Chapter 8 #2
She chuckled, her arms crossed lightly over the table. “Road trip food isn’t so bad.”
“Spoken like someone who’s never been stuck on a tour bus in the middle of Texas during a heatwave with nothing but a half-melted granola bar and a broken AC unit.”
He flashed her a grin and caught the way she smiled back, soft, relaxed, unguarded. It hit him low and deep, how natural this felt. Her, sitting in his best friend’s kitchen. Him, cooking like they’d done this a hundred times before.
As he plated the sizzling fajitas, she stood and grabbed the silverware and napkins without being asked. It took her a few times to find everything, but it was almost like she belonged there.
They sat across from each other at the table, sunlight slanting in through the window, painting golden lines across the wood grain.
“So,” he said between bites, “when were you going to tell me you are a private investigator?”
She almost choked on the bite of food she’d taken. “I…” She shook her head. “How did you know?”
“It wasn’t hard to find out.” At first, it had pissed him off. He was used to people lying to him. He’d hoped that Dylan was different.
He really hoped she wasn’t there for him, but something told him she was.
She stared at him, searching his face, probably trying to gauge just how pissed he was. But the truth was he wasn’t. Not anymore. Not really. And not after that kiss. He was curious. Intrigued. But mad?
Not when she looked at him like that. Like maybe she hadn’t expected kindness from him… and wasn’t sure she knew what to do with it.
He dropped his voice a little. “You can ask me anything, Dylan. If you want answers, just ask.”
For a long beat, she didn’t say anything, just studied him in that quiet, intense way of hers.
And then, slowly, she set down her food and nodded. “Okay.”
Abe took another bite, doing his best to act casual while every part of him felt like it was holding its breath.
Because that single word meant something.
It meant maybe. It meant not yet.
And most importantly…
It meant she wasn’t running.
“Kara Sinclair.” The name hung in the air like an iron fist to the gut.
He set his fork down slowly and took a sip of the cold soda.
“She was the woman I thought I was going to grow old with,” he answered truthfully. He’d never admitted that before.
Denial.
He’d been warned, threatened, and he’d sworn not to mention his closeness with Kara.
He watched her eyebrows rise slightly.
“Were you with her that night?”
“Earlier.” He nodded. “That much is already out there in interviews.”
She slowly nodded. “Were you driving?”
He sighed and leaned back in the chair. “No.” His voice was laced with regret. “No.” He closed his eyes. The violence of what had happened that night flashed behind his closed lids. “No,” he said again, softer this time.
Dylan took his hand. The soft contact centered him a little. His eyes opened and locked with hers. “If I had been”—he shook his head—“she’d still be alive. I would have been taking her home, not the other way around.”
“You can’t do that to yourself,” she said.
Abe gave a humorless laugh and stared down at their empty plates. “I know,” he said. “But I do. Every day. Every night.”
He stood and started clearing the dishes, mostly to have something to do with his hands. The weight of the conversation pressed hard on his chest, but the words kept coming steadily, like they’d been waiting for this moment to be spoken.
“She dropped me off around midnight,” he said as he rinsed the plates.
“I’d had too much to drink at dinner. She hadn’t had anything, at least not that I’d seen.
We argued before she left. Something stupid.
Probably my ego. I had thought...” He glanced over his shoulder and changed tactics. “That much I’ll own.”
Dylan stood too, helping without a word, drying the dishes that he washed.
“She said she was going home. It was late, and she’d been quiet all night. Distant. I figured she just needed space. So I let her go.” He shook his head, gripping the edge of the sink. “But she didn’t go home. Not even close.”
There was a long pause.
“She ended up five miles in the opposite direction of her home. Crashed into an underpass off Old Mill Road.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Her car was mangled. Totaled. But when the cops got there… she was in the passenger seat.”
Dylan stopped drying and just looked at him. Something told him that she knew that bit of news already. Which surprised him.
Thanks to Tony, his PR manager, all of this, his connection to Kara, had been kept out of the press.
His only connection had been highlighted in one small article, where they’d said that he and Kara had gone out a few times.
Until the recent article had come out. That was the main reason he was hiding out in Pride.
“That part never made the reports. Everyone assumed she was driving. Why wouldn’t they?
It was her car. But she wasn’t. Someone else was behind the wheel.
And they’re the reason she’s gone.” The anger flared like it always did when he thought about the unanswered questions.
He turned around, his jaw tight. “Who was driving, Dylan? Because I don’t know.
I didn’t see anyone else that night. I assumed she went straight home.
But the direction she went, where the accident had occurred was in the opposite direction of her place.
Plus, the timeline…” He ran a hand through his hair.
“She should have been home hours before the crash. None of it adds up. I’ve hired my fair share of PIs in the past. The top of the top.
No one could give me answers.” He ran his hands through his hair, wanting to pull it out like he always did when he thought about that night. About Kara.
Dylan looked like she wanted to ask a dozen more questions but was trying to hold back.
“And the worst part?” he added. “Whoever was in that driver’s seat…
had walked away. The passenger side of the car had taken the brunt of the damaged.
No one saw whoever had been driving. No one reported anything about the accident until almost half an hour.
. Whoever had been driving, vanished with the damn fog that had been reported that night. ”
They stood in silence for a long moment, the only sound the hum of the fridge.
Finally, Dylan spoke. “You didn’t kill her.”
He looked up, meeting her gaze. It wasn’t a question nor an accusation. It was more like reassurance. To whom though?
“I didn’t think you could’ve,” she said quietly. “But I think someone’s gone to a lot of trouble to make sure no one ever finds out the truth,” she added more slowly, as if she was choosing her words carefully.
Abe swallowed hard. “I’ve gone back over it a thousand times.
Security footage from the townhouse I lived in at the time.
Witnesses. Hell, I even broke into the impound lot one night just to look at her car myself.
” He gave a broken laugh. “And then, two weeks after the crash, someone torched it. Destroyed the whole lot.”
Dylan’s eyes widened. “That wasn’t in the reports.”
“Exactly.” He stepped closer, his voice dropping. “Whoever’s behind this has money. Power. Reach. And they’ve buried everything.”
Dylan nodded slowly, her PI instincts clearly kicking in. “Then we dig it up.”
He stared at her, that same quiet fire in her eyes.
This time, it was him who reached for her hand. “Are you sure?”
She nodded. “I have nothing else to do.”
“Who hired you? Truthfully? Was it Kevin or her parents?”
She paused for a second, and he could tell she was going to give him the truth. “Kevin.”
He shrugged. “You’re not the first he’s hired. You are, however, the first who managed to get close to me.”
Her eyes darted away. “I…”
He stopped her by laying a finger over her lips. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want to be close to you,” he said, meaning it.
She gave him a weak smile.
His eyes narrowed slowly as he thought about it. “While we’re speaking the truth.” Her eyes moved up to his. “Someone broke in here the other night. The night of the wedding...”