 22 of Love At Peace

While I wanted to be happy that she’d finally give a clue that could explain or justify her behavior, I hated that it would happen like this.

I didn’t wish for her to be forced to speak up.

I’d rather her want to tell me. To speak up out of her own will and not because it could make a difference in a case of violence against someone else.

Still, I lacked her confidence. Until she would willingly look at me, and confide in me because she wanted to be with me for something more than a few quick fucks, I would always feel like she was keeping me away. That she’d never lower that last wall guarding her heart.

“Do you need to talk about him, now, though?” She cringed as she looked up. “I...” She looked away, sighing and hugging herself again. “I want to check on Eric and make sure he’ll be all right.”

“We’ll take you,” I said, stepping closer so she would have to acknowledge my presence even through her peripheral vision. Gavin nodded, readily in agreement and prepared to help as always.

“I know you’re concerned about Eric,” Marty told her. “And I would like to follow up on him as well. As soon as possible.” His phone rang, though, and he sighed as he looked at the screen, then declined the call. “I’ll also need to speak with Jerry and try to get a location on where David is now. No matter which way we look at this, Eric had to have fallen down here from one of those landings. If he came from that one”—he pointed at the landing where the two apartment doors were—“the one recently occupied by David is something we can’t ignore.”

“Then can we wait until I check on Eric?” she asked with a wince.

“Maybe we can talk on the drive there,” Marty suggested. “We can—”

Someone rushed up close, stomping down the first couple of stairs. Nevaeh scowled down at us, as though we were holding a loud party and bothering where.

Where the hell did you come from?

Gavin grabbed my sleeve, as if he had to give me a physical cue to notice she was there.

After all those hours of looking for her and all that time we’d spent searching for her... Here she was.

“Nevaeh?” I furrowed my brow. “What...”

“What is going on?” She clambered down the steps, scowling and looking at each of us as we stood in the way leading to the opposite stairs to that landing.

“Excuse me,” Marty said as she plowed in the middle of this basement area where Eric had lain. “We’re—”

“I asked what the hell you’re doing?” She crossed her arms and glared at us all.

I stepped forward. How dare she talk to a cop like that? How dare she burst in here and act like we were wronging her? “That’s something you can answer.”

She rolled her eyes at me, huffing as she tipped her chin up.

“We found someone lying on the ground down here,” Marty said, holding up a hand to stop me from advancing any further. My blood boiled as I watched my sassy brat of a niece, but I didn’t barge past my friend. He was the law and order around here.

Nevaeh huffed again. “So?”

“Dammit, Nevaeh. When did you become such a coldhearted brat?” I spat.

“Brat? You’re calling me a brat?” She jabbed a finger at her chest. “I’m an adult.”

“Then stop acting like a childish brat,” I replied.

She sneered, leaning to shout at me around Marty. “I’m not acting like—”

“Hold on. Hold on,” Gavin said, always the mediator.

“I don’t care what’s happening out here,” she said hotly. “Or if Eric was here at all. And that doesn’t make me a brat.”

“So you were listening to us?” Marty guessed unnecessarily.

She recrossed her arms. “So what if I was? I live here.”

My jaw dropped. “You live here? With what rent money?”