In the Air Tonight (21 page)

“Do you think we’d ruin our lives—our careers—over Big Harvey?”

“It doesn’t matter what I think, there’s an investigation. I’m coming back here tomorrow night, and you two better be here or I’m putting out an APB.”

“Fine.”

“And you’ll let me know if you learn anything. We’ve got a big problem on our hands here. Looks like trouble’s following that girl.”

With that, he stood and began to walk out of the bar.

“Hey, Ed,” Mace called to him. “How was the landlady killed?”

“She was stabbed. Same as Harvey.” With that, he left, and Mace and Caleb sat silently for a few minutes at the table, the clock on the wall in the empty bar echoing loudly.

“Are you going to tell her about this?” Caleb asked Mace finally.

“Fuck, I don’t know. How much can one person handle?”

“As much as they need to, Mace. You know that as well as anyone.”

P
aige felt the weather echoing her feelings, watched the clouds, with their underbellies of dark gray, nearly
black in some spots, stretching endlessly across the sky. A sign of foreboding, a warning she couldn’t afford to ignore.

They would get out before the next band of snowstorms. Had to. But if Jeffrey was in prison, who was here? Who’d killed Harvey?

Mace wasn’t bringing that up, but she’d made the connection herself as soon as she’d calmed down enough about the phone call. Still, she didn’t bring it up to him. If he wasn’t telling her, it was because he was trying to protect her, and really, she couldn’t fault him for that. She’d become like a delicate hothouse flower, someone he needed to care for with kid gloves, and she hated that. Hated that her brother could twist her life so far out of control she’d need a crane to rein it all back in.

Where was she supposed to go from here? Could she hide with Mace in this town forever?

You can’t think about that now. Focus on the immediate future. Gray would tell you that
.

Going to see Jeffrey had turned into a necessity. Making the trip when both she and Mace were on the short list of murder suspects could be a real problem, but Mace assured her that he had explained the situation to Ed.

So now Ed would know about her past. She knew how that worked, how the gossip would spread, especially in a town as small as this one.

Mace refused to let her go alone. Had pretty much refused to let her go anywhere inside the bar alone, never mind the next state.

She was tied in knots at the thought of going. “At least the warden got to hear the phone message,” she
said finally, after Mace took her packed suitcase off the bed and put it on the floor, next to his own duffel.

She sat on the bed, picking at the quilt, tracing the intricate patterns with her fingers, knowing they were leaving soon.

“Yes, he heard it. And I spoke with Ed.”

“He knows.”

“Not because I told him.” Mace paused in a way that made her tense up. He looked at the ceiling and she wondered if he was talking silently to Gray, asking him for help.

When he met her gaze again, he said, “He was checking into your background. Routine, because of Harvey. He told me … your landlady was found murdered.”

Already numb, she felt her stomach plummet. “Mrs. Morris? How? Why?” she heard herself say before she put it together in her mind. “It’s because of me.”

“We don’t know anything for sure.” He sat next to her. “Can you please breathe?”

He put a hand on the back of her neck and rubbed lightly as she did what he asked—deep breaths taking away some of her nausea.

“Thanks, Mace. I’ll be okay.”

“You do know that Jeffrey’s in the psych ward of the prison, right? His lawyer wanted him in a less restricted environment,” Mace said, as if trying to prepare her.

Even though she didn’t keep in touch with any of Jeffrey’s many lawyers through the years, she’d known this. It had made the papers. “He claimed that his anti-social personality disorder stems from childhood abuse—he says he didn’t want to talk about it
while our parents were alive. He was hoping I would back him up on that claim, but it simply isn’t true. He told the new psychiatrist that he was molested, and that’s what started to make him so angry—that the murders weren’t his fault, that he wasn’t like this before that. And the scary part is, he appeared normal to everyone but me.” She shook her head. “He’s a master manipulator. It all happened before I could do anything about it—and I would have too. I would’ve gone there, fought to stop it. If he comes up for parole, I’ll be there.” She felt the pain of the memories taking a heavy toll on her. Her shoulders slumped and she frayed the edges of her sweater with her fingertips.

The menace in Jeffrey’s heart had been like a beacon, warning her to stay away. Her mom and dad hadn’t shared that trait. When Paige touched them, she simply felt confusion and sadness. Their burden had been a great one, but forgiving them had been difficult for her.

It still was. All that time she’d tried to tell them and they’d refused to hear it. She’d failed, she knew that, but so had they.

“I don’t want to go back there, but in a lot of ways, I guess I never really left it behind.” She rubbed her palms along her thighs as she stared at Mace.

“It’s time. Come on.” Mace held out a hand to her and they both stared at it. “Shit. Sorry.”

He was about to pull back but she tugged her sweater down over her palm and then accepted his hand.

For now, that was enough.

——

V
ivi was still behind the computer when Caleb stepped back into the office. Mace told him he and Paige were leaving.

He had a favor to ask from a woman he had no right to ask anything of, and if their last encounter was any indication, Vivi was going to enjoy his groveling for sure.

“Just ask,” she said finally, her tone curt, her gaze meeting his over the monitor. He’d been standing silently in the doorway, studying her as if she could disappear at any moment. And a deeper part of him didn’t want that, although he couldn’t be sure what that was about.

Her eyes were clear and calm, because this—computers—this was her world. And she’d helped him before. That was a truth he knew in his bones.

“When I was with you, last time …”

“You needed my help then too,” she finished for him. “But I still needed yours more, and I hated that. I didn’t like being dependent on you at all. On anyone.” The admission poured out of her, as if she’d made a decision to stop holding back.

He walked farther into the office, pulled up a stool and sat across from her at the desk. “You know about the murder and the threat. This morning, I found the generator line cut.”

“So, not an accident, then,” she murmured.

“Not by a long shot. And we just found out that Paige’s landlady was murdered, right after Paige left.”

Vivi’s jaw dropped. “What now?”

“Paige wants to go visit her brother in prison.”

“What did her brother do?”

Caleb hesitated a minute, knowing Paige liked to keep her brother a secret. But in this case, when Vivi’s life was possibly in danger because of it, he felt she had a right to know. And so he said the name and her eyes widened, because Vivi and Paige were about the same age, and the school shooting had been huge news at the time.

“I can’t imagine,” she began, and then stopped. “She thinks Jeffrey will tell her where he buried the twins. But he would never admit to sending someone to kill Harvey and her landlady.”

“I doubt it, but that doesn’t mean he’s not behind it.” He paused. “Mace wants to make sure that he and Paige aren’t followed.”

“So we need to find a way to keep the person behind all of what’s happened over the past twenty-four hours here with us.”

Us
. A good sign, and still he needed to remind her. “If you’re staying here, you’re most likely in danger too.”

She pushed back from the desk and swiveled the chair to look at the sky. The latest storm had lifted, but the news had been promising another band of them within the next twenty-four hours. And then she turned back to him. “Is the bar opening tonight?”

“Yes. I’ll be here to make sure you’re safe,” he said quickly and the familiar feeling she’d had around Caleb months earlier flooded her.

They’d somehow gone back in time and she had a murderer to thank for it. “I’ll stay.”

“You don’t have to, you know. I can make sure you get to the next town. I’ll have Keagen here with me tonight—we’ll feel out the locals, see if there’s anyone new hanging around.”

She shook her head no. “Look, if someone’s targeting Paige, they need to think she’s still here. It’s the only way she can reach the prison safely. So we make it look like Paige never left and see if we can draw out the person who’s behind this.”

It was his turn to nod. “Mace will wait until after dark and sneak Paige into the car—whoever sees him leave will think he’s alone. And you and Paige are close in height. If you borrow one Paige’s sweaters, it could work. Business as usual. You’ll stay in the back room half in view, except for your face. Tie your hair back. People will think she’s hiding out because of what happened to Harvey.”

He was asking a lot, but she owed him a great deal.

He mistook her silence for misgivings. “I know I’m asking you a lot, and you have every right to say no. You can back out now. I understand.”

“I’m not backing out,” she told him. “I owe you.”

He looked at her incredulously. “You owe me? What are you talking about?”

“You believed in me when no one else did. You risked everything—your job, your life—to prove I wasn’t in bed with a terrorist organization.”

“Just because you weren’t guilty doesn’t mean I’m not.”

“Caleb, please. Whatever it is … whatever it turns out to be, you’re not getting rid of me that easily.”

“Don’t do this if you think it’s going to get you closer to me,” he said roughly, before he could stop himself.

The look on Vivi’s face told him he’d nearly pushed it too far. She stood and walked over to him. “It kills you that you want me, doesn’t it?”

“Purely a physical response.”

“You keep telling yourself that.”

A knock on the door halted any more conversation for the moment. Mace came in, followed by Paige. Vivi saw past them to the bags on the floor of the bar, assumed they were getting ready to leave.

“Paige, I need to borrow a sweater or two,” Vivi said. Paige looked at her, a question in her eyes, while Mace flicked a glance at Caleb and asked, “You okay with this?”

“For Gray, I have to be,” was all he said, and with that Mace and Paige left him alone with Vivi again.

Vivi, who was putting herself in the line of fire. Jumping in to help out his friends. And she wasn’t doing it for him, or simply to get his attention. No, he would’ve smelled that bullshit from a mile a way.

Somehow, she’d connected with him enough to know that her loyalty to him had to extend to his team. No exceptions.

“Are you scared?”

“Yes.” She looked at him with wide eyes and he flashed back to another time and place—Vivi sitting in front of another computer, wearing that same expression and answering that same question in exactly the same way.

“I’ve got your back. No matter what else is happening between us, I’ve got your back.”

T
he men remained in the back room while Paige and Vivi stayed in the bar area, Paige rooting through her suitcase for a sweater to leave behind.

She handed one to Vivi, who pointed toward Paige’s exposed tattoos.

“Those are cool.”

“Thanks.” Paige liked Vivi. She was smart, didn’t pry. Didn’t seem all that comfortable around people, which made her that much more endearing. “I’m sorry things are so hard with Cael.”

“Yeah, well, I honestly never expected it to be easy but this is … well, much harder than I expected,” Vivi said. “I can’t give up, it’s not time yet. He’s close to remembering me. I’ve never believed in fairy tales, so I don’t know why I was picturing one,” Vivi said. “But Cael’s saved me in so many ways. I just wanted to be able to do the same for him.”

“I guess we both have men we want to save.” Paige managed a smile. “Don’t give up on him.”

“He’s given up on us already.”

“He doesn’t want to get hurt.”

“Who does?” Vivi shrugged, and looked away as if to signal the end of the conversation. She’d tied her hair back so the blue tips didn’t show. “The hair shouldn’t be a problem. I’ll be kind of hiding in the back room anyway—just letting people get a quick glance of me now and again.”

“I guess they’ll figure I’m hiding out because of what happened.”

“Yeah, probably.” Vivi tried on the sweater, the stretched-out sleeves flopping around her hands. She held up her arms. “What’s this all about?”

“If you’re trying to pass as me, pull the fabric all the way down and catch and hold it in place over your palms with these two fingers.” She indicated her index and middle fingers and Vivi did what she was told.

“Do you do this because you’re trying to hide your
tattoos for work or something? Or are you just always cold?”

“You don’t know.”

“Apparently not.”

“I’m psychic. Psychometric, to be exact. I can read people and objects by touching them.” She held up her hands like they were foreign objects.

“That’s pretty cool. Except it probably gets in the way of, say, life.”

“Hence the stretched-out sleeves.” She shrugged. “It’s different, I know.”

“I’ve always been different. Never really fit in anywhere. I still don’t, but I started to, with Cael.” Vivi shrugged the sweater off and held it tight against her body. “I know what it’s like to be isolated.”

“Did you hear about the school shooting when it happened?”

“Honestly? No. But I was being homeschooled by then and we didn’t have a TV and we didn’t get newspapers. My dad was a conspiracy theorist to an incredible degree and he didn’t believe anything that was reported. And after what happened a few of months ago, I know what it’s like to have people after you,” Vivi said. “To suddenly lose the sense of safety you had, no matter how tenuous.”

“Are you still in danger?”