by Lara Swann
“Noo!” Maya frowns and folds her arms. “I want to watch Frozen!”
“That’s not how you ask for things, Maya…”
I smile to myself at their conversation as I open the door, calling over my shoulder.
“Well how about we look through what I’ve got and find something we can agree on—”
I flick the lights on and then stop abruptly - so much so that Liam almost walks into me.
“What—” He starts, before he looks past me and sees exactly what I’m staring at.
The mess.
Except mess isn’t quite the right word. Wreckage might be better.
It looks like a hurricane came through here, displacing and destroying everything in its path. From here, I can see through the open doors to the sitting room and study - which both look exactly the same.
Papers everywhere. Knocked over lamps and furniture. Glass broken and lying around. Everything upturned and thrown all over the place.
“Oh my…god…”
“Stay here.” Liam says immediately, his voice taking on a crisp, commanding tone as he steps past me. “Maya, stay with Kelsey. I’m going to check the house - make sure there’s no one here.”
I step back and wrap my arms around Maya at his cue, but I shake my head as he storms past me, checking into the first two rooms with quick, efficient movements.
“I don’t think there’s anyone still here…” I start, but he’s gone before I can finish. If it wasn’t for Maya, I’d go after him, but I won’t risk that.
“What…Kelsey…what…”
“It’s okay.” I say, more shocked than anything.
“What’s happened?”
“I don’t know, sweetie, but maybe your Daddy and I will find out. It’s okay, though. It’s just stuff.” I crouch down and touch her cheek gently. “Looks like I’m going to have to redecorate, huh?”
She looks past me with wide eyes, before nodding slowly. “Yeah…”
I give her a small smile. “Maybe, when I’ve cleaned up all this silly mess, you could help me.”
“Maybe…” She repeats, still staring at the mess behind me.
“There’s no one here.” Liam confirms when he comes back downstairs and I stand up again, nodding at him. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah…yeah, I’m fine.” I say, looking past him at all the devastation.
He takes my hands and brings my gaze back to him, looking at me with concern written all across his expression.
“I’m going to take Maya somewhere else, okay? Maybe ask if Mark will watch her for a little bit. But then I’m going to come straight back here and help you with this.”
“It’s okay, you don’t need to—”
“Are you fu—flipping kidding me?” He stares at me. “Of course I am. Do you want to wait in my house while I—”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” I dismiss. “You’ve just said there’s no one here. I want to see what’s going on.”
He frowns, but reluctantly nods. “Okay, I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
He leans forward and kisses me - right in front of Maya - but I’m still dazed as he guides her gently out of the house, trying to answer her sudden influx of questions about what’s happening and why.
If only we knew, Maya. If only we knew…
Though, as I step gingerly through the mess, I think I have a pretty good idea. And I’m not at all sure how I feel about that, my stomach churning with it.
The next few minutes only confirm it. I go straight to my study - by far the most trashed room - and just as I expect, everything I look for is gone. I’m still trying to look through all of the mess when Liam returns, storming in with as much visibly coiled tension as he displayed when searching the house.
“They took it all.” I say, disbelief and a weird tinge of what might be anticipation in my voice, as I glance over at him. “My folders, my work bag, my laptop…all the information I had. Everything I’d collected.”
I know I should be more concerned that my home is in ruins, but right now I can’t think about that. I can’t think much past the bubbling feeling in my stomach, the growing…excitement.
“Everything you’d collected?” He frowns at me, taking my hands and helping me up off my knees.
“For the investigation I was doing.” I say, my breath catching in my throat. “That’s what this is about - look what they’ve done!”
His frown deepens - and I can understand it. My reaction probably doesn’t make much sense.
“Don’t you understand?” I say, grabbing his hand with a sudden grin. “This proves it. This proves I was right - that I was onto something, and getting too close, and they wanted to know what I had—to stop me—”
“Kelsey.” His voice cuts through me, unexpectedly sharp, and I blink. “Look around you. Your home is destroyed—”
“I’ll have to clear it all up—” I start, with a shrug, before he interrupts me again, his eyes almost bugging out of his head.
“Don’t you get it? They did this to your home and you’re excited about it? What if you’d been here? What if whoever did this found you instead of all those documents—”
“Well, they didn’t.” I say, frowning myself now. “And if I’d been home, they probably wouldn’t have—”
“Probably wouldn’t have?!” He asks, incredulously. “You can’t know that—god, aren’t you—worried? At all?”
I blink. “I don’t know. Probably. I haven’t thought about that yet. But this gives us something to follow up on - this means that I must have been on the right track, with some of it. You were right, the other day, maybe we should have been following the workmen instead—”
“No.” He shakes his head. “No, we shouldn’t be doing anything of the sort. If anything, this is a warning and these people - they’re obviously dangerous—”
“Just because it’s a warning, doesn’t mean we have to take it.” I say, looking around again. “I mean, god, can you imagine? All this time, the whole town has been ripped off and scammed…we need to do something about that.”
“Kelsey.” He says again, and something in his voice brings me back from my reverie about the significance of all this. “What we need to do is get the Sheriff over here, report what we know to him and tell him what was stolen - and then let him take care of it.”
“What?”
“It’s too much - too dangerous. You’re in way over your head and you don’t have a clue what you’re doing—”
I pull back from him, the words feeling like a slap in the face. “Well, help me then. I might not be the most qualified person, but I got this far—”
“Doesn’t this scare you? Not even a little bit?!”
It’s the fear in his voice that gets through to me, and I stare at him for a long moment.
Then I look around, really taking in what happened here, think about the guy I saw in the town archives and what might have happened to Margaret - and swallow slightly.
“Okay, yes.” I say, quieter now. “Maybe I am scared. Maybe a bit. It doesn’t quite feel…real…but, yes, I’m not stupid. I know what I’m doing is dangerous. I’ve felt that every time I’ve worked on this. But I also know that if we leave this with the Sheriff, that’s the end of the investigation right there. There’s no way Morrison will believe anything I say about the Mayor. They’re good friends. If anything, I could get arrested.”
“Okay, so don’t tell him about that - but you have to report it. Tell him some documents and your laptop and work notes were stolen, and leave him to investigate that.”
“Okay…” I say slowly. “And?”
“And?”
“What about the investigation?”
He takes a breath, looking at me with the most serious expression I think I’ve seen. “I think you should drop it.”
“What?!” I look back at him. He can’t be serious.
“This isn’t a good idea, Kelsey. We have no idea who these people are or what they’re capable of—”
<
br /> “What, so they should just be allowed to continue robbing our town blind?”
He lets out a long breath, running his hand through his hair. “These things aren’t that simple—”
“You might have only just moved here, but this is my town. I love these people. All of them. I’m not about to stand by and—”
He takes a step forward and kisses me, his hands cupping my face and pulling my mouth into his. It’s hot, and infuriating, and totally distracting all at once.
“Kelsey, your passion is…breathtakingly hot.” He murmurs, close enough that all I can see are those intent blue eyes on me. “But some things aren’t worth it. Believe me. All this stuff…what if it had been you I found here tonight? I don’t…I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you.”
The appeal is obvious in his eyes and my breath catches in my throat as I look at him. I can feel my heart thumping in my chest at his words, each beat vibrating against my ribs.
It’s the most either of us has ever said to each other.
“You’re asking me…to give it up?” I whisper, just as intimately as I look at him, the distress of it rushing through me. “To just…let this happen?”
He pauses for a long moment, before finally nodding. “You don’t even know that you’d find anything - that it would make a difference. You don’t know what you’re up against, Kelsey.”
I can feel the tears stinging in my eyes, the lump rising in my throat as I take a step back, out of his hands. Out of that distracting, confusing place.
“I…I don’t know if I can do that.” I say, my voice feeling hoarse. “It doesn’t feel right.”
“Neither does watching you throw yourself into danger.” He says quietly. “I don’t know whether…I can risk that.”
I swallow. That feels an awful lot like an ultimatum to me. A stand off. And the worst part is, I understand it. After everything he’s told me…how could I not? He doesn’t want to risk someone else he cares about getting hurt. Not again.
I understand it, but…I’m not sure that helps.
He’s watching me, waiting for my decision, and I can feel the pressure of it mount. A pressure I never wanted. One that I thought I’d left behind me.
“This…doesn’t sound like casual anymore, Liam.” I say, finally voicing the thoughts running through my mind, the echo of the hard beat thumping in my chest.
I wait for him to respond, my heart thumping hard in my chest for a few long moments.
When he finally speaks, it’s with a hint of a grim smile on his face. “Casual is harder than I thought.”
It’s an exact echo of my own thoughts, and I wonder for a moment how long he’s felt that way - and known that he does. If it’s been a while…if it’s longer than I have…
Just how long have we been fooling ourselves?
“It’s…not quite what I signed up for.” I say, hearing the slight edge of alarm in my own voice. “I’m not sure if…I can do it. I’m not ready to…to give things up—”
“Who said you had to give anything up?” He asks, his voice a deep rumble.
“You’re asking me to give something up. Right here and now.” I say, the thought of it fluttering in my belly. “I never said you could do that. That’s never what this was about—”
“I’m asking you to look after yourself.” He cuts through. “That’s all.”
I stop, taking a deep breath as my eyes close for a brief moment and my heart sinks into my stomach, the slow realization turning to dread within me.
“I’m not sure I can leave this alone, Liam.” I say slowly. “I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to leave things alone - not when they’re important - when I could be doing something that matters.”
He holds my gaze for a long moment and I can almost feel myself wavering, but the truth of it is too strong. The reality of the problem we have. The one that I carefully haven’t been thinking about, because this was just a casual thing, so it didn’t matter. But our priorities are different - we want different things. He wants a quiet life with his daughter, away from anything serious that might happen. I’ve always wanted and needed too much of the opposite.
I steel myself as I make the only decision it feels like I can make. I’m not ready or willing or prepared to give all this up, even though I know he needs me to…but I don’t want to think about what giving him up might mean, either. I’m not exactly ready or willing or prepared for that, either, but all this has come out of nowhere. Until recently, I hadn’t even let myself think there was something between us to give up. Not something I might not be willing to give up, anyway.
But all I can do right now is what I feel is right.
“I have to do this, Liam.” I finally tell him. “I’m not going to let them intimidate me. I know it’s risky, but exposing this would be worth it.”
He slowly nods, and I feel terrible for the way his expression stiffens and closes off, his whole body tightening up.
I already know the answer, but I have to ask anyway. Just in case.
“Will you help me?” I ask, with a hope I know is stupid. I just want to think this might not be what I think it is - that what he said earlier might not quite mean what I think.
“I can’t.” He says, his own voice full of regret, and something else too.
I just nod. I can’t make him feel bad for that. I understand it too much.
“I’ll help you clear all this up.” He starts offering. “Call the Sheriff and—”
“No.” I say, shaking my head before I can hear it. I can’t deal with that right now. “That’s okay. I’ve got it.”
“Kelsey—”
“You should get back to Maya.” I say instead. “All this might have scared her.”
He hesitates, but that sways him, as I’d known it would. He looks at me for one last, long moment, and I hate the way I feel like we’re memorizing each others’ features. As if we’re not going to see each other again. That’s stupid. We live next to each other. We’re friends.
What the fuck are we doing?
Then he nods and turns to go.
I don’t follow him out, but I can’t take my eyes away, either.
I can’t help the stupid part inside me that waits, for a while, for him to burst back in and say that he’ll help me - that we’ll do this together - find the guys behind this and sort out the mess they’ve made of this town.
Wanting that. So badly.
But I already know the reason why he won’t - and I can’t blame him for it. Not at all.
Maya.
He won’t put himself in danger and risk what she’d go through if something happened to him - or even, slim though it might be, the chance that she might get dragged into it all. As he said, we don’t know what these people might be capable of.
No, I can’t blame him for that.
If I had a kid, maybe I’d feel differently too.
But I don’t.
I just have my slightly screwed up life to do what I want with…and this investigation.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Liam
“Ohh fuudging—flipping—fadoodling—donuts!”
I yell as I pull the cupcakes out of the oven, almost burning myself on the overly worn and too-thin oven mitt.
Why the hell haven’t I thrown that away already?!
I drop the cupcake tray on the kitchen counter before pivoting and launching the mitt in the direction of the trash on the other side of the room before looking at the disaster in front of me. The cupcakes around the edge are all burned, the bitter smell of it rising up from them, while the ones in the center are obviously undercooked, the center of them sinking in.
I only wanted to make one set to take into the store and save a little time tomorrow, but this is the third batch. Each one seems worse than the last.
God damn it.
I can’t seem to do anything right at the moment.
Since that conversation with Kelsey, I’ve spent the last few days feeling miserabl
e and second-guessing myself, just waiting for these stupid feelings to disappear and for me to start getting over it. So far, that hasn’t happened. If anything, I think it’s gotten worse.
“What’s wrong, Daddy?” Maya’s voice comes from the doorway, and I look over with a flash of guilt.
“Sorry.” I say, rubbing a hand over my face. “I didn’t mean to yell, sweetie. Did I startle you?”
“No. And I don’t want you to say sorry, Daddy.” She folds her arms, looking about as imperious as an eight-year-old can probably get. “I want you to tell me what’s wrong.”
I have no idea where she gets that attitude from, and another time I would probably find it adorable, but right now I just feel tired. I lean back against the counter with a sigh and shrug.
“I burned the cupcakes again.”
She walks over to me, looks at the cupcakes for a moment, before pinning me with that same unrelenting look. I have an unsettling feeling she might get that from me.
“No, I mean what’s really wrong. And it isn’t the cupcakes.” She announces, arms still folded.
I’d be tempted to question her certainty if she wasn’t…well…right.
“C’mon, princess.” I say instead, picking her up and carrying her over into the sitting room. “I’m not making any more cupcakes tonight.”
For the first time in a little while she doesn’t object or squirm at me picking her up - and that’s enough to tell me that she’s picked up on far too much of my mood these last few days. It’s not fair to her, but right now, I can’t exactly control it, either.
I set us down together on the couch and she cuddles up to me immediately. It makes me smile, just briefly, but then I think about the number of times we’ve sat here with Kelsey just on the other side of her and that now-familiar pang goes through my chest again.
It’s stupid. This was exactly what we decided we weren’t going to do. And somehow we did it anyway.
“I’m sorry, sweetie.” I finally say, shaking my head. “Nothing seems to be going right at the moment.”
I don’t know what to say. There’s no way I can explain all this to her - she’s just a kid - and I don’t think I’d want to anyway. It would only confuse her.
