Gill didn’t answer with words, but he gave her a look in the rearview mirror that said he might be enjoying her misery a teensy bit.
She stuck her tongue out at him. “You sure we actually have an appointment? Or are you just trying to torture me?” Snark dominated Evanee’s tone. She couldn’t help it. She supposed Gill and Lathan thought she wasn’t a morning person, but it went way beyond not getting her morning cup of wake-up juice in her rush to get out the door.
At least Lathan was with her. She wasn’t going to have to endure entering Matt’s domain alone.
The car crested the last hill before their destination. Alongside the road, the bear totem caught her attention. The animal had been there her entire life, but it had been something that lived on the periphery of her vision, never gaining her full attention until now. The carving was exquisitely detailed and so lifelike that she turned in her seat and studied the inanimate wood, half expecting the bear to turn his head and watch them drive down the hill.
When she turned back around, she caught Lathan staring out the back window toward the bear totem too. Maybe he’d never seen it before.
Gill slowed the car at the bottom of the hill, and Lathan turned to face front again. “You realize this is the place you sent me to work a few months back?”
A confused look passed over Gill’s face.
“The Isleen Walker case.” Lathan said as if Gill should remember.
Lathan had worked the Isleen Walker case? Just what kind of job did he have? Everyone knew Isleen Walker. Her story had been all over the news. She’d spent years being tortured before Matt’s nephew, Xander, had saved her. Only for her to be kidnapped again from this property. Shortly after all that went down, Matt had broken it off with Evanee.
Gill shook his head and let out a low whistle, then pulled into the driveway. He turned to Lathan. “I didn’t realize the Institute of Oneirology was on the same property.” He faced the driveway again, gassing the car to gain enough momentum to carry them up the steep driveway.
The forest on either side of the car was dead, desiccated, despairing. Her rib cage tightened around her heart and lungs—protecting her vitals from the pummeling they were about to endure.
Gravel crunched and popped under the car tires, drilling into Evanee’s brain with all the annoyance of a jackhammer to the eardrums. The noise was just convenient to blame for her frazzled feelings. The core of her problem resided at the end of the driveway. Matt’s place—the Ohio Institute of Oneirology—a colossal reminder of her shame.
The car pulled around a deep curve in the drive, and the OIO came into sight. Only it didn’t look like a research facility. It looked like a log-cabin mansion had married a fairy tale and they’d had a baby—the OIO.
The house seemed to grow out of the forest as if it were part of the landscape instead of man-made. The structure was as tall as the trees surrounding it and nearly as wide as the clearing it rested in. A deep porch wrapped around the building, hugging the angular curves like a ballerina’s tutu. Windows of all shapes and sizes ornamented the front and sides in organic symmetry. The place was like nothing else.
A sense of awe tried to steal over her, but shame drowned it.
What was she going to say when she saw Matt? What would he say? Her stomach crawled halfway up her throat. She’d never been carsick before, but today might be good day for it. She’d be sure to spew all over Gill’s cushy leather seats and on the carpet, and it’d be awesome if she could aim right at his Ken doll face. What sweet retaliation that would be for forcing her into this interview!
Lathan twisted in the passenger seat, his expression one she’d seen too damned many times since she’d met him—concern. “Explain why you’re ashamed to be going here.”
His words were an arrow directly through her thoughts. Obviously, she wasn’t doing a very good job of pretending to be okay with the forthcoming humiliation. She tried to smile, but her execution was off—it felt more like a grimace. “I’m fine.”
“You’re lying.” The freckles on his face that she always found so endearing seemed to darken, hardening him. The tattoo on his cheek became menacing. Scary. “Don’t ever lie to me. I’ll know it every time.”
“He’s right. He’s a human lie detector,” Gill chimed in from the front seat.
She felt like slapping the back of Gill’s head, NCIS style. Could he be serious? Could Lathan really be a human lie detector?
“Stop the car.” Lathan spoke like he was in command of a platoon.
Even though they were within sight of the house, Gill jammed on the brakes. Evanee whiplashed forward, then slammed back against the headrest. Jerk. He did that on purpose.
“Spill it.” Lathan’s tone held no room for refusal.
The last bit of her dignity ghosted away. “Remember me telling you about”—Crap. What was she gonna call him with Gill sitting right here?—“my ex?”
“Yeah.” Lathan’s voice sounded cautious.
“His family owns this facility. He lives here.” She hoped Lathan couldn’t hear the dread dripping off each of her words. She didn’t want to be pathetic, even if that’s how she felt.
“Shit.”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t give two shits who owns it. You’re still going to the meeting.” Gill whispered the words. “So don’t try to get him to let you out of it.”
The lid on her Can-O-Angry-Woman popped off. She pointed a finger at Gill. “Don’t ever talk to me so quietly that Lathan can’t hear.”
Lathan’s attention snapped to Gill. For a split second, she saw the vulnerable little boy Lathan must’ve once been, but any weakness disappeared behind a shield of menace and a tattoo that threatened blood. She couldn’t see it, but she could feel the shadow monster of Lathan’s anger grow and grow until it engulfed the interior of the car.