Chapter 42
“Why do you have to get into Jenny Tremont’s house?” Scott asked as he entered the room.
Tori jumped and then gingerly turned toward him. “You scared me—I wasn’t expecting you here.”
“Obviously.” He crossed his arms. “What are you looking for?”
Before she could answer, voices sounded outside the office, and Donna stuck her head in the door. “If y’all are done, I’d like to get out of here.”
Tori picked up her bag. “We’re finished.”
Once they were outside, Scott pulled Caleb aside while Tori waited with Donna while she locked the building. “Would you take Amy back to the house? I need to talk to Tori.”
“Sure, man.” Then Caleb grinned and elbowed him.
“What?” Heat crept into his face. Scott had a few choice words for Tori and didn’t want an audience. She’d had no business leaving the house, not in the shape she was in.
“You don’t know?” Caleb stared skeptically at him.
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m telling you—I see the way you look at her.”
“You have it all wrong. We’re friends, if even that.” Scott couldn’t, wouldn’t let himself have feelings for the petite blond. Or was it too late? Something inside him wanted to protect her, something that went beyond anything he’d ever felt.
“Keep telling yourself that,” Caleb said. “But I’ll be happy to take Amy back to the house.”
While Caleb walked Amy to his car, Scott stood in the same spot, trying to wrap his mind around how he felt about Tori. Caleb had to be wrong.
“Is Amy riding with Caleb?”
“What?” He hadn’t seen her come up. Tori repeated her question. “Yeah.”
He opened the passenger door on his pickup, and Tori climbed in. Scott didn’t say anything while she fumbled with the seat belt.
“I know you’re upset,” she said, pausing with the strap in her hand. “But I believe Jenny’s ancestry report is important, and the photos I took weren’t in the Cloud. Can we just go by my brother’s house and get a key to her house and skip the lecture?”
He opened his mouth and closed it, swallowing his “what were you thinking” speech. “We’ll skip the lecture,” he said, not bothering to soften his tone. “Just buckle up so we can leave.”
“I can’t get the seat belt to work.”
He frowned and leaned across to find the problem. His heart pounded as her perfume teased him, reminding him of how close she was. Close enough to kiss.
“Your shirt is caught in it,” he said gruffly. “There, I got it.”
Scott straightened up, his gaze colliding with hers. How he wanted to take her in his arms. He jerked back. He couldn’t afford to go there . . . not until Tori’s assailant was caught.
Scott closed her door and jogged around to his side and climbed into the pickup.
He glanced at Tori. The stunned look on her face said she’d been affected by their nearness as much as he’d been.
His hand shook as he pushed the start button and pulled out onto the street.
“I’m not sure going to Jenny’s house is a good thing.
Ben Logan isn’t going to like you meddling in his case. ”
“I’m not meddling.”
“Care to explain what you would call it?” He glanced over at her, and she had the grace to blush.
“When I first saw the ancestry report, I felt like it was important. Now that it’s missing, I believe it’s tied to Jenny’s death, maybe even Walter Livingston’s.”
“You felt, you believe—I don’t think Ben Logan will buy into your reasoning. You heard him last night—he goes by fact.”
“He said I could go through the house.”
“Really? When?”
“When they were loading me in the ambulance after I gave him my statement.”
Scott rubbed his jaw. It wouldn’t take long to get to Jenny’s house from here. He sighed and took out his phone and handed it to her. “Call Drew,” he said. “He can meet us there with a key.”
She took his cell, punched in a number, and waited while it rang. “Come on, Drew. Answer.” Tori frowned. “It went to voicemail.”
He made a left turn.
“Where are you going?”
“To your brother’s house—can’t get into Jenny’s house if we don’t have a key.”
He tried not to smile as she beamed at him.
“Thank you! You won’t regret it.”
He doubted that was true. “You want to call Ben and let him know? His number should be in recent calls.”
She tapped the number and put it on speaker.
“What’s going on, Scott?” Ben said.
“Afraid it’s not Scott. It’s me, Tori, but he’s with me. The accident fried my phone so I’m using his.”
“O-kay.” His tone of voice indicated and . . .
“I found a file when I was in Jenny’s Livingston office, and now it’s missing. I thought Jenny might have duplicate information at her house, and since you said it was okay to go through Jenny’s house, Scott is taking me.”
“What kind of file?”
“She’d submitted her DNA to a site and gotten a report back. The file had her username and password.”
“Why would anyone take that?”
“I don’t know,” Tori said. “That’s why I want to access it—Jenny probably has a file with the same information at her house. We’re picking up a key at my brother’s house.”
“I don’t have a problem with it as long as you keep me in the loop.”
“That’s what we’re doing,” Scott said. Tori disconnected from the call just as he turned on the street where Drew and Zack lived. He nodded toward her car. “Looks like Drew is still here. You want me to run in and get the key?”
“Please. And see if he’ll go with us. He might know where she would keep a password.”
Scott turned. His gaze dropped to her full lips. Tori bit her bottom lip, and desire to kiss her flamed in his chest.
“Man, you got it bad.” Caleb’s words hit him like a splash of ice water. “Uh yeah. I-I’ll do that.”
Was that disappointment that flashed in her pretty face? Did she feel the tension between them? He was pretty sure she did. He hadn’t felt this way since . . . ever. But now wasn’t the time.
Scott reached for the door handle. “I, uh, noticed you didn’t go in last night, but didn’t you grow up in this house?”
Tori stiffened. “Yeah, I grew up here. Too many ghosts.”
He nodded. “I’ll go find Drew.”
Scott climbed out of the truck and jogged to the front porch. He climbed the steps and rapped on the screen door. The wooden door was open, revealing an empty hallway. Scott opened the screen and stuck his head inside. “Drew, you here?”
Silence answered him. He glanced back at the Toyota. The teen should be here. He stepped inside the house. “Drew?” he called.
Scott stopped at the foot of the stairs and called again. When there was no answer, he took the stairs two at a time and stuck his head inside the first room next to the stairs. He wasn’t sure which room was Drew’s, but probably not this one with frilly curtains and a white quilt on the bed.
The next bedroom looked more like a teenager’s with clothes strewn on the floor, but it was empty as well. And he wasn’t in the last bedroom, either.
Scott hurried down the stairs to the kitchen. His heart sank when he saw Drew’s phone on the counter.
The boy would not have willingly left his phone behind.
“What’s taking so long?” Tori’s voice came from the front, and Scott turned and hurried down the hall.
“I thought you were going to wait.”
“I changed my mind. Is Drew here?”
“No, and he left his phone behind.”