Eyes Wide Open (The Blackstone Affair #3)(22)
Author: Raine Miller

FUCK! I wanted to punch the wall again but didn’t dare in this place. These walls were worth too damn much.

Lots of crazy thoughts flooded my brain. What if she hates me for knocking her up? What if this breaks us? What if she wants a termination? What if she isn’t even pregnant after all and this scares her off? I was terrified but I still wanted to know. Now. I needed some answers.

“Right,” Fred said, “we’ll talk in a bit and work on getting you to feeling better, my dear.” He eased out of the small room to leave but turned back to say something else. And there was Brynne standing stiffly with downcast eyes like a cornered animal. It broke my heart to witness. It really f**kin’ did. “Brynne, we’re here to help and support in any way that we can. I mean that and I know that Hannah does too.”

“Thank you,” she answered in a small voice.

With Fred gone it was just the two of us. Brynne didn’t move, she just stood there. It was awkward. I wanted to touch her but was afraid to.

“Brynne?”

She lifted her eyes and swallowed, looking miserable and pale. The second I moved toward her she backed up a step and held up her hand to keep me away. “I—I need to be alone . . .” Her bottom lip trembled as she choked out the words. So different from when it turned up in a sexy smile. Brynne usually smiled a lot more than I did. Her whole face lit up when she did it. Whenever she smiled, it made me want to smile in return. She made me want a lot of things I’d never cared about before too. But she wasn’t smiling now. She was scared to death.

It killed me to see her like this. “Baby, remember what I said.” I stepped out of the bathroom but I didn’t want to. I wanted to be right beside her when she found out. I didn’t want to leave her alone. I wanted her in my arms telling me she loved me and that we could do this. I needed that from her right now and I knew I wouldn’t be getting it.

She met my gaze as she started to shut the door slowly. “Don’t forget,” I said just before it closed and I was facing an elegant carved door instead of my girl, who was struggling on the other side of it.

Time passed slowly as I waited for her to come out. My dread grew exponentially as the minutes ticked away. I checked my mobile for messages and responded to some of them when I got to a text from Neil: Have news on Fielding. MP rpt.

I dialed and waited for the connection, staring at the bathroom door and wondering what was happening inside. My mind went on full alert as I transferred into protection mode.

“Boss.”

“A missing person? Fielding is missing? Please tell me that’s not true.”

Neil sighed. “Yeah, report was filed just a few days ago by his parents, who live somewhere in the Northeast; Pennsylvania, I think. Last confirmed contact was the thirtieth of May. According to the report, he didn’t show for work. His apartment checks out. Passport left behind and no evidence of a hasty flight. The consulate of course has no record of travel outside of the U.S.”

“Fuck, that’s not nice news, mate.”

“I know. The possibilities are endless. His father suspects foul play, and has said so in interviews to the papers.”

“I bet Oakley’s camp loves the press.” I said sarcastically.

“No accusation, though. Senator Oakley is not mentioned, so the connection hasn’t been made between Montrose and Fielding to Lance Oakley.”

“So let’s extrapolate this. Congressman Woodson’s plane goes down the beginning of April. Oakley’s name starts popping up as a replacement almost immediately. Montrose gets in a bar fight and takes multiple stab wounds to the neck and chest on April twenty-fourth. The motherfucker dies two days later in hospital. Suspect unknown. Tom Bennett contacts me and I take over here on the third of May with Brynne at the Andersen Gallery. Fielding’s last sighting was the end of May. Everything’s quiet for a month. Text from ArmyOps17 to Brynne’s mobile last night, the twenty-ninth of June.”

“Yeah.”

“What’s your gut telling you about Fielding? You’ve seen the reports.”

“I think he’s dead in a shallow grave somewhere or maybe in the Pacific feeding the fish.”

“Connected to Oakley, you think?”

“Hard to know. Justin Fielding had a drug problem. Cocaine, apparently.”

One of the reasons Neil and I worked so well together was our thought processes were so in tune. Neil wasn’t a babbler. He said what was needed and didn’t pad the conversation with useless crap. Just the facts. And his instincts were dead-on, so when he said he didn’t know, that meant things were still falling into place.

“Okay then. We have two of our video perps out of the picture, one dead and one confirmed missing. The third is on active duty in Iraq and a very improbable suspect. The text came from inside the UK and from someone who saw the video at some point in time because they knew the song that was on the original.”

“That’s about right.”

“How do you feel about a little trip out to California?”

“I could do that. Can work on my tan and kill two birds with one stone.”

“All right then. Have Frances set you up for early next week. I can’t have you gone until I’m back in town.”

“How is Brynne feeling? Better, I hope.” Neil asked in a soft voice.

I groaned into the phone and grasped at what to answer. I’m saying f**king nothing!

“Um . . . she’s still feeling ill. Fred’s helping her though.” I rushed out a quick good-bye and ended our call fast. I could talk about work all day long, but personal stuff was not something I had any experience with, nor did I have a desire to start discussing.

I checked my watch and headed for the door. Twenty minutes had passed since she’d closed the door on me. Seemed like ages ago now. I rapped my knuckles a couple of times. “Brynne? May I come in?”

Nothing.

I rattled the handle and called her name again, louder this time.

Silence.

I pressed my ear to the door and listened. I couldn’t hear a thing going on inside the bathroom and started imagining the room’s layout. It is, after all, part of my training to understand the structure of buildings and the fastest way to exit them. Sometimes when things come to you in sudden clarity it is truly frightening. This was one of those times. The solarium abutted the bathroom on the other side of the house.

I knew then. I knew it before the text came through a moment later on my mobile from her: I hav to . . . so sry. WATERLOO