Chapter 8
Roarke
“ I would appreciate you shedding some light on what we might be dealing with,” Marty told Heather.
He wasn’t rude or gruff. His tone was firm but mild to the point he sounded coaxing in a friendly but authoritative way.
“Yeah.” Heather nodded without fully looking up. “I...can see that.” Her throat strained as she swallowed hard. “I understand.”
The broken tone of her voice sliced at my heart. She wasn’t selfish. I knew she wasn’t. No person could be selfish and open up her home to someone like Nevaeh. No one could be considered heartless when they let others stay over in times of need, like she had with me when my cabin was flooded.
She didn’t want to keep her secrets for the hell of it. It mattered to her that she wasn’t exposed and bothered. I respected that her past impacted her to be guarded now to this day, but witnessing her crumbling expression now told me that she wasn’t being secretive as a means of holding others back. She wasn’t closed-lipped to be cruel.
It pained her to speak up. Fury filled me anew at the thought that one person, that David, could have ruined her so much that she’d be trapped under her pain of her past. I couldn’t tell if it was shame. If it was the need to avoid pity. Or if it was the desire to prevent further harm coming to her.
She refused help. She refused to talk about it.
Until now.
While I wanted to be happy that she’d finally give a clue that could explain or justify her behavior, I hated that it would happen like this.
I didn’t wish for her to be forced to speak up.
I’d rather her want to tell me. To speak up out of her own will and not because it could make a difference in a case of violence against someone else.
Still, I lacked her confidence. Until she would willingly look at me , and confide in me because she wanted to be with me for something more than a few quick fucks, I would always feel like she was keeping me away. That she’d never lower that last wall guarding her heart.
“Do you need to talk about him, now, though?” She cringed as she looked up. “I...” She looked away, sighing and hugging herself again. “I want to check on Eric and make sure he’ll be all right.”
“We’ll take you,” I said, stepping closer so she would have to acknowledge my presence even through her peripheral vision. Gavin nodded, readily in agreement and prepared to help as always.
“I know you’re concerned about Eric,” Marty told her. “And I would like to follow up on him as well. As soon as possible.” His phone rang, though, and he sighed as he looked at the screen, then declined the call. “I’ll also need to speak with Jerry and try to get a location on where David is now. No matter which way we look at this, Eric had to have fallen down here from one of those landings. If he came from that one”—he pointed at the landing where the two apartment doors were—“the one recently occupied by David is something we can’t ignore.”
“Then can we wait until I check on Eric?” she asked with a wince.
“Maybe we can talk on the drive there,” Marty suggested. “We can—”
Someone rushed up close, stomping down the first couple of stairs. Nevaeh scowled down at us, as though we were holding a loud party and bothering where.
Where the hell did you come from?
Gavin grabbed my sleeve, as if he had to give me a physical cue to notice she was there.
After all those hours of looking for her and all that time we’d spent searching for her... Here she was.
“Nevaeh?” I furrowed my brow. “What...”
“What is going on?” She clambered down the steps, scowling and looking at each of us as we stood in the way leading to the opposite stairs to that landing.
“Excuse me,” Marty said as she plowed in the middle of this basement area where Eric had lain. “We’re—”
“I asked what the hell you’re doing?” She crossed her arms and glared at us all.
I stepped forward. How dare she talk to a cop like that? How dare she burst in here and act like we were wronging her ? “That’s something you can answer.”
She rolled her eyes at me, huffing as she tipped her chin up.
“We found someone lying on the ground down here,” Marty said, holding up a hand to stop me from advancing any further. My blood boiled as I watched my sassy brat of a niece, but I didn’t barge past my friend. He was the law and order around here.
Nevaeh huffed again. “So?”
“Dammit, Nevaeh. When did you become such a coldhearted brat?” I spat.
“Brat? You’re calling me a brat ?” She jabbed a finger at her chest. “I’m an adult.”
“Then stop acting like a childish brat,” I replied.
She sneered, leaning to shout at me around Marty. “I’m not acting like—”
“Hold on. Hold on,” Gavin said, always the mediator.
“I don’t care what’s happening out here,” she said hotly. “Or if Eric was here at all. And that doesn’t make me a brat .”
“So you were listening to us?” Marty guessed unnecessarily.
She recrossed her arms. “So what if I was? I live here.”
My jaw dropped. “ You live here? With what rent money?”
She narrowed her eyes. “That’s none of your business.”
“You live up there?” Marty asked, pointing at the landing with the two apartments.
“Well, my boyfriend lived in that one,” she said, matter of fact.
I stared at the door to the place where David had recently rented.
Her boyfriend.
Nevaeh and David.
It’s true.
I felt my gut drop. It was sucker-punch of an impact.
I let out a breath of shock, but I shouldn’t have been surprised. Heather already told me that Nevaeh and David were together. I’d almost completely discounted it because she’d believed it based on nothing more than a rumor, but now I was hearing it directly from the source.
“And my boyfriend has never done anything wrong,” Nevaeh insisted.
Heather coughed, or maybe it was the sound of her choking on air.
“Why would Eric be seeing him here?” Marty asked, trying to keep the focus on why we’d shown up here at all.
“How the hell should I know?” Nevaeh snapped. “He must have been snooping around here or something. Breaking in, maybe. Jerry let the apartment stay unlocked while things were moved.”
“You’ve been dating that asshole?” I demanded.
Nevaeh glanced at me with such annoyance that I felt like I’d explode. Like I was a moron to want to know that. As if I was incorrect in my perception of David and I was in the wrong to disapprove of him and her dating him.
“It’s none of your business,” she reminded me curtly, sticking with her secretiveness. “But yes. I am.” She smiled smugly, proud of the fact that she was hooking up with the man who had given Heather the incentive to move away and run back home here.
No more rumors.
No more guessing and wondering.
She’d confirmed it herself. It was a fact.
No wonder Heather wants to be as far away as possible from me.
She was right to assume I was too close to the cause of her danger and threats—whatever they actually were.
“And I think it’s bullshit that you’re all here, acting like you’ve got any right to be trespassing and poking around here.” She set her hands on her hips and lifted her chin higher, giving no indication of calming from this overreaction to us in the basement near her supposed home.