“So not likely the mother.”
“No. So what’s the connection?”
They looked at each other, and Nico felt his heart sank. “Grandmother?” He snatched up the phone and contacted Miles. “We need to check on the grandparents. On both sides of the family.”
“You really think they’d be involved?”
“Depends if Andy was their only grandchild.”
It took another ten minutes to get the facts. But apparently the grandparents on the birth mother’s side were dead. Andy’s paternal grandfather had passed away, and his paternal grandmother herself was living on a small island in Greece at this time. There were no living grandparents on Andy’s adoptive family’s side, having died a long time ago.
Deflated, Nico decided it was time to grab some shut-eye. “Over to you,” he said to Keane. “Feels like I didn’t get anywhere.”
“Well, we’re knocking people off the list, if nothing else.”
“Right,” Nico said. He headed upstairs. Joshua’s door was still closed, and Nico opened the door to Charlotte’s bedroom to see her tossing and turning, obviously caught up in a nightmare. He hesitated, knowing it was a dangerous move, plus he had no business invading her privacy. But it was hard for him to see somebody in so much fear and anguish. When she cried out again, her legs caught in the sheet, he immediately stepped in and closed the door gently behind him. Then he softly walked over and sat down beside her and gently shook her awake. “Charlotte.”
When she finally opened her eyes and stared at him, there was no comprehension.
“Charlotte, it’s Nico,” he whispered.
Immediately she sat up and threw herself into his arms. “The nightmares,” she gasped. “Will they ever stop?”
“They will,” he reassured her, holding her close. “Just maybe not as fast as you would like them to.”
She nodded and burrowed even closer. “I’m so exhausted,” she whispered. “And, every time I close my eyes, I keep waking up, tied up in the back of that damn truck.”
“The laundry truck?”
“I don’t know if it was a laundry truck or not,” she said. “It was a transport truck.”
“Right,” he said. “Do you remember anything about it?”
“It was one of those refrigerator trucks,” she whispered. “And the guys were all sitting down at the far end, and two of them were filling the place with smoke and pissing off the other one.”
He looked down at her in surprise. “I don’t remember you mentioning that before about it being a refrigerator truck.”
“Was it important?”
He thought about it and then said, “Quite possibly, yes. Were they all smoking?”
“Two were really heavily. The other one, I think, might have had a smoke or two but wasn’t as bad.”
“Right.” He frowned and pulled out his phone, even with her in his arms, and sent a message on the chat window.
“You think it’s important?”
“No, not necessarily,” he said. “Just tying up ends.”
She nodded. “I wish this would all go away.”
“It will,” he said. “We just have to figure out what’s going on.”
“Right, and that’s not quite so easy.” She stretched back down again on the bed and stared up at him. “Is your shift over now?”
He nodded. “Keane is taking over.”
“Would you?” and then her voice fell off.
“Would I what?”
“Would you mind lying here beside me while I sleep? I mean, only if you could sleep too.”
He smiled and said, “Move over.”
With a big grin, she rolled over. “If you don’t mind.”
“Sleeping beside a beautiful woman is never something I’d argue with.”
“Ah,” she said. “Hopefully you don’t do it with everybody.”
“No, only those who ask,” he said with a chuckle.
She smiled, and, as soon as he was stretched out, she curled up against him. He wrapped an arm around her, and she shifted and tucked back up close to him.
“Now sleep,” he murmured. “We don’t have too much longer before daytime comes anyway.”
“I know,” she whispered. “I need rest.”
Her voice was so exhausted. He waited until she slowly drifted off to sleep, and then he let himself close his eyes. His mind still churned with ideas, trying to figure out the puzzle and who was behind all this. More information had come up, and none of it made any sense. But still, he let himself drift off to sleep.
Chapter 13
Charlotte woke up wrapped in a heated blanket. She rolled over to see Nico snoozing gently beside her. His arms were still wrapped around her, and they’d slept spoon-style for almost all the night. She looked outside to see dawn had already come and gone, and there was bright sunshine. She didn’t know how much longer Nico had before Keane came to wake him up because she thought she could hear her brother going down the stairs. Well, she hoped it was her brother. She was still overwhelmed with all that had happened in the last few days. She hated to wake Nico, so she murmured close against his lips, “You awake?”
“I am,” he murmured, his warm breath mingling with hers, sending a shiver down her back and through her soul. She’d been alone for so damn long. She hadn’t had a serious relationship since her husband’s passing, and really she hadn’t even had a light one either. Not one that mattered. Just so much in her world was different now. And it was changing yet again. She could feel it. She was done with traveling; she was done with rallies, and she would spend a more introspective time and work on her writing. She’d said it many times, but this was the first time that she really felt that deep and utter knowing inside. “Do we have to get up?”
His arms tightened around her, tucking her up closer.
She smiled and nuzzled his neck.
“Only if you want to,” he murmured.
“I don’t want
