‘No,’ she admitted. ‘I’m really hungry. Can I eat before you grill me?’
Lucy stepped back, blinking away hurt. ‘Of course. Sure.’ She’d started to turn toward Thorne, who had lifted Jeremiah over his head and was jogging toward the pizza, both of them making plane noises. Gwyn grabbed her arm.
‘Wait.’ It was just the two of them in Clay’s entryway now. ‘They weren’t wrong. I just . . . It’s hard to take it all in, okay? Give me some time.’
‘Enough time for you to tell yourself all the reasons it won’t work?’
Gwyn looked away. ‘Probably.’
Lucy’s arm came around her shoulders again. ‘It was Jeremiah, wasn’t it? Seeing Thorne with him?’
‘A little, yes. I guess I missed how he looks at him. I’ve been out of it for so long, I just . . .’ None of what she’d said was untrue. It just wasn’t all of the truth.
Lucy smiled. ‘You mean how Thorne looks at Jeremiah like he loves him? You didn’t miss it before. Not really. Thorne doesn’t usually let that show unless he thinks no one’s looking. He’s all gruff when there are witnesses, but when it’s just him and Jeremiah? I’ve seen that look before. That he wasn’t guarding it just now says a lot, I think. He’s opening up. This experience, this horrible, terrifying experience, has gotten him to accept affection from the group. So it’s not all bad.’
‘No, not all bad,’ Gwyn murmured.
Lucy squeezed her shoulders. ‘And it’s gotten you to open up and maybe see things you hadn’t seen before too.’
‘Maybe,’ she allowed. She swallowed hard. ‘He’s a good man.’
‘He is. And if you’re about to say he deserves someone better, I will personally kick your ass.’
‘Let’s avoid that,’ Gwyn said dryly, because that had been exactly what she’d been thinking. ‘I really am hungry. Can we have this conversation later?’
‘One second,’ Lucy begged. ‘Just one detail, please. Was it what you’d hoped?’
Gwyn’s lips twitched, her smile breaking through despite her best efforts. ‘Okay, fine. It was stellar. Far better than I’d ever dreamed. Are you happy now?’
‘Yup.’ She smiled and steered Gwyn toward the food. ‘Sit and eat. We’ll pull everyone together. By the way, that was an amazing piece of deduction today. You did good, girl.’
‘Thanks.’ Piling her plate high, she found Thorne taking up most of a loveseat, leaving just enough space for her to snuggle in beside him. They ate steadily, pausing to greet Jamie and Frederick when they arrived and to nod as the chairs around them filled with their friends.
Gwyn could feel Thorne tensing as everyone came together. She leaned away from him so that she could see his face. It was at times like this, when she was tucked up against him, without the benefit of four-inch heels, that she felt overwhelmed by the sheer presence of him. And in a totally good way.
The man was lickable. Which she now knew for herself.
At the moment, her lickable man had schooled his expression, but she wasn’t fooled. ‘Stop it,’ she muttered. When he looked down at her, she just smiled at him. ‘Friends, Thorne. They are here because they want to be. They help you because they want to. Just like you did for them.’
He nodded stiffly. ‘I know,’ he said quietly. ‘I just can’t stand the thought of any of them getting hurt because of me.’
Lucy settled on the arm of the loveseat next to Thorne. ‘It wouldn’t be because of you. It’d be because of a sick, sadistic bastard who has his nuts in a twist because you once told him fucking no.’
Thorne pursed his lips, but this time it was to hide a smile. ‘Did you just say “nuts in a twist”?’
Lucy smacked a kiss on his cheek. ‘I did. And I’ll say it again, more loudly, once all the kiddies are downstairs.’
‘Who’s watching them?’ Gwyn asked, even though she knew the answer. She missed caring for her goddaughter. Providing childcare to Lucy’s kids had been of the things she’d looked forward to, but Taylor had stepped forward to take the job and Gwyn had let her, because she knew the young woman was still finding her place in her new family’s world and helping out was an easy niche to carve. This Gwyn understood. Helping Lucy with the kids had been healing as well as allowing her to support Lucy. Because I was a pretty shitty friend when it came to almost everything else. Babies didn’t judge, didn’t ask questions. They just loved you.
‘Taylor and Ford,’ Lucy said, just as she’d thought. ‘Taylor’s got an earbud, though, because she wants to know what’s going on up here. Sam’s here, by the way. In the house, I mean. Ruby’s with him, resting in one of the bedrooms upstairs.’
‘And Agent Ingram?’ Gwyn asked.
Lucy smiled. ‘He woke up. He’s not out of the woods yet, but his chances are much better now.’
‘Thank God,’ Thorne said quietly. ‘I’ve been afraid to ask.’
Jamie rolled his chair next to Gwyn. ‘Frederick and I stopped in to see him on our way out of the hospital tonight. His wife said he’s been squeezing her hand, which is very encouraging. He’s still on a ventilator, but it’s good to have some hope.’
On that note they simply sat, Gwyn and Thorne and Lucy, linked together just as they’d been from the beginning. It was sweet. And powerful. They were her family. And now Jamie and all the rest of the people here had become her family too.
And the members of her family were very good at their jobs, she thought as Clay and Frederick rolled a free-standing bulletin board into the room. The board was covered with photographs, clustered around two central pictures – one of Cesar Tavilla and the other of Thorne.
‘What the hell?’ Thorne whispered, staring.
‘It’s our crime board,’ Lucy said conspiratorially. ‘Please notice that you’re on the Good Guy side.’ It was hard to miss. Two big signs had been tacked to the top of the board: Bad Guy and Good Guy.
Thorne’s photo was one Gwyn had taken years ago as he’d played his bass on stage. He’d looked at peace in that moment, she remembered. And she’d wanted him then too.
It had been a long time since she’d heard him play, and she’d wondered why. But now she knew. It had been four and a half years. He’d been grieving too, because she’d gotten so lost in her own mind.
‘I’m glad to see I’m a good guy.’ Thorne put his plate aside to lean forward, forearms on his knees, scanning the display. There were dozens of photos and notes, with string connecting them.
‘So,’ Clay said. ‘We got tired of being targets. We’re taking charge. All of us, Thorne, and that includes you.’
‘I can live with that,’ Thorne said.
‘We thought so.’ Clay pointed to four Post-it notes, which someone had numbered one through four. Two simply had ‘male’ written on them, the third ‘male/killer’, and the fourth said ‘female’. All four were attached to Tavilla. ‘We know he has at least four people helping him. The two men who drugged you and carried you into your house, the woman who called you posing as your client, Bernice Brown, and the mask-wearing guy who took the two guys away from your house, then returned, sticking around for a few more hours. We figure he was the one who probably killed Patricia.’
A photo of Patricia was positioned in the middle of the board, with string connecting her to both the ‘male/killer’ and a photo of Richard Linden, which connected to Thorne.
Thorne frowned. ‘Probably?’
Alec nodded. ‘I took a closer look at the video Sam retrieved from your house. The masked man was there, but there was another person there too.’
Beside Gwyn, Thorne shifted uncomfortably. ‘Who?’
‘I don’t know. There’s just a shadow in the hallway as the person goes from your bedroom to the garage. He – or she – never comes into camera view, but there are clearly two different shadows at one point. One from the masked man and the other from the second person.’