“Like choose which award shows we’d attend. If he was going to be at one, I wouldn’t be. Like they were holidays you split the kids between. I don’t know. I remember when my parents got divorced, it was screaming matches and throwing things and drunkenness. Not...paperwork.”
“So it was amicable?”
Daisy hesitated. She’d dug her own grave, so to speak, with some of her behavior after she’d asked for the divorce. Because when he’d politely accepted her request and immediately obtained the necessary paperwork, she’d been...
Sometimes she tried to convince herself her pride had been injured, but the truth was she’d been devastated. She’d thrown out divorce as an option to get some kind of reaction out of him, to ignite a spark like they’d had before they’d gotten married.
But he’d gone along. Agreed. Wanted custody agreements over award shows.
So she hadn’t handled herself well. At all. She’d never imagined this. She’d only acted out her hurt and anger and betrayal the best way she knew how.
Breaking stuff and getting drunk.
“He was amicable, I guess you could say. I was...less so.”
“But you were the one who asked for the divorce.”
“Yes.” As much as she didn’t want to get into this with Zach, she supposed she’d end up giving him whatever information he thought might help with his precious patterns. What else was there to do? How else did she survive this?
“Yes, because I wanted him to fight for me, or be mad at me or react to me in some way. But he didn’t. I started thinking he’d never loved me, because he was so calm. If there’d been love, it would have gone bitter. Mine did. I think he just used me for as long as I’d let him, then was happy to move on.” As if it had been his plan all along.
Even now, a year later, the stab of pain that went along with that was hard to swallow down or rationalize away.
There were bigger tragedies in the world than a failed marriage, including her dead bodyguard.
“So maybe it could be Jordan, but if it is him, it’s not because I divorced him. Trust me, he got everything he wanted and more out of that situation. I don’t think he’d sully his precious reputation by slapping back at me, when the press did all the work eviscerating me for him.”
“Okay. What about other exes?”
“Because only a jilted lover could be after me?”
“Because we’re going through the rational options first. We’ll move to the irrational crazed fan angle after—” The sound of a phone trilling cut him off.
He pulled his cell out of his pocket, glanced at the display, then answered. “Yeah?” His face changed. She couldn’t have described how. A tensing, maybe? Suddenly, there was more of an edge to him. The blandness sharpened into something that made her stomach tighten with a little bit of fear, and just a touch of very inappropriate lust.
If only she knew how to be appropriate.
He fired off questions like when? and description? jotting down what she assumed were the answers on the back of one of the many pieces of paper in the file.
“Get what you can for me,” he said tersely and hung up.
He jotted a few more things down then got to his feet like he was going to walk off to his room without saying anything.
“What was that?” Daisy demanded, hating the hint of hysteria in her voice.
“Just some updates. Nothing to worry about.”
She fairly leaped out of her chair and grabbed his arm before he could disappear into his room.
He clearly didn’t know her very well because he raised a condescending eyebrow, like that would have her moving her hand. But she’d be damned if she was letting go until she said what she had to say. “You want me safe? I have to know what’s going on.”
“That isn’t necessarily true,” he replied in that bland tone of his. “Knowing doesn’t do much. All you have to do is stay put. I’ll be back.”
“You’ll be back? You don’t honestly expect me to—”
“I expect you to listen to the man currently keeping you safe. Do me a favor? Don’t be cliché or stupid. Which means stay put. I’ll be back.” And then he walked out the front door.
And locked it from the outside.
* * *
ZACH HAD NO doubt he’d made all the wrong moves in there, but he didn’t have time to make the right ones. He pocketed his keys, double-checked the gun holstered to his side and stepped out into daylight.
He took a deep breath of the fresh air, trying not to feel the prick of guilt at Daisy being locked inside for close to twenty-four hours. But it was for her safety, and Cam’s phone call proved to him that he had to keep being excessively vigilant.
Which was why he scowled when Cam pulled up to the shack that disguised a garage behind the big house. Hilly was in the passenger seat so Zach tried to fix his expression into something neutral, but his sister being here complicated things.
Hilly was acting as their assistant. She ran the errands for groceries and the like, and she was helping with some of the paperwork while she went through nursing school.
Cam pulled his truck into the garage, then he and Hilly exited. Zach pushed the button himself to close the door so it went back to looking like a falling-down shack.
Cam’s expression grave and Hilly’s suspicious. “I still can’t believe this place,” she said with a little shudder. “It’s so creepy from the outside.”
Zach smiled thinly. “And, as you well know, perfectly livable from the inside. So what’s the deal?”
“Is she in there?” Hilly asked with a frown.
“Yeah.”
“Well, let’s go inside.”
Zach rocked back on his heels. “Not a great idea right now. Besides, she doesn’t need to know about this.”
Hilly’s frown deepened. Zach wanted to scowl at Cam for bringing her, but that would only make Hilly angrier.
Truth be told, he didn’t understand the way Hilly got angry at all. It was sneaky, and came at you in new and confusing ways. Like guilt. He didn’t care for it.
She glanced back at Cam. “I thought I was here to see what Daisy needed.”
“You are,” Cam agreed. “I just have some things I need to discuss with Zach about the case privately. I thought maybe I could do that while you talk to Daisy about anything she might need.”
She looked back at Zach, her lips pursed, surveying him. An expression he never
