“If you don’t live there anymore, why were you there Friday night?” I said.
“I told you. Paperwork.”
“You can do paperwork anywhere. Why do it at the house where your wife was murdered?”
He reached for his lukewarm tea. “Because I haven’t been there since she died. It had become a monster, in my mind anyway. On Monday, it will be a different place. The staging crew will have it stuffed with carefully curated art and knickknacks.” He shrugged. “I wanted to prove to myself that it had no more power over me.”
“Is that why you wanted Trey to come? To prove he had no power over you either?”
Nick gave me a hard look, defensive and accusing at the same time. “Look, I can’t move forward until I deal with the past. I thought I’d done that, but apparently my past is not done with me because it showed up the other night and tried to put a bullet in my head. I want it to be over. Over and done and finally, for the love of God, past. That’s why I went out there.”
Trey raised an eyebrow. “And did that work for you?”
“It did not.” Nick looked Trey up and down. He wore the same expression Trey did when he was evaluating the veracity of a statement—gaze focused on the lips, eyes narrowed. “You know what? Go see for yourself.”
“See what?”
“The house. You’re a premises liability expert—I know, because I looked you up. Quint’s probably there. I’ll tell him you’re on your way.” He leaned over and pulled a key ring from the makeup table drawer. “But here. Just in case.”
He tossed the key to Trey, who caught it one-handed. He examined it carefully, as if it were a trap, but Nick waved him toward the door.
“Go on. Investigate the scene. Only this time do it on your own terms and not some dirty cop’s.”
Trey hesitated for only one second before closing his fingers around the key.
Chapter Eighteen
Once we were out of the trailer, Trey made straight for the parking lot like some well-dressed homing pigeon. I had to hustle to keep up. “What are you doing?”
“Going to the Talbot house.”
“I know that. I mean, why?”
“Nick Talbot didn’t kill his wife. And now someone may be trying to kill him.”
“Yes, but why does that mean you have to go over there?”
Trey didn’t answer. Which didn’t matter because I knew why he was doing it. It was the same reason why at least once a week, he drove past the concrete embankment he’d plowed into almost four years ago. Why I kept that envelope in the cash register right where I could see it. Keep your enemies close, and your demons closer.
I inserted myself between him and the Ferrari. His eyes were dark in the late light, his hair tipped with sunset flame, and I could feel the metal door behind me, hot through my jeans.
“I don’t think you should go,” I said.
“Really?”
“Yes, really. And I know what you’re going to say next.”
“Do you?”
“I do.” I licked my lips. “I will admit, I do not always make the most cautious decisions. But you do. And your argument has always been that complicated criminal matters are best left to professionals.”
His eyes flashed. “Yes. And then you ignore me, or lie to me, or distract me, or involve me without my knowledge, or—”
“Your point?”
He took a deep calming breath. “My point is that it would be…problematic for you to ask me to cease and desist now.”
“Problematic? You know what’s problematic?” I flung a finger back toward Nick’s trailer. “Thirty minutes ago, you were two seconds away from a hyperventilating panic attack—”
“I was not.”
“—and now you wanna go barge into—”
“Not barge.”
“—the same damn house where you had such a traumatic emotional reaction that you broke protocol, you, the crown prince of procedure.” I examined him closely. “Except that you aren’t, are you? Not anymore. Maybe not then, either.”
He slipped his hand into his pocket, and the door unlocked with an obedient snick. “Maybe not. That’s something I intend to find out.”
I didn’t budge. “Fine. But there’s no way in hell you’re going without me.”
He reached behind me and opened the door, the inside of his wrist brushing my hip. “I never expected that I would.”
Sometimes I missed the old Buckhead, the one Rico had introduced to me back when it had been the last of the great American bar crawls. Dozens of clubs with pulsing lights and bass-heavy dance music so rich and deep you could practically ride it. That Buckhead had vanished, zoned into oblivion. Now it was upscale again, all the clubs genteel and leather-chaired, with craft cocktails and lithographs. More Rodeo Drive than Bourbon Street. Of course, a lot fewer people got stabbed or shot or run over or beaten about the head and face. But I missed its wilder, more raucous vibe.
The Talbot estate lay west of the North Fulton Golf Course. The undulating Bermuda grass fairway was mostly empty this late in the day, but Powers Ferry was heavy with traffic. Downrange I heard the metallic thwack of a golf ball taking flight, and I could see why Nick had chosen this place as the cover for his lover’s tryst. It was close and casual. Nobody would have noticed or missed him, which also made it a fine place to flee a murder.
Trey parked at the clubhouse so that we could walk across the street, following in reverse the burglar/killer’s alleged escape route. He slowed his normally brisk pace so that he could take in details, construct a map in his head. The houses in this neighborhood secluded themselves behind landscaped islands and security system warning signs. Trey stopped at the mouth of a river slate driveway. He didn’t need to double-check the directions.
“Here,” he said.
I followed him up the driveway. Eventually the house materialized like a three-story iceberg on the horizon—white bricks, white roof tiles, silvery-white shutters. The shrubs and trees had once been well-groomed,
