Which meant there was something more going on than a simple parting of the ways. “She’s living in a third-rate motel in Weaver, Ros. You saying you don’t care about that?”
“I don’t care about that,” she echoed flatly. “So you can go f—”
“Now, now, now,” he cut her off. “Don’t say anything you might really mean.” He poked through the delicacies displayed on the tray. “You know every time we speak, I have to remind myself that you carry Meredith’s genes in you, because the older we get, the only ones you show are the ones you got from your dad.”
“What do you want me to say, Archer?” She actually sounded pained. “There’s nothing I can do to help her. Nell chose her side.”
“And I’m asking you why! Why are there sides when you’ve been friends for better than twenty years? I know Martin’s at the root of whatever it is.” Ros, ironically enough, was a stickler for fairness. At least where people beyond her own family were concerned. She wouldn’t stoop to spreading rumors and innuendo about an enemy, much less Nell. Whereas those tactics were exactly what Martin would do, even to his own family.
The fact that Meredith hadn’t been able to keep custody of Ros when she’d managed to escape him was proof of that.
His stepsister’s silence turned stony. It was all too easy to picture the face that went along with it.
He exhaled wearily. “I’m not your enemy, kiddo. No more so now than when we were young.” When he was being raised with his sisters by her mom and his dad—a boisterous, secure and happy family—and she was stuck alone with Martin. Even then, he’d known she was envious, just as he’d known she’d blamed Meredith for that situation more than she’d ever blamed her father. Such was the effectiveness of Martin Pastore’s manipulations. “You can talk to me if you’ve got a probl—”
“Goodbye, Archer,” she cut him off, and hung up on him.
Theresa chose that moment to sit down on the arm of his chair and trail her fingertip along his forearm. “You’re looking a little lonely sitting out here, Archer.”
He slowly looked up from the swirling screensaver that had appeared on his phone to her face. “Then I’d better do something about that.” He finished off his drink and gave her a pat on the arm as if he were her uncle before standing and making his own exit.
He kept his own apartment in the city not far from Gage’s building. After he’d retrieved his files from Gage’s office, he stopped at his place and grabbed a few more files that he added to the box he kept in his truck. He left a message for Jennifer, who ran his office with far more skill than he’d ever shown, and was on the highway thirty minutes after leaving Theresa.
It was well after midnight when he reached Braden. He considered driving through to Weaver and the Cozy Night. But if he went to Nell now and forcibly removed her from that particular hole-in-the-wall, she’d think he was just as crazy as he felt.
It was the only reason why he turned off the highway when he reached the narrow road that led to his house. He drove between the stone pillars of the gate he never closed and soon after, he was home, walking through the darkened rooms until he reached his bedroom.
He tossed himself down on the bed still fully dressed and closed his eyes, happy to fall into familiar dreams where Nell never pushed him away.
The cat food bowl was empty again.
Nell propped her hands on her hips and looked around, but all she saw were the same things that she’d seen the day before. Only this time, she was seeing it through the beams of her car headlights.
Vivian had kept her busy that afternoon. And that evening.
Which meant that the scrubby brush now looked more gray than green. The boulders were nothing more than black shadows and the wildflowers were only an occasional flash of yellow if the breeze sent them swaying at the right angle to catch her headlights.
All cats were nocturnal, weren’t they?
“Here kitty, kitty, kitty,” she called softly, feeling a little foolish. Any stray who was out here coming around to eat food off the top of a stone pillar was probably not the kind of feline that’d come at a call.
She peered beyond the beams of light, but saw nothing more than before.
She tipped the cat food bag from her back seat over the bowl. It wasn’t a very large bag and she would need to buy more soon because it was going to be empty in a couple of days. With the bowl full again, she stood on her toes to return it to its usual spot.
When she went back down on her heels, she glanced around again, then went stock-still at a tall shape in the distance out of range of the headlights.
No cat stood that tall.
Her heart shot up into her throat and she felt entirely incapable of movement while every monster movie she’d ever seen whizzed through her mind.
She was the worst sort of monster movie victim. The kind whom she and Ros had always yelled at at the movies for showing their stupidity so clearly. For not turning and at least trying to escape.
The shape grew larger and she felt sweat crawl down her spine. The thick paper of the cat food bag crinkled loudly when her fingers tightened on it. The bag wasn’t much of a weapon, but if she threw it at the beast—it obviously couldn’t be a monster movie one, but who knew what sort of animals besides stray kitties came out after dark?—maybe it would be warning enough to send it off in another direction.
She bounced on the toes of her low-heeled pumps, hearing her heart pound
