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“Piss-poor?” Rune pushed himself away from lounging against the tree, his eyebrows drawing together. “It was never my idea to leave the box idle in Gruggin’s hands.”
“You know why we did. And why we need it back now.”
“Aye, I do. But just because you mucked it up with the chit’s brother doesn’t mean you get to set your ire on me instead of yourself.”
“All my ire is directed at myself where Gruggin is concerned. My ire at you is how you left her townhouse.”
“How I left the place?” Rune’s head tilted to the side. “You know better than anyone how discreet I am.”
“Discreet?” Wes scoffed. “You call what you did to her townhouse discreet? There wasn’t a tuft of stuffing left in place, not a fabric left unshredded, not one book on a shelf, not a piece of furniture uncracked. It looks like a typhoon set through the place.”
“It—what?” Rune’s eyebrows snapped together. “The place was torn apart?”
“By a rabid dog, from the looks of it.”
Rune’s head swung back and forth. “No. That wasn’t me. Whatever is there now is not by my hand. I left that place as untouched as I found it. It was all in order when I left.”
Wes seethed in a breath. “Shit.”
“Someone else was there.” Rune’s copper-green eyes went dark. “Did they find it?”
“No. We found it.”
Rune’s eyebrow’s arched. “You did? No—I covered that place from bottom brick to weather vane.”
“Your confidence in your thieving prowess aside, you wouldn’t have found it.”
“No?”
Wes shook his head. “A secret compartment behind the dry larder of all things.”
Rune rubbed the side of his face. “Tricky bastard.”
“Aye.”
“So, is it in your possession?”
“Laney has it for the time being. She’s turning it over to Mr. Filmore, but he’s not in town at the moment. And I can’t just take it from her.”
“Not in town? Mr. Filmore was the back-up plan if I couldn’t find it.”
“I know. And I don’t care for his absence.” Wes glanced over his shoulder at Laney. The apparent peace she’d felt when first approaching the pond had dissipated and she’d started pacing ten steps, back and forth along the water’s edge, tossing pebbles one by one from the palm of her hand into the pond. Rings from the plopped pebbles spread across the surface. “His clerk reported he should be returning this afternoon, so this whole mess will be done with for good today, with any luck.”
Rune nodded. “Keep me posted. I’ll accompany you to Seahorn Castle when you have it in hand.”
Wes started to turn away, but stopped, looking at Rune. “But check to see who else is in town that would know about the box—know about Morton’s death, the townhouse and Laney.”
“I’ll make somediscreetinquires.”
Wes rolled his eyes and then inclined his head to his friend. He left Rune by the tree, strolling back to Laney. Slowly, for he needed the moment, needed the clear air away from Laney.
He’d not had a break from her in the last few days and it was playing with his head, with his mind.
Warping all he’d planned to do to her.
He still held the goal in his mind—the revenge he wanted to extract. But he feared he no longer felt it. No longer wanted to see Laney suffer, to crush under the weight of all she’d done to him.
The glimpses of the guilt he’d seen that she held for her actions seven years ago gave him no solace. If anything, he’d had to hold his tongue against comforting her. Against telling her the past didn’t matter.
