Chapter One #2
I’m about to ask if he didn’t realize there was street parking out front when I make the connection.
If someone’s following him, he wouldn’t want them to see his car and know exactly where he was.
Of course, I’m not sure how much good it’s really doing him.
I’m most likely the only place still open.
It wouldn’t be hard to figure out by a process of elimination.
“Do you have far to drive?”
“Um... I don’t... I’m not sure.” His gaze slides away, and his frown deepens. Then he looks up and meets my eyes once more. “Do you know if there’s a hotel around here?”
It’s weird watching history repeat itself in real time, only this time, I’m on the other side.
Before, I’d been running with nowhere to go, and it had been George behind the counter.
Did I look as lost and unsure as Matthew did now?
Is that why George had offered to help me?
Or was it simply because he was a fundamentally good person? Probably both.
He’s been gone three years, and my chest still aches when I think about him. He’d been more of a father to me than the man who’d contributed to my genetics had ever been. I’m not nearly as good a man as he was, but I could try. I could pay it forward.
“There is, but I think I can offer you something better.”
Matthew’s expression hardens, and he pushes back from the table. “I bet.”
For a second, I blink, stupidly, trying to work out why the kid turned hostile and looks ready to bolt, then realization hits me like a truck.
My face burns, and I hold up both hands.
“I don’t know what you think... well, I do think I know...
no... not that,” I sputter, trying to string together something coherent.
“I’m not asking for anything. Anything. I just...
there’s an apartment upstairs.” I point to the ceiling.
“I’m between tenants, so it’s sitting there empty.
It’s furnished—nothing fancy, but you’re welcome to stay there. ”
He’s still eyeing me suspiciously. “You don’t live there?”
I shake my head. “I have a place a little outside town. Like I said, I normally rent the apartment, but Kelley started university back in January, and I haven’t gotten around to finding someone new. There’s even parking out back where no one would see your car.”
“You’d let me stay there.” He shakes his head as if my words don’t make sense. “Man, you don’t even know me.”
I have to bite back the bitter laugh bubbling up my throat. Kid, I know you better than you think.
“Kelley used to work for me, too. I don’t know what kind of trouble you’re in.
” He opens his mouth as if to argue with me, but I hold up my hand, cutting him off.
“It’s none of my business, but if you need a place to lie low, I can give you a job and a place to stay while you figure out what to do next.
I can even pay you in cash if it helps.”
His eyes narrow, and suspicion tightens his features. “Why are you doing this? What do you want?”
“I don’t want anything. I’ve been you,” I admit, “and someone helped me when I needed it. Hell, I don’t know where I would be now if he hadn’t.” But that isn’t true. I know exactly where I’d be without George. I’d be dead.
***
Six weeks later.
“I’m here to see—” The name lodges in my throat like it’s clutching the sides with a sticky grip. I cough lightly into my elbow and try again. “Sorry,” I say to the middle-aged woman behind the reception desk, watching me with a faint frown. “I have an appointment with Hunter Cade.”
The name feels foreign to my tongue after having gone so long without speaking it, as if it were an incantation that would summon demons from my past, and maybe it is. After all, today I would have no choice but to face the mess I’d left behind when I ran ten years ago.
“I’m Dylan Moore.”
A part of me wants to bolt, push through the door with CDS Investigations printed on the glass, get back in my car and return to Fieldstone, but I’m out of options. Matthew has already been gone for almost a week, and the police won’t even consider him missing.
Believe me, if there were any alternative to going to the only man I’d ever loved and begging for his help, I would have jumped at it.
“Mr. Cade had an appointment this morning, and he’s running a little behind, but he should be here any minute. If you’d like to have a seat while you wait.” She waves a hand at the two leather and chrome love seats tucked in the corner of the small lobby.
I flash a tight smile and thank her before lowering myself to the edge of the cushion, all the time struggling to keep my knee from bouncing nervously, giving away my swelling anxiety.
Hunter’s office is on the second floor in a row of red brick stores in downtown Burlington, and it’s surprisingly light and modern. Though I’m not sure what I expected. Maybe something darker, more noir, like out of The Maltese Falcon.
A part of me never would have guessed he’d end up working as a private investigator, any more than I would have considered him going into a career in law enforcement.
I’d always assumed he’d go on to play football in university, then try for the NFL.
It’s what everyone wanted for him, what he worked so hard for.
The door next to me opens, and his big frame suddenly fills the room. For a second, my breath lodges in my lungs, and I forget how to breathe.
Seeing him again is like a punch to the chest, and a flash of pain bursts inside me.
He still looks the way I remember him—tall with those wide football shoulders and broad features.
His light brown hair is cut short in the back and on the sides, but longer on top than it was ten years ago, curling a little.
He turns to me at the same time that I stand up. “Hi, I’m...”
I see the flare of recognition and surprise in his eyes just before they narrow, and his jaw hardens. “Dylan.”
“Hey,” I say, with an awkward wave that I regret instantly.
“What are you doing here?”
“I have an appointment.”
He nods slowly, as if he’s still trying to process. Not that I don’t get it. “You’re here to hire me, is that right?”
“Yeah.” Heat stings my face, and I’m suddenly filled with the urge to crawl under the sofa and hide. If I could have done this any other way, I would have.
“Sure, okay. Give me a minute to settle in.” He pats the messenger bag draped over his shoulder. “I’ll be right back out for you. Did you want a coffee or anything while you wait?”
He’s slipped into professional mode, and that’s somehow worse than him ripping into me the way I feared. The way I deserve.
“No... thanks... I’m okay.” My voice sounds rough, as if I’d just gargled with sand.
“Good. I’ll be right back.” He looks over at the receptionist, who has been watching the exchange with a perplexed frown pulling at her high-arched eyebrows. Clearly, this is not a typical client interaction. “Helene, I just need a few minutes.”
“If there’s anything I can do...” she tells him, and I suspect it’s code for ‘do you need me to get rid of this guy?’
Hunter shakes his head. “I’ll be right back.”
I watch Hunter disappear down a hallway past the reception desk, presumably to his office, and I finally let my jelly-like legs give out from under me and sink back down to the edge of the sofa.
Helene’s assessing gaze lingers on me a moment before returning to whatever she’s typing. And just like that... I’m dismissed.
I should be relieved; the ugly confrontation that I’d feared, throwing everything I’d done to Hunter in my face, wasn’t coming, and yet somehow, I would have rather had that than cool professional indifference.
I swallow hard, do my best to ignore the ache in my chest, and I wait.