“We didn’t have anything to do with the accident though, right?”
He shook his head. “No.”
“Well, I didn’t even realize I was worried about it. Apparently I was because I feel better now.”
He smiled and nodded. “Life’s like that,” he said. “You do what you can, but it doesn’t always work out.”
“I’m so glad to see you,” she said warmly. “Not in these circumstances necessarily, but to know that you’re alive is huge.”
He tugged her into his arms. She went willingly, and the two just held each other for a long time. She could feel the tears once again choking her throat. She sniffled, stepped back, and said, “I’m so exhausted that I don’t even know if I’m coming or going anymore.”
“And you will be until this is all finalized,” he said. “But it will get better.”
“And what will you do now?”
“Well, I’m done with that job,” he said. “So maybe whatever I get to do next won’t be quite so distant.”
“That would be nice,” she said. “I’d like to keep you in my life now that I know you’re okay.”
“I would love that.”
He hugged her again briefly and then stepped back and said, “Are you feeding us anytime soon?”
She turned, seeing the pasta water heavily bubbling behind her. “Yeah, coming up.” She quickly transferred the defrosted pasta sauce to a pot and warmed it up on the stove the rest of the way as she finished off the pasta. By the time she called out to the men to say that dinner was ready, she had more or less composed herself again.
With them quickly clearing off the table of laptops and papers and notepads, she got them to set the table, while she dished up their meal. And very quickly they were all sitting down and passing around a big tub of parmesan to sprinkle on top of their pasta sauce. She smiled as she sat down and said, “I can’t remember the last time I cooked for more than myself.”
“We’ve both been loners,” her brother said.
“And how sad is that?” she said. “We were lonely growing up, and we ended up as lonely adults.”
“Well, at least you were married for a few years,” he said.
“I was, and it was a very special relationship. Tough and emotionally taxing but very special.” She nodded at Nico. “Nico, you ever married?”
He shook his head. “Nope, not going there either.”
“Keane?”
“No, and won’t either.”
She laughed. “So says you two,” she teased. “Your minds will change someday.”
“Maybe not,” Keane said. He looked over at Nico. “This guy is ready for marriage though.”
Nico just looked at Keane and snorted. “Right. With my job?”
“I don’t think your job makes much of a difference,” she said.
“I’m always traveling.”
“Sure, but what you do is important, so the traveling is just part of it.”
Nico gazed at her a little bit longer than necessary, but such a warm light was in his eyes that she realized they were talking on a completely different level. She immediately dropped her gaze to the spaghetti and started eating. It was her fault for bringing up the subject, but, at the same time, it was also a relief to know that maybe the two of them were on the same wavelength.
With the rest of the meal put away and the dishes cleaned up, Nico sat back down at the table. He’d been delving into Andy’s death—actually three years ago in Australia—because instinct said this was what Charlotte’s kidnapping was all about. The fact that Maggie wasn’t the mother did not deny a connection was here, and, if there were one, Nico definitely wanted to find it.
It appeared that Keane had the same idea. He’d asked Miles for a bunch of information from the Australian side too. And everything they’d come up with had said that Andy’s death was an accident. It was hard to foresee something like that. The venue and the organizers had done everything they could to make the rally as safe as possible, but unfortunately something had gone wrong, and the poor kid had died. There had been no lawsuit afterward though. There’d been nothing.
Which was all good and dandy, but it meant that, if somebody had some festering anger or resentment or blame to lay from that accident, then they’d gone inside with those emotions, not venting them, like to a professional therapist or psychologist or psychiatrist. That was a little more dangerous in some cases. Nico shook his head. “I’m not seeing anything that connects Maggie to the Nosters,” he muttered to Keane.
“No, and I’m not seeing anything that connects them to her either.”
“So then what?” Nico asked, sitting back. He glanced at the reunited siblings. They were busy talking and enjoying catching up on the newest and latest in each other’s lives. “I wonder if anybody else was killed or hurt.”
“I did a search for that, but this was the only serious result. Somebody broke a leg, but it was fixed and fine.”
“So we keep coming back to this boy.”
“Yeah. He didn’t have anybody around necessarily who would want to do something like this, taking revenge on Charlotte.”
“Yet Charlotte’s kidnapping is a pretty major event because of the extra deaths involved,” Keane noted.
“I see that. I just don’t understand the why of it,” Nico said. “Obviously they were cleaning up so that they didn’t get caught, but how do you avenge one death by killing three more?” Just then his phone went off. He pulled it out and checked the message. He hopped his feet and said, “I gotta phone Miles.” He walked outside and said, “Miles, what’s up?”
“The prisoner’s talking.”
“Interesting. And why is that?”
“He’s scared,” Miles said.
“Good. I’m glad to hear that.”
“He figures he’s next.”
“Well, of course he is. That’s pretty easy to determine.”
“He said that they were hired to do this job.”
“Right, and?”
“He seems to wonder now if it was a job that he was hired directly
