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“I heard basically that same information echoed several times tonight.” He was frowning, looking around, his gaze landing on the cabinet where she’d replaced the fishing tackle boxes.
And she was mentally swept back to the day before. On the floor. Moving her lips against his. Needing him. Wanting so much more. Wanting the touch of his hands.
Wanting to know where the kiss would lead, if culmination would be even half as good as that kiss had felt...
Shaking her head against the assault, she forced her focus back to his last words. He’d heard “basically” the same information.
Which implied that some information had been a little different.
“What else did you hear?” she asked him.
“Enough to know that my instincts are probably right on this one. My gut has been telling me all along that this is mistress related.”
“So why kill him? Why does she want me dead? And what would she want here?”
His glance was direct. Personal. “Once I have those answers, this will be over.”
She didn’t want this over.
The thought ran contrary to everything she knew. Of course, she wanted it over. She wanted to be free. To live without constant fear. To have her life back. To start her new future.
She just wasn’t ready for her time with Clarke to end.
He’d lit a spark within her that she hadn’t known was there. Made her feel things she truly hadn’t thought possible. She’d been telling the complete truth when she’d described her feelings to Larissa earlier.
She had to know more about how Clarke’s kiss had made her feel.
Didn’t want to go forward until she knew where it led. Physically. Because other than that, she already knew it led nowhere. And had no intention of heading back into nowhe
re ever again.
Besides, if she couldn’t trust herself to know whom she could put her faith in, any kind of a relationship beyond the physical was pretty much moot.
Didn’t really matter, in any case. It wasn’t like she’d go have sex just to see if it was as great as she’d thought it might be. To find out if she’d been missing out. If her lack of fire with Fritz hadn’t been because of that floundering relationship.
Some women liked having flings. She wasn’t one of them. Not even with a man like Clarke Colton, who seemed only too willing to just have fun with a woman.
* * *
Everleigh went upstairs the second they got home, not even stopping to hang her coat on the rack by the front door.
Figuring her choice to distance herself was for the best, considering that he’d spent the majority of the past several hours pretending to be in serious like with her, he dropped his coat on its normal hook, grabbed his little notebook out of the pocket and went straight to his office.
He’d never gotten around to making notes for himself that evening, but the night wasn’t done, and neither was he.
At his desk, the first thing he did was write down the three names he’d been given that evening—all women that were known to have had sexual relationships with Everleigh’s husband. It wasn’t the first infidelity case he’d ever worked. Not by a long shot. As a PI, those jobs were about as common as butter on bread, but this one... It was kicking his gut.
That someone as kind and loyal as Everleigh had been treated so badly, so disrespectfully...
Watching her that night, he’d gained a whole new level of respect for her. He knew she was hurting still, and yet...there she’d been, for hours, smiling, being gracious, accepting congratulations without bitterness...all to fight for her grandmother’s cause. Asking others to write to Hannah McPherson, to keep her spirits up, to visit her, he understood. But writing to the GGPD... All it was going to do was cause a mail-room clerk to process useless paperwork. Even if they wrote to the DA, the law was the law. People couldn’t just let someone go because she was sweet and old and had committed a crime for a good cause. Law enforcement couldn’t let someone off the hook because they were well liked.
Taking a chance that Ellie would be at her computer, even after ten on a Friday night, he texted the GGPD tech guru and wasn’t surprised to get a response within seconds. Ellie worked more overtime than Clarke did, rarely seeing her boyfriend. It worked for the couple, though, since Mick Hanes worked ungodly hours, as well.
Clarke sent Ellie the three names he’d collected that evening, asking Ellie to work her magic and vet all three women, getting back to him as quickly as she could. Within half an hour she’d responded. Two of the women, including Annabelle Belinski, didn’t show up anywhere but normal information databases.
The third—Brenda Nolton, a local woman—had a record for fraud.
Finally, he had something to go on, something that made sense—someone with a criminal record. A woman wanted for fraud could have easily been involved with a cheating, in-love-with-himself, thirtysomething fitness guru, and it would make sense that she’d involved him in some scheme or vice versa. The venture might have gone wrong and she could have come after him. When he’d refused to make things right, what if she’d killed him? In rage or to get rid of him—either way, it made sense. And now maybe Brenda was after whatever she needed to get herself right with the venture gone wrong.
