My Killer Vacation

“Fine.” The way his voice shifts, I know his husband is sitting next to him. “Still sneaking protein powder into everything I eat and wearing running shorts literally everywhere we go.” He pauses. “What’s your girl like?”

An image of her rises in my mind, the way she looked on day one. In a bikini top and shorts, no shoes, sun kissed and sweet and secretly wanting rough sex. Basically a miracle on two shapely legs, dropped into my lap from heaven. “She’s a second grade private school teacher from Connecticut. She’s…well.” The lump in my throat expands. “Beautiful is an understatement. She’s a planner. A caretaker. Always making sure everyone eats and has enough coffee. Smart as hell. Brave. She also cries a lot, but in a way that, I don’t know…it’s just fucking cute, all right? She’s stubborn and mischievous.” I turn and bang my head against the wall, which shakes loose the part I didn’t mean to say out loud. “She blows my mind in bed.”

“Christ, you’re a lot more open and honest than you used to be.”

The tips of my ears burn. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. I can’t wait to use that information against you at a later date.” Kevin laughs. “So where are you now? And where is she?”

I turn in a circle, looking around. Nothing is familiar because I spent all of my time working or with her. “I’m in my motel room in Cape Cod. She’s back at her rental house.”

“Drive your ass over there and apologize for whatever you did.”

“How do you know I’m in the wrong?” He says nothing. “Fine. It was me. All me. But I can’t just go over there and apologize. Apologizing doesn’t make us compatible. Did you miss the part about her being a teacher in Connecticut? My next job is in North Carolina. Then who the hell knows where. Taylor wants to get married. Be a parent. Settle down and be happy.”

“Sounds terrible. Who wants to be happy? Gross.”

I curse under my breath. “You’re not taking this seriously.”

“Yes, I am, asshole. What sounds better to you? Going back out on the road like some damaged desperado? Or moving in with your teacher and waking up naked with her?”

Oh. Oh sweet Jesus.

I never got a chance to wake up with her head on the pillow beside mine. She’d be so warm and snuggly. And horny for morning sex. She’d be so hot on top, those hips rocking up and back, our bellies slipping together. Sweaty. Afterward, I’d kiss her everywhere. Just kiss her all the way down to her toes while she laughed—and I am so completely ruined.

I’m decimated.

“Damaged desperado really rolled off the tongue,” I manage to push through my crowded throat. “Is that what you’ve been calling me since I left?”

“No. It’s what Mom has been calling you.”

“Ouch.”

When did I sit on the floor? I have no idea how I got here.

“Listen, Myles. You need to go grab your patch of happiness with two hands. They don’t come around very often. Some people don’t get this chance at all. You’re squandering it, man. Do you think she’s better off without you?”

“Yeah, probably—”

“Forget I asked that.” His finger taps against the receiver, like he’s thinking. “Imagine she made the same mistake as you. On the Bunton case. Do you think she’d deserve to be happy at some point in the future? Or would you want her depriving herself of everything good to try and make up for a human error?”

“Of course I wouldn’t want that,” I rasp, loathing the idea of her unhappy.

“I’m sure she doesn’t want that fate for you, either.”

“Yeah.” I tip my head back and notice a crack in the ceiling. It runs straight through the crown molding. Making me think of the peepholes in Oscar Stanley’s house.

There’s a loud gurgle in my stomach. I sit up straighter, my skin turning clammy.

The mayor couldn’t have fit in that crawl space, either.

Didn’t we decide that based on there being two holes, eye distance apart and angled downward, that someone must have actively been peeping at some point? Oscar couldn’t have fit in the crawl space, neither could Rhonda Robinson. It would make sense that the mayor would want to keep tabs on Oscar, since he was threatening to expose her duplicity, but…

But she wouldn’t have done it herself.

And this morning during the rally, when Taylor was hit in the head with the book, no way could Robinson have slipped away unnoticed in that crowd. But I know who could have.

Small, non-descript. Loyal.

“The assistant. The fucking assistant.”

“What?”

The contents of my stomach lurch upward. “I have to go. I…”

Taylor is out there. Vulnerable.

I left her without protection.

I don’t remember hanging up the phone on my brother. I’m already dialing Taylor. Holding the phone to my ear while ripping my keys out of my pocket, running at full speed into the parking lot. No answer. Of course not. The sound of her musical voice on the outgoing voicemail recording almost buckles my knees. Christ, oh Christ. I could lose her. Permanently. No. No, I can’t breathe. “Taylor, the peepholes,” I ramble, voice threadbare. “It had to be Rhonda’s assistant.” I’m barely able to think straight with her in potential danger. We might have arrested a guilty party. There are two of them, though. One is out there—and he’s violent. “Get somewhere safe. Now, sweetheart. Please. You and Jude. And wait for me. I’m coming.”





Chapter 21





Taylor





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Weird how I’ll cry over an Allstate commercial or two senior citizens holding hands, but right now, when my heart hurts worse with every pound, I can’t eke out a tear.