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We made small talk for a few minutes. I’d met Daniel and Marina before, a few times actually, but it had been a while. And Daniel seemed to be in especially good spirits, digging into the alcohol before we’d finished discussing the latest sports scores.
“Hennessey, Carson?” Daniel called, rolling up his sleeves to root around beneath the makeshift bar that had been set up by the catering staff. “Since your bartender hasn’t arrived yet…”
“Bartender? What bartender?” Fuck, I’d forgotten to request one of those.
“I can play bartender for a night,” Jack said, always helpful. Maybe too helpful.
“I know we have Hennessey,” I said, sidestepping my best friend—or possibly ex-best friend, depending on tonight’s outcome—to join Daniel at the bar. Together, we bent to study the selection. I was reaching for a bottle in back when my arm bumped his and he grimaced and pulled away. “Sorry, man.” Jesus, did he think I wanted to put the moves on him or something? He’d yanked his arm back as if I’d burned him.
Then I saw the bandage and I reared up fast enough that I slammed my head on the lip of the bar.
That whole seeing stars thing from violent cranial trauma? Turns out it really happens. The things you discover.
I swore and backed up, squinting through the constellations in my vision at Daniel’s arm. But he was already tugging down his sleeves and moving away, saying something about sticking to whiskey for the night.
Christ, was I imagining threats lurked everywhere, or was I really surrounded by Benedict Arnolds in Giorgio Armani?
I headed to the bathroom to root through the medicine cabinet to look for painkillers. Just what I needed tonight—a killer headache before the damn thing even officially started.
Jack appeared in the doorway before I’d even dry-swallowed the pills. “We need to talk.”
“No shit, Sherlock.” Pain was making me even testier than usual.
“Why have you been shutting me out all week? Is it because you’re shacking up with Grace?”
“What the hell does that have to do with anything?” I slammed the pill bottle down and realized belatedly that I’d picked an odd part of the argument to leap on.
Where was my indignation that he thought I was living with Grace?
Strangely, there wasn’t any. Because we were living together. It wasn’t permanent by any stretch, but for this moment…
“What is your game with her?”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me. I want to know what your end game is regarding Grace. And don’t try to bullshit me or I’ll knock you in that dome of yours again.”
“I don’t have a game, and I don’t like what you’re insinuating. Besides, what business is it of yours?” I turned and a week’s worth of anger and questions and frustration poured out in a tangled rush. “Disappointed you didn’t get there first?”
His cocky smile was absolutely the last thing I wanted to see. “Who’s to say I didn’t?”
I hadn’t taken a swing at a man in close to a decade. I’d once made my way with my fists, but that was a long time ago and I was rusty. But apparently I wasn’t too rusty to lay out my best friend with one hard uppercut to the jaw.
He stumbled into the wall, cupping his chin with something akin to shock filling his gaze. “Holy shit, you just nailed me.”
“Bet your fucking ass.” I shook out my sore fist and decided I’d need to look for the iodine too. “I shot a man last week, Hollister, so believe me, a punch is nothing. Remember that if you decide to run your mouth again.”
“It isn’t true.” He rubbed his jaw, then slowly shook his head as if it to clear it. “I haven’t been with Grace, before, during or after. Do you think I’m insane? I saw how you looked at her from the minute you walked in the office. Why do you think I’ve been looking out for her? I knew you’d bungle it and not do your job, so someone had to.”
“What are you talking about?”
“It didn’t take a genius to figure out you were sleeping together. There were rumors in the office anyway, and someone saw you coming out of the bathroom at almost the same time, looking like, well…like you hadn’t been fighting over the last roll, we’ll say.”
I didn’t want to take apart everything he was saying. Not now. “What do you mean you’ve been looking after her?”
“Being a friend to her—which wasn’t a hardship, by the way, because she’s awesome—and you know, going out to the house to make sure everything was okay. I should’ve confronted her about doing something like that, but to be honest, I didn’t know how. I figured she’d come clean to you eventually and you’d work it out between you. In the meantime, I kept watch.” He let out a long breath. “I never would’ve guessed something like last weekend could happened. Since when does Marblehead have crime? And it wasn’t like she wasn’t set up okay. The power thing was a problem, but her studio was pretty cozy all in all. I did a walk-through and—”
My head was on the verge of exploding, between the information deluge and my headache. “Back up. You knew she was staying illegally at the house. How?”
