Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
W hat in the hell was that? Dylan kept asking herself as she paced in the living room shortly after sunset. What. In. The. Hell!
Her entire body had… What? Been hijacked? Body. Mind. Heart. Soul. She’d almost sunk directly into him.
The scary thing was, she would have willingly gone.
She’d never felt anything like it before. Staring into Abe’s eyes was like… well, circling a black hole. No one and nothing could stop her from being sucked in, completely.
After they had been interrupted, he’d listened to their conversation for a moment before she’d made excuses and had made a fast getaway, leaving Abe to head back towards the bookstore while she snuck away towards her car.
When she arrived back to her car, there was a new message on her phone from Kevin, who wanted to meet in an hour at his motel in Edgeview.
Why in the hell was he in Edgeview? When she tried to call him, she got his voicemail. She left him a few text messages but didn’t receive a reply.
So she drove the thirty minutes to Edgeview and knocked on his hotel room door for almost half an hour. Then she sent him three more messages and tried to call him a half dozen times with no luck. So she left him a message telling him that she had to get back to Pride and to call her when he could.
From what she knew about the man, he was a flake. He often missed important meetings, getting fired from job after job. It was only thanks to his family’s wealth and power that he had any money to live on. But they were rolling in it, so Kevin’s life was posh.
Since she was in Edgeview, she hit the larger grocery store for some necessities. She groaned when she spotted Tommy. He saw her and made a beeline towards her across the meat section. Fitting.
“There you are,” Tommy said with a grin. He tried to wrap his arm around her shoulder, which she easily ducked. Placing her cart between their bodies, she pasted on a grin.
“Tommy.” She was pleased when his eyes narrowed at her use of his old name.
“Tom.” He laughed. “Remember?” His eyes turned mean, and she figured it wouldn’t be long before she would see the real man behind his fake charm. “I was about to head out and meet up with some buddies at a club in town. Why don’t you?—”
“No, thank you.” She tried to sidestep him again.
“Oh, come on, Dylan. You can’t still be holding a grudge for putting cream cheese in your locker all those years ago. It was a silly childhood prank.”
Her eyebrows arched. “Well, until now I had no idea who had done that, so no, I haven’t been holding a grudge against you.”
This time she was successful in getting away from him and losing him somewhere in the deli section. She finished her shopping and headed back to Pride without running into Tommy again or hearing from Kevin.
Back at home, she paced, frustrated at having wasted her entire evening.
Abe had left her body wanting, while her mind swirled about why Kevin hadn’t shown and why he wasn’t answering her messages. Not to mention she was now pissed at Tommy for the prank all those years ago.
She felt like punching something or someone.
She was just about to sit down at her computer and send Kevin an email when there was a knock on her door.
She assumed it was Kevin, but when she opened the door, she saw Abe. The porch light cast a bright glow over his broad shoulders and shadowed jaw, making him look more like trouble than any man had a right to.
“Hey,” Abe said, his voice softer than she expected. “You left in a bit of a hurry.”
She stepped aside, letting him in without thinking. “Yeah… I wasn’t feeling great.” Not technically a lie since her nerves were still rattled.
He stepped inside, glancing around like he was making sure she was alone. She expected him to keep questioning her fast escape or read too much into it, but he just looked at the bags on her counter.
“Need help putting those away?”
She gave a small shrug, grateful for the shift in attention. “Sure.”
“Edgeview Market?” he asked, seeing the bag.
“They have the cereal and frozen meals I like,” she said quickly. That wasn’t a lie either, just not the whole truth of why she’d gone to town.
He rolled up his sleeves and started unpacking things, glancing in a few cupboards and then moving quickly.
God, he made the large kitchen feel small.
She watched him for a second, then shook off the lingering tension and joined him. The quiet between them was oddly comforting. No need to fill it with useless chatter. Just the rustle of bags, the opening of cabinets, the unspoken ease between them.
“You have a nice piece of property up here,” he said, and she got the hint that he was trying to keep the conversation casual.
“Twenty acres,” she said. “Half of it is hillside, but still…”
“Did I see a barn to the side?”
“Yes, that’s where we kept our animals and any my dad was boarding temporarily. It’s big enough for ten horses.”
He whistled. “My ranch in Cali only has six stalls. I’m thinking of adding more. After working with Stormy and Blaze, I really want to get my hands on a few more to work with.”
“You have four now, right?”
“Yeah, but,” he started and then sighed. “They’re all broken in.”
“Bored?” she asked as he handed her the last box of crackers. She put them in the pantry.
“Desperately,” he admitted, and she chuckled.
Abe leaned against the counter, arms crossed, and ran his eyes over her. Instantly, she could tell he was debating asking her something. It didn’t take a PI to see the questions behind his gaze.
“You up for dinner?” he asked instead of whatever was on his mind.
“Yeah,” she said after a moment. “Since my pantry is stocked, how about you help me cook something?”
His grin spread slowly, wickedly. “Tell me how to help.”
Fifteen minutes later, the kitchen was filled with the scent of sautéing vegetables, grilled chicken, and warm spices. Dylan stirred the rice and chicken while Abe manned the cutting board.
“I came over here to discuss Kara’s case…” he said without looking over at her.
She paused and wiped her hands on a dish towel.
“Right.” She sighed. Of course he’d come here to talk about the case.
Why not jump right in then? “I’ve been going through my notes since we spoke last, along with the police files I could find.
A few of the witness statement just don’t sit right.
There’s just something…” She dropped off.
She kept her expression neutral. But when she thought of the missed meeting with Kevin, a jolt went through her.
“What kind of something?” he asked.
“Something about Kevin’s statement that next morning.
The timeline he mentions is fuzzy,” she explained.
“It’s almost… too clean. Too planned. He knew the time down to the minute.
Your statement reads like someone who is in shock.
You couldn’t remember the exact time Kara dropped you off.
You knew where you’d eaten and that she had driven you home and dropped you off, and even that it had been slightly raining that night.
His statement is more calculated. Like he was very careful or as if he planned it all out before answering every question.
And it’s odd that he practically vanished for a few years four months after his sister’s death before resurfacing only two months ago.
Three days before hiring me. You mentioned he’d hired a few other PIs over the years, but I can’t find anyone or any agency that worked with him.
Plus, I can’t find anything on where he was for those years or even why he moved to Portland.
He has no job. No permanent residence. He lives off his parents’ money.
” Dylan stirred a little harder than necessary as she talked.
“I mean, I guess people disappear all the time after the death of a loved one. It doesn’t really mean anything, I don’t think. But… it’s bugging me.”
“True,” Abe said, giving her a quick look.
“For weeks after Kara’s death, Kevin was all over me and hounding the police, demanding that the accident be investigated while their parents were just grieving.
When he stopped and moved away, I didn’t hear where he’d gone, only…
” He stopped talking and she glanced over at him.
He frowned down at the cutting board. “I suppose I was just happy that he’d stopped hassling me and demanding that the police arrest me.
He was crazed at times.” He shook his head.
“Their parents were not and seemed embarrassed at his actions.”
“He had just lost his sister,” she pointed out.
“And I lost…” He stopped abruptly and closed his eyes.
When she glanced at him, he was looking out the window into the darkness. “I wanted answers just as badly as he did. I still do.” He walked over to dump the carrots into the pot.
“Any idea what he’s doing back or what he’s doing in Portland?” Abe asked, eyes fixed on hers.
She shook her head a little too quickly. “No clue.”
Another half-truth. She wasn’t ready to tell Abe about the meeting in Edgeview. Besides, it hadn’t amounted to anything, Kevin hadn’t even shown. Why stir up questions until she had answers?
Abe nodded, accepting it without pressing. “Now we’ve got you digging deeper. Hopefully, we will know more soon.”
Still, when she looked at Abe, a flicker of guilt twisted in her stomach. She wasn’t lying to him. Not really. Just… protecting him from a thread that hadn’t unraveled yet.
But she knew that secrets had a way of pulling everything apart. And soon, hers might do just that. Maybe she was secretly sabotaging whatever was between them? After all, she’d gone her entire life believing she didn’t deserve happiness.
“I didn’t just come here for dinner,” he surprised her by admitting. He reached over and turned off the gas stove, leaving the chicken, veggies, and rice simmering in the pan.
She set the spoon down. “No?” Her eyes scanned his and instantly heated when she saw the desire in his. His gaze dipped to her lips quickly and then back up.