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As Montgomery moved everyone through the suspected route, letting Eli, then Claire, then Karol and the other women suggest ideas, she identified the number-one emotion within her.
Gratitude.
CHAPTER11
Montgomery sank to the edge of the bed. The day’s events weighed on him the way the wind buffeted the windows, as if trying to get inside. The reality of their task shook him like the windowpane rattling in its track.
They were a bunch of amateurs, save for Frank—and maybe Eli’s security guys—about to track a killer. Even with the high-tech phones that had arrived earlier and the three guns between them, there was no guarantee that anybody would be safe. Especially if Lucas was heavily armed. Montgomery was sure the man was operating like he had nothing left to lose. He had to be.
Am I an idiot for letting Hartley come with me?The old Montgomery would have shoved her into a car and had her driven off the property—end of problem. But now that he’d read the lawyer’s draft of the divorce settlement, he was in alien territory. He felt detached from any reasoning, particularly common sense.
These next two days would be the last they’d have together. Someone—likely the gung-ho Spencer or chip-on-his-shoulder Karol—would find Lucas and deal with him. He’d get his phone testing done and leave for Beijing.
Case closed.
Except it wasn’t. He shut his eyes, unable to fight off the memory the divorce papers had brought back—the key memory he thought he’d locked away.
He was in their South Carolina beach house. Hartley was on her way to talk to him about something important. Probably the offer to buy Cavendish.
He could imagine how she’d felt, seeing his car there. They’d been in a constant state of separation, having rocky argument after rocky argument, with make-up sessions in between. She’d likely assumed this was his attempt at a reconciliation.
He remembered hearing her car door slam. He’d just gotten himself another scotch and was on his way upstairs when the backdoor clicked open. He’d downed the scotch and rushed Maddy out of her underwear, shutting down his mind as he ran his hands over her body. She was eager, unaware of the tableau he was setting up, nor relishing it as a way to get back at her sorority nemesis.
He’d positioned her to face the door, and the only other memory he had was Hartley’s face. Excited, a little nervous, and then…blank. All expression had shattered, leaving a void. Next came the rage.
It had been a despicable act, one he’d justified by telling himself it freed both of them from the turmoil they were trapped in. Freed them both to find happiness. Because their happiness wasn’t with people but with their businesses. But letting Hartley find him with Maddy had fired her up. She’d threatened to ruin him, which she could have. But in the days that followed, the divorce she’d threatened hadn’t appeared.
Could he have just told her it was over? He’d tried, but had he tried hard enough? Or were those words what he’d been afraid of, more than anything else?
No. Their marriage had limped along until they’d practically become strangers, just cycling between fighting and sex.
He knew, and he was sure she did too, that they were meant to be lovers, but not in love. Marriage had trapped two raging personalities in a prison.
“Fuck,” he uttered out loud. Why go back over all that now?
He pulled out his phone to look at his unsent reply to the lawyer. He’d read and reread the document, each time ready to reply,Go ahead, yet each time closing his mail app instead. What was he waiting for? More bad memories to resurface?
He sat up on the bed and glanced around the room for a distraction. He could unpack. Hartley had put his neatly packed suitcase on the elevator for him, and he’d taken it to a room on the main floor.
Or he could text Bernard again. But he’d acknowledged receiving the phones and moving ahead with the testing. There wasn’t anything new to report.
He could re-examine the map they’d printed out and try to determine Lucas’s most likely hiding space. It was a futile guessing game, but it might pry his mind out of this strange melancholy.
A heavy sigh escaped his lips. Rather than doing any of that, he stood and walked over to the window. The trees swayed wildly in the wind. It wasn’t unlike what he was feeling.
He barely heard the soft knock on the door. Hartley’s voice calling his name snapped him out of his reverie, and he turned to face her as she opened the door and peered around it. A rush of old longings stirred in him.
“Monty—Montgomery, can I come in?” she asked, her voice tentative.
“Of course.” He stood his ground as she entered and closed the door behind her.
She wore her black silk pajamas, the outfit she usually lounged in before bed. It was not the best time to remember how she slept in the nude.
She walked toward him, keeping the bed between them. When she slowed to a stop, he noticed her twisting her fingers together. He would have guessed she was uncertain if he hadn’t known her better than that.
“I hope I’m not bothering you,” she said, her gaze meeting his.
“No, not at all,” he replied, attempting to hide the turmoil in his heart. “I was just...thinking.”
