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Then he reminded himself that was a lousy way to view himself. So, even though he hated to do it, he said, “Uh, I really just want to have a drink out in the living room. I hope I didn’t give you the wrong idea.” He attempted what he hoped was his most winning, conciliatory smile.
And a darkness fell over Trey. His smile, so warm and inviting, vanished, morphing into something Connor could only identify as a glower. He turned his back to Connor and groped on the floor on the opposite side of the bed for his clothes. He dressed quickly, his back to Connor. When dressed, he stooped to tie his shoes and then stood. He glared at Connor, his eyes gone dark.
Wordlessly, he brushed by Connor, almost knocking him out of the way, heading for the front door.
Connor was stunned.
“Hey, hey. Don’t be like this. I’m just not ready…” The words were thick on Connor’s tongue as he watched Trey open the door, exit, and slam it behind him.
“What the fuck?” Connor whispered.
Later, Connor’s very soul felt black as he climbed into bed. Sleep would be elusive.
He propped the pillows up against the headboard and grabbed his iPad off the nightstand, intending to immerse himself in a chapter or two from Harlan Coben’s latest thriller, simply to escape.
But he couldn’t stay away from Facebook. And the moment he looked down at his feed, he got a shock and immediately regretted it.
He’d be up all night.
Chapter Five
MIRANDA CLICKED OUTof Google and closed her laptop. Her eyes burned and the mussed bed behind her called to her.
It was a little after midnight, and she’d been searching online for Trey Goodall for the past couple of hours. She’d promised herself she’d take only a few minutes to perhaps run down his profiles on social media. Okay, and to maybe see if he had an arrest record. The guy just didn’t seem right—and she wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was something in his eyes—pretty but dead. Or the way he looked at her when he thought Dad wasn’t looking, which was with a kind of challenge on his face. It was almost as though he was saying, “Catch me. I dare you.”
Sure, he was handsome. But if there was one thing Miranda had learned in her own meager dating history, it was that sometimes the prettiest packages were the emptiest, or worse, contained something rotten inside.
It was why she was not seeing anyone at all these days, preferring instead to work on a horror novel she was writing about a haunted drug rehab facility and a homicidal nurse.
She found nothing on Goodall. These days, that was odd.
There were, of course, links tootherTrey Goodalls, many in fact. The name wasn’t as common as John Smith, but it wasn’t all that unusual either. Miranda had dutifully run them all down, but none came even close to the man she’d met at her father’s condo.
For her father’s Trey—the man with whom he had a first date tonight? She’d discovered no social media accounts, no mentions in the news, no images, no information on his work as an attorney. She didn’t even find anything that looked like a link to him among those pay-for-more information sites that promised addresses, credit history, and criminal background.
She’d found zero links that could be traced to Trey.
Almost everyone, at least in Miranda’s world, left traces online. It was unavoidable. She called to mind the same litany she’d heard over and over as a student—to not post or say anything online that could come back at you once you begin searching for a job or applying to graduate schools. If one uttered something out loud, it had the chance of being forgotten. But written or worse, posted, it would be around forever. Even if one deleted something, it could be screenshotted and come back to haunt you.
This Trey was either a ghost or very good at covering up his tracks.
Was Trey Goodall even his real name? Right now, it seemed unlikely. And if he was hiding his real identity, that worried her.
Something smelled fishy when she met him and something smelled even fishier now.
Yet no presence online wasn’t something she could bring to her dad. It was the absence of proof of anything untoward. And he’d tell her that.
She needed proof. And how does one prove a negative?
She pushed back her desk chair and stood, stretching. She dropped her robe to the floor and crawled into bed. In the dark, she lay, eyes wide open. What was it about Trey Goodall that bothered her so much? Was she simply like a little kid whose parents were divorcing and therefore anyone taking her beloved father’s place was an interloper and had to be bad?
No. One thing Miranda had always found to be true was that her intuition was highly reliable, especially when it came to meeting new people. The two gay men and one straight woman with whom she occupied this house in Seattle’s University District was one example. The three of them had lived together already when Miranda came on the scene last fall, when they’d gone looking for a replacement for a stoner dude who’d flunked out the prior spring. She’d sat down with the trio, as she dubbed them—Rick, David, and Debbie—in the living room of the old Craftsman, and the four of them immediately found themselves laughing and commiserating over student life. Miranda walked out of the interview with a belly full of the most delicious carbonara she’d ever tasted and an assurance they’d add her to the lease.
The one guy she’d gone out with this school year was the flip side of the coin. Jose Fuentes was a gorgeous man, dark-skinned, brown-eyed, with a heavy full beard and head of wavy hair, both deep black. His voice was as deep as James Earl Jones, and it literally made Miranda shiver the first time she’d heard it. But Miranda had known, even before their dinner was over, that he was all wrong. And not just for her—he was a bad person. She sensed all thisbeforehe let slip racist and, even worse for the daughter of a gay father, homophobic slurs. The sad thing was, when he put down this group or that group, he fully expected her to agree with his views, as though anyone with sense could see he was right. His arrogance also put her off. But, although she couldn’t number the particulars, she’d gotten a bad feeling the first time she looked into those sexy—and soulless—dark eyes. And this was before he’d even uttered a single offensive word.
She sat up in bed and reached for the glass of rye and diet ginger ale she’d left earlier on her nightstand. It had gone tepid and watery, with the ice cubes all melted. But the rye warmed her belly and, she hoped, would help her sleep.
Maybe her dad’s date wouldn’t work out. Or if it did, perhaps she could find out more about this Trey Goodall.
