The Forgotten Summer 6 (Newport Beach #6)

Chapter 1

Abigail’s stomach felt like she had eaten three large pizzas on her own before jumping on a roller coaster. The more Bee spoke, the more unwell Abigail felt, despite how much sense the recent developments made in light of these revelations. They had been sitting in Abigail and Byron’s hotel room for well over an hour while Bee explained her whereabouts for the last few weeks.

“So,” John said, standing and turning his back on Bee, “you expect me to believe you just accidentally became friends with the woman who owns the safe house you and your father were ferried through?”

Bee gritted her teeth with a click, not for the first time, and Abigail worried that all this agitation was going to break a filling.

“Accidental on my part, sure, but I think you’ll find she sought me out.”

John glanced at Abigail with a raised eyebrow. It annoyed Abigail how dismissive he was being to Bee and her story.

“Yeah, I bumped into her at a market, then found out she knew a bit about local history,” Abigail said, “so I asked around and found out where she worked. Honestly, if I had found out someone had done what I did, I’d have been pretty weirded out.”

“Aw, that’s actually kind of cute,” Bee said with a smirk, “I was weirded out, to be fair, but … well you were interesting.”

“Uh… thanks?” Abigail replied, “Is that a compliment?”

“From me it is,” Bee said with a smile followed quickly by a wince as the stitch in her lip pulled.

“Are you actually okay?” Byron asked. “I feel like that lip shouldn’t be so painful still…”

The look he gave his brother made Abigail suspicious. Was this genuine care for Bee, or was he giving John some kind of keyword to… her thought trailed off as John’s face darkened.

“From what I was told, your friend here refused medical treatment for three days.”

Abigail whipped her attention back to Bee who looked sheepish in return.

“What!?” Abigail exclaimed.

Bee shuffled her feet under the table and lifted her hand to cover the side of her face that was still mottled with bruising.

“I… just didn’t care,” she said quietly. “I was more worried about you guys… if what I did put you in danger.”

“I still don’t quite understand what you did do,” Byron said gently, “you were, uh, a little upset before.”

Sobbing would have been more accurate, but Abigail knew Bee well enough to understand that Byron had chosen the political approach.

Her friend took a deep breath and sighed it out slowly, because Bee was her friend no matter what had transpired… right? Abigail wondered briefly if Bee felt the same way but quickly ushered it out of her mind.

“So, when I saw the picture of my dad, I… kind of panicked,” she said, “I’ll be honest, I knew I probably shouldn’t have been sharing the information I had about the others in the photos. I really didn’t put all the pieces together, I swear.”

Abigail saw a look pass between the brothers, and she chose not to comment. She’d ask Byron about it later when they were alone. The thought brought a tingling feeling of heat to her face as her mind vividly replayed the frantic, hungry kiss they had shared so recently. Praying her face wasn’t actually flushing with color, Abigail pressed her hand to her cheek and cleared her throat.

“I know, I believe you,” she said, smiling reassuringly at Bee.

Returning that smile, Bee continued.

“Thank you… and yeah, please don’t tell Cleo this bit, but when she made such a song and dance about me knowing such horrible things. I was mad. Like, really mad. Her judgmental schtick is the only thing that really riles me about that woman… so when I left, I was feeling impulsive. I called an old friend, knowing full well that I really shouldn’t, but she was kind of like me, you know? Caught up in her father’s nonsense and I didn’t think it was fair for her to be outed by whatever was going on. I think… I think it might have been her who broke in and stole the papers. I guess she’s more involved than I thought.”

Byron nodded, and Abigail watched him carefully. There was no way he hadn’t gleaned that information from Bee the first three times she had told her story, so there had to be another reason.

“I’m really sorry,” Bee said, facing Abigail. “I really thought she would take it as a warning that something bad might be coming… not break into your house and put your lives in danger.”

“Well, our lives weren’t really in danger, were they?”

Bee looked exceedingly guilty as she gestured to her face.

“I didn’t think so,” she said, “I called her and the next day… it wasn’t her who showed up. They were only asking about things they told her on the phone call, so I managed to solve that particular riddle really quickly. Anyway, that was before I called my emergency signal and got swept off in the middle of the night. Which I am also sorry about. Being in protective custody, you don’t get to tell anyone anything. Ever.”

A snort of laughter broke the silence they had briefly fallen into and they all turned to look at John.

“You just spent an hour telling us all the ways you completely disregarded every single rule in the book about your own safety and security.”

Abigail couldn’t help but agree with him, even though she was firmly on Bee’s side. He was still talking when a thought popped into her mind.

“The mugger, in New York… Was that, er, connected?”

A look of confusion and horror washed over Bee’s face as she looked from Abigail to John.

“What is she talking about?”

John raised his hands in supplication. “Nothing. And no.”

“Nothing?” Bee repeated, scoffing, “Abby?”

The look on John’s face was unreadable, but Abigail knew she had no particular desire to please John or lie to Bee.

“First day we were in New York, we got jumped in the subway,” she said without hesitation, “lost all my clothes and ID.”

“What?!” Bee asked frantically. “Did he say anything? Did he seem after something in particular?”

“No,” Abigail admitted, “well, I’ve never been mugged before but it seemed exactly like a normal mugging would go.”

Byron had reached out and squeezed her arm, the contact sending a ripple of feeling out from the spot where he was making contact.

“It did seem pretty run of the mill,” he confirmed, “the cops didn’t even bat an eye.”

The news seemed to disturb Bee, who had started pacing. “Why didn’t you tell me about this?”

Her demand made John wince. “Because we looked into it, and it wasn’t connected. We didn’t need you even more on edge than you already were.”

He glared at Abigail, which only made her more resolutely determined not to please him.

“Oh, you did, did you?” she asked, “did you find my stuff and decide not to let me have it back, or what?”

“No,” John said, deliberately calm, “we did, however, find someone matching the man’s description with a whole week’s supply of alcohol and his stuff shoved into a backpack unlikely to have been his. He’s being processed locally as it was decided he had nothing to do with any of our interests.”

It seemed to Abigail that she was destined to be at odds with Byron’s brother, but from the amused smirks she caught Byron indulging in when she and John locked horns, it didn’t seem to bother him.

“Right, you realize that isn’t that much better?”

She could almost feel the effort it was taking for John to avoid rolling his eyes at her.

“It is what it is,” he said to Abigail before turning his face to Bee. “We may still need to relocate you. We think there is too much risk to leaving you in Newport.”

“But I love it there!” Bee exclaimed, “I’ve actually managed to build something close to a life…”

“Be that as it may,” John replied, “your food truck is not more important than your actual living, breathing, heart continuing to beat life.”

That was probably not the polite route, Abigail thought as she watched Bee’s face twist in anger, one brother certainly has a better grasp on that skill than the other.

Byron seemed to be thinking the same thing as he caught Abigail’s gaze and she caught a hint of a smile on his face.

“Listen,” he said, cutting off John and Bee as they bickered. “This is all well and good, but we need to be logical about what happens next.”

“What happens next is that the protective security detail will make the decisions around her case and then she’ll do it. You two… I don’t even know what they’re going to do about you two.”

“Do we think we could get some food first?” Byron asked. “I know it’s not exactly lunchtime but unless a lot has changed since I was last on the job, if we get the request in now, we might end up eating at an appropriate time.”

“I am kind of hungry,” Abigail said, “a pizza in several hours may well be too late…”

John was looking from Abigail to Byron in disbelief.

“Right, sure. Whatever,” John said with a sigh as he stood and exited the room.

She was certain they were not as alone as they felt in that moment, but it was nice to be able to take a breath without literally being watched by the US marshal. As soon as the door closed, Bee caught Abigail’s gaze, and despite only knowing her for a few months, Abigail felt like she could read the other woman’s expression.

“Now,” Abigail said, “I know you’ve got this whole, very tough and independent thing going on, but do you want a hug.”

“No,” Bee replied, looking away.

“Are you sure?”

She glanced back, flicking between Abigail and Byron.

“I’ll deny it ever happened,” he said, making an exaggerated motion of picking up a nearby magazine and flipping it open to a random page.

Bee gave a small chuckle and moved towards Abigail. “Just be careful of my lip… it actually still really hurts.”

Abigail carefully threaded her arms around the other woman, usually so tough and prickly you wouldn’t dare offer help, and positioned her shoulders so that Bee could press her face into Abigail without risking her stitches getting pulled. There was a moment of hesitation before Bee’s hands grasped at her back and squeezed her tightly. The pair stood like that for several minutes, and Abigail was certain at one point that she felt Bee’s shoulders rack with a stifled sob. However, when they finally pulled away, the other woman’s eyes were dry.

“Okay,” she said, “tell me why you were at my safe house? Sargent Tightwad wouldn’t tell me anything at all.”

Byron snorted, “That’s Marshal Tightwad, I think you mean.”

The three of them shared a laugh that felt at once entirely natural and utterly inappropriate for their surroundings.

“All right,” Abigail said, “but it’s not a fun story.”

By the time Abigail had finished recounting the events that had brought her and Byron so far out of the city and nearly knocking on the door of a classified location, Bee was staring at them in wide-eyed disbelief.

“You… you looked through Jacob’s autopsy photos?” she asked. “I honestly would not have thought you had that in you.”

Abigail laughed. “Neither did I, to be fair, but when faced with the choice to find out what happened or go home because I didn’t have the stomach to do something as simple as look at photos of something unpleasant. I had no idea it would lead us to all this.”

With a nod, Bee leaned back in her seat. “We have to get back to Newport. If something happens to Cleo, I’ll never forgive myself, and if anything is going to happen, it’s going to be there—not here. I can’t keep hiding, guys.”

Her pleading eyes were matched with a determined and grim expression that Abigail wasn’t sure she’d have the nerve to cross even if she wanted to.

“Agreed,” she said, looking to Byron for confirmation.

Slowly, he took in the two women’s expressions and eventually nodded.

“Agreed.”