Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
MADIGAN
I’d grabbed a blanket and wrapped both of us in it.
We talked again about his mother’s predicament and Nick shared a few more stories from his childhood—some happy, some quite plainly horrific.
When he’d finally talked himself dry, I led him back to bed and curled around his shivering body until he fell asleep.
I had been less fortunate, clock-watching until around three thirty, the soft buzz of Nick’s snoring oddly reassuring.
When I finally drifted off, I slept like the dead until banging on the cottage door woke me around eight.
Grabbing sweats and a T-shirt, I raced to see who it was before the commotion woke Nick. It was going to be a huge day for both him and Chloe, and Nick needed as much sleep as he could get.
When I’d opened the door, I wasn’t sure who I expected to be on the other side, but it certainly wasn’t the police.
“Nick, baby.” I yanked the covers from his shoulders. “You need to get up. The police are here.”
“Who?” Nick’s eyelids fluttered open. “The . . . police?” He wriggled his legs over the side of the bed and I helped him sit. “What the fuck are the police doing here? Did Samuel send them? Did he call? Shit.” He reached for his phone, squinted at the screen, then brought it closer.
I swallowed a smile and handed him his glasses. He shot me an adorably pissy look and slipped them on. “Nothing from either of them.” He frowned and looked up at me. “What do they want?”
I bugged my eyes at him. “I don’t know. Now will you please get dressed?” I threw his jeans and shirt from the day before onto the bed. “Maybe Austin filed a complaint about us visiting Chloe.”
Nick’s gaze jerked to mine. “You think so? That’s pretty ballsy of him, considering.”
I shrugged. “Only one way to find out.”
A minute or so later, we were perched on the sofa opposite Detective Jonothon Wright, a thin middle-aged man with shrewd brown eyes and a serious expression.
In the chair next to him, a blond uniformed officer studied us intently.
Attractive and in his twenties, his name had gone in one ear and out the other, forgotten the second Detective Wright explained the reason for their visit.
“What do you mean Chloe’s gone missing?” Nick shot me an alarmed look before turning back to the detective. “And why the hell would we know where she is?”
“Take it easy.” Detective Wright sat back in his chair, his expression carefully neutral. He stared at Nick like he was weighing his worth. “We’re simply following up on information we’ve been given.”
I groaned. Of course he was. “Let me guess,” I grumbled. “Austin sent you?” The question earned me the same considering stare the detective had afforded Nick.
“We just want to find Chloe,” the detective reiterated. “As friends of hers, I’d have thought you’d want to help.”
“Of course we do,” Nick snapped, his fingers tapping impatiently on his thigh. “But you’re wasting your time coming here. You should be out searching. We haven’t seen Chloe since we dropped her back at the townhouse around noon yesterday.” His voice rose. “When did she go missing?”
“Rest assured, we are looking for Chloe,” the detective confirmed.
“We have teams canvassing the streets, and an experienced search team with dogs working the length of Riverside Park.” He looked Nick over again and sighed, softening his tone as he answered.
“She was last seen between three thirty and four in the afternoon. According to witnesses, she’d been quite muddled and confused after returning from your little . . . jaunt with her.”
Before Nick bit the man’s head off for the dismissive comment, I said, “It wasn’t a jaunt. She—” I snapped my mouth shut. The birthday card lie could easily come back to bite us in the butt. Nick caught my eye and I thought I saw approval there.
Wright gave me a measured look. “Chloe’s son disagrees.”
“He’s not her son,” Nick muttered.
The detective glanced Nick’s way before continuing.
“Austin’s partner was concerned enough to drive over and check on Chloe around nine thirty last night when she didn’t answer her phone.
When she got there, Chloe was gone. They combed the streets for about an hour and then called us.
We’ve been searching ever since. The temperature dipped to minus one last night, so you can imagine how worried they are and why we need to locate Chloe as soon as possible. ”
“Of course I bloody understand,” Nick finally snapped. “But we had nothing to do with Chloe’s disappearance. Right now, all I want to do is get the hell out of here and help find her.”
As Nick had been talking, I’d remembered something. “Chloe’s new phone. You should try it, Nick.”
As Nick reached for his phone, Wright’s gaze jerked back to mine. “What new phone?” he demanded.
I explained, “We purchased a new phone for her yesterday. Her old one had gone missing right after Austin walked in on our visit, as it happens.”
Wright’s eyes narrowed. “Are you implying he took her phone so you couldn’t call her?”
I shrugged. “It’s a convenient coincidence, that’s all.”
“No answer.” Nick dropped his phone in his lap and turned to Wright. “And just so we’re clear, Austin isn’t Chloe’s son, so please don’t call him that.”
Wright raised a questioning brow. “Do enlighten us.”
“Austin is the son of Chloe’s deceased partner,” Nick explained. “He was an adult when they met, and Chloe and Brendon were never married.”
The detective gave a slow nod. “I’ll be sure to check on that. But whatever the formal relationship is, I understand Austin’s been Chloe’s primary caregiver since she was diagnosed with Parkinson’s.”
Nick snorted. “Self-appointed caregiver, more like. Chloe’s not nearly as bad as Austin makes out. She—”
“What Nick means—” I interrupted, squeezing Nick’s knee hard.
His belligerence wasn’t exactly going to endear us to the detective.
“—is that Chloe told us she was diagnosed last year, and that she has good days and bad days. But in the short time we’ve spent with her, she’s been aware of her surroundings, oriented to time, date, and place, and able to participate in complicated conversations.
A little tired and forgetful, sure, and a bit unsteady on her feet.
But that’s it. We could be wrong, of course, but I’m telling you what we witnessed. ”
Nick shot me a grateful look, but the detective’s expression remained impassive as he eyeballed Nick. “Unlike you, Austin sees Chloe most days, and he says she has become a lot more confused, especially since you two appeared.”
I shared a look with Nick and could tell he was liking the direction this was headed about as much as I was.
The detective continued. “This isn’t the first time Chloe has wandered, apparently. Something Austin said he mentioned to you. He also said he basically has no idea who you are or where you’ve come from. He’s concerned about your motives and worried you might take advantage of her.”
I bristled, trying to hold my temper. “Now, wait just a minute. Chloe knows exactly who Nick is, and what’s more, she told Austin.”
The detective looked between us. “Austin mentioned that. But he also said her mind isn’t reliable. She’s easily manipulated and could be tricked into believing whatever you told her.”
Nick huffed. “Jesus Christ. And why the hell would we do that?”
The detective left the question hanging a moment, the answer obvious.
“If Chloe believed you were someone you weren’t, she might be inclined to hand over private information, maybe even passwords.
Austin said she was extremely upset and out of sorts after you left.
He believes that’s the reason behind why she wandered, if in fact that’s what she did, and there isn’t a more sinister reason for her disappearance.
Where were you two yesterday afternoon and last night? ”
My mouth gaped along with Nick’s. What the actual fuck was going on?
Nick launched himself out of his seat and loomed over the detective. “Are you fucking kidding me right now?”
The blond cop leaped to stand by Wright’s chair. “Sit down, Mister Fisher. Now.”
Nick scowled at the younger man but held his tongue and did as requested.
Jonothon Wright, who’d barely batted an eye at Nick’s theatrics, studied him as a spider would an insect caught in its web.
“I’m sorry,” Nick grumbled. “If you want to know where we were, we had lunch at The Decanter Room, then came back here where we’ve been ever since, together.”
“Is there anyone else who can verify that?”
In an attempt to avoid bloodshed, I answered for the both of us. “Nick called his brother-in-law, and I phoned the owner of the cottage, but that’s about it. You’re welcome to check our phone’s GPS if you feel it’s necessary.”
Nick glared at me.
I ignored him. His pissy attitude wasn’t helping.
The detective gave me a curious look. “Thank you for the offer. We might just take you up on that.”
“You’re welcome.” I opened my hands. “We’re not lying. We have no idea where Chloe is. We haven’t seen her since we left her with Belinda yesterday. We want to find her as much as you do.”
Nick interrupted, shocking the hell out of me by saying, “Getting back to my earlier point about Austin not being Chloe’s son: this is important because I am Chloe’s son, something Austin clearly doesn’t know and which happens to make me her next of kin.
That’s in fact why we’re down here. It’s why we went to see her.
We’ve been estranged for a while due to a number of complicated reasons, and it was Chloe who first contacted me to reconnect and come visit, not the other way around.
I have every right to see her. Possibly more right than Austin, if it comes down to it. ”