He shakes his head, a smile dancing at the corner of his mouth. “Nope. You pretend to the world, but it’s a double-blind. The truth is you are tough. A tough shell around a sweet marshmallow of a woman.”
I wrinkle my nose. “Marshmallow? That’s the best you’ve got?”
He laughs. “It’s been a long day. You choose your metaphors.”
I raise a shoulder. “I don’t know. I just feel bad about everything that’s happened to her. And it’s all the worse because I like her. I always have.”
“I do, too. And it is horrible. And,” he adds, lifting my chin so that I’m looking him straight in the eye, “I don’t like you being in the crossfire.”
Warning bells clang in my ears, and I shake my head. “Oh, no. I am not leaving you now. No way.”
“Jamie…”
“No,” I say. “I’m safe with you. And I’m not leaving Gabby.” I move closer, easing my arms around his waist. “I’m sticking, Hunter. Deal with it. Besides,” I add, “I have my uses.”
I press against him, feeling the way his chuckle reverberates in his chest. “Do you…?”
“Oh, most definitely. For example, you look stressed. That’s not good.” I slide my hands down, then cup his ass as I press my hips forward, relishing the way he hardens against me. “I’m very good at helping you relax.”
“You definitely are.” His hands move to cup my rear, pulling me tighter against him.
I shift, then get my hands on the button of his pants. “I think it’s time for a little de-stressing.”
“Kitten,” he says, as I start to tug his zipper down, “I do love the way you think.”
Chapter Nineteen
Ryan’s dressed and almost out the door by the time I wake up.
He bends over and kisses me, and I make a sound that’s not quite human. I don’t do well with mornings.
“I’m going to go talk with William again,” he says. “Maybe he’ll be clearer today.”
I force myself more awake and sit up, wishing I had an intravenous coffee drip. “Fingers crossed.”
He stands in front of the full-length mirror and adjusts the tie of his slate gray suit. He looks seriously hot, and he meets my eyes in the glass and subtly shakes his head. “It’s pressed. We’re not wrinkling my suit.”
“Spoilsport.”
“Of course, William might be our bad guy,” he continues without missing a beat. “Not personally—he’s not doing well physically—”
“But he could be the evil mastermind,” I finish.
“It’s possible.”
I nod. “It makes sense. Whoever spoofed her phone knew about Felicia. Enough to mention a train.”
“True, but that doesn’t mean much. I wasn’t a secret and neither was the mission. Randall told people he was sending someone in to rescue his daughter, and I heard later that he even shared what happened to her. It wouldn’t surprise me if the story went through the entire family as well as his business.”
I make a face and call on the gods of sarcasm. “Well, that narrows down the suspects.”
“If we just knew the endgame. Who benefits by killing her?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. The problem, of course, is neither does Gabby.
He sips his coffee as he scrolls through emails on his phone, presumably making sure there are no work crises before heading out on what I’m calling The Gabby Project.
“Baxter’s confirmed that William’s renting the house, but it looks like he’s renting it from a trust called the Inheritance Trust.”
“What does that mean?”
“He doesn’t own the house personally, but that doesn’t tell us much. There are a lot of reasons to put assets into trusts. We own a few pieces of real estate that are in a trust, actually.”
“We do?”
“Well, technically I do, since I bought them before we got married.” He flashes me a grin. “But I’ll share if you’re very, very nice to me.”
I laugh. “Deal. How do you find out the reason for this trust?”
“Baxter’s going to—shit.”
The word comes not long after a text ping.
“What is it?”
“Marjorie Smythe. She’s dead.”
“Who?”
“The attorney who handled the probate of Randall’s will. Baxter says she was hit by a car yesterday. Hit and run. Her assistant told Baxter she’d try to find the specifics about the will, but it may take a while. Apparently she’s new and they were moving offices. Things are chaotic.”
“Oh. So…?”
“So we’ll have to wait for details of the trust. Damn.”
“How could a trust have anything to do with the attack on Gabby? It’s all done, right? The estate is closed, or whatever they call it after everything the dead person owned is distributed. Right?”
“That’s what I thought, and that’s what the press about Randall’s death suggests. But I was hoping Ms. Smythe could confirm.”
“Maybe that private attorney you’re trying to track down knows something. Or William, for that matter. If you’re sure enough that he’s not our bad guy that you can ask him outright.”
“My gut says he’s not,” Ryan tells me. “He seemed to really love Felicia. Said he still imagines seeing her. That—wait.”
“What?”
He starts to pace and I scoot to the foot of the bed, wanting badly to interrupt, but not wanting to disturb whatever’s going on in that head of his.
“William said he adored Felicia. That he even imagined seeing her when he saw women who looked like her. And that more recently he wasn’t projecting her face on other women, but actually seeing her. Right outside his house on the sidewalk across the street.”
“Where Gabby told us she’d been.”
He nods. “His wife told him that he was imagining things. She looked, too, and said that there was nobody there. And the truth is, William’s a little muddled.”
“But what—”
Ryan holds up a finger, silencing me. “And he said he couldn’t have loved her any more if there’d been two of her.”
It takes a massive effort not to say anything, but I can tell he’s going somewhere with this.
Except he doesn’t say anything else. Instead, he goes to the closet and flips through his suit jackets. He finds the one he wore yesterday and rummages in the pockets, coming out with a folded piece of paper. “He gave me this. A phone number for an estate agent in Somerset.”
“Why?”
“I told you. He’s a little muddled.” He meets my eyes. “Or maybe he isn’t.”
I make a motion for him to hurry the hell up.
“At first, I thought maybe he was giving me the private attorney’s number. But when I realized it was a dead line, I dismissed that thought and figured he was just a befuddled old man. But now I’m wondering…” He’s been unfolding the paper as he talks, and I watch as his eyes go wide. “Fuck me,” he whispers. “How the hell did I miss this?”