“So, we can assume that she’s probably still there.”
“Yes.”
“Wouldn’t that make it a little too obvious?”
“Possibly, but you also have to consider that maybe she was planning to come over to help you, in her work capacity as your assistant.”
“That’s plausible,” she said. “I did travel a little bit with my other assistant.” She froze. “Does that mean that Maggie had something to do with that poor woman’s death too?”
“We don’t know, but we have to keep that avenue open,” Nico said quietly.
“The world sucks,” she said, hopping to her feet and walking over to the window above the kitchen sink. It was dark outside, but it was a half-lit darkness with a full moon above. “The night outside is like the world around us,” she said. “You can only see that which is lit up and available to see, whereas three-fourths of what’s going on around you is hidden in the shadows.”
“Unfortunately that’s quite true,” her brother responded.
She looked back at him. “Are you allowed to be here?”
“I am right now,” he said. “I was hoping that maybe I could stay for a couple days. I don’t really have any other place to go. But, if it’s not convenient, that’s fine too. I’ll grab a hotel.”
She stared at him in shock. “How could it not be convenient? I haven’t seen you since how many years ago, and you show up on my doorstep and then think you’re not welcome?”
“In many cases like ours, I wouldn’t be welcome. People would be too angry to see past the fact that I could have contacted you many years ago.”
“Yeah, you could have,” she said quietly. “But I’m willing to trust that you felt you were doing what you needed to do.”
He gave her a ghost of a smile. “I’m glad you feel that way. I’m not sure I can excuse it. But, as I look back, I wasn’t in any great frame of mind.”
“No. I went through some of the harshest years of my life after my marriage,” she said. “And, if you had contacted me then, I might have been so angry that I would have closed the door in your face.”
“That bad? Were you abused?”
She shook her head. “No, nothing like that. It was just a very difficult time.” She gave him a brief synopsis of what happened. “But, as I’ve explained to the others, I’ve carried this massive load of guilt ever since.”
“Well, hopefully you’ll get rid of it now and do the things that you need to do for you and not that you feel you have to make up for something that you didn’t do.”
It was a bit convoluted, but she got the gist. She smiled at him. “Wouldn’t that be nice? As I look at it, I see my guilt and so many things that I do were trying to make up for not being the perfect wife and for feeling like I was angry at the circumstances.”
“Time to let it go then,” he said quietly.
She glanced at the other two men, their heads buried in their laptops again. “Do I have to go back to Australia?”
Both looked up at her in astonishment. “Why would you do that?”
“To flush out the killer,” she said. “Or are we expecting them to find us here?” The two men exchanged glances, and she sagged back down into the same chair she had just vacated. “You’re expecting an attack here, right?”
“Not necessarily,” Nico said quietly. “A part of me would much prefer that it’s on home soil, where we know your space, whereas, if we’re in Australia, we’re in their space.”
She nodded. “Still sucks.”
“It does. I suspect that, with everybody looking for the birth parents so we can at least question them, we should have more answers soon though.”
“And is anybody searching for my assistant?”
“The minute she crossed through the airport gates in Australia, she was tagged.”
“In what way? I don’t like just being a sitting duck.”
“Maybe not,” he said. “But at least now you’re aware you’re one.”
Charlotte could barely stay awake but was fighting going to bed.
Nico understood it, but, at the same time, it would be better if she would go to sleep. He glanced over at Keane and said, “Are you okay to take first watch?”
He nodded. “It’s eleven o’clock now.”
While the two men wrangled over dates and times, the brother looked on. He spoke up once and said, “I know you guys don’t know me, but I’m willing to take a shift too.”
Keane jumped in and said, “We appreciate the thought, but …”
Joshua nodded. “It’s what I expected.” He looked at his sister. “Do you have enough room?”
“Yes,” she said. “It’s a three-bedroom house. Come on. I’ll show you to your room.” She led the way, and her brother followed.
Keane and Nico looked at each other.
“I’ll take that first watch,” Nico said suddenly.
Keane looked at him. “Why is that?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “This place doesn’t feel right yet.”
“Good enough,” Keane said. “I’ll crash on the couch. I’m pretty tired.”
“There’s a bed upstairs. Maybe you’d sleep better.”
Keane frowned and shook his head. Then he kicked off his shoes and walked over to the couch where Charlotte had been, and he crashed. Nico watched, and, within a few minutes, his friend’s chest rose and fell in a deep and sturdy pattern, and Nico knew Keane was just a hair away from being out. Nico got back to his notepad. He would relish this time to take the thoughts in his mind and put them down on paper. He was pretty damn sure the assistant Maggie was behind all this, but, if she was in Australia, then she was out of the picture, as far as an attack on this house.
Maggie would have to hire somebody or have somebody already in place here as a contingency plan. Nico liked that idea. He worked away as the evening passed. And, surprisingly enough, when he checked his watch, only an hour remained before switching shifts with Keane. To
