“Oh, dang!” Ethan exclaimed, causing her heart to jump.
“What?”
“I got one wrong.” Oh.
He was so damned cute she couldn’t help adoring him.
“Which one?”
“The certificate,” he muttered, clearly disgusted with himself. “You hung it and everything.”
She hadn’t expected him to guess it. But she was curious. “What was your fifth guess?”
“Me. I thought you’d choose me.”
She had, of course. A long time ago. Which was why they were playing the game in the first place.
* * *
He’d seen no black sedan. Though he’d left Miranda’s right after dinner on Sunday night, after having already made a run around her neighborhood while she was preparing dinner, he’d stayed in the area half the night. And had spent all day Monday and a good part of Monday night cruising between Ethan’s school and her office and then their neighborhood after he’d seen them get home safely.
If he’d somehow put her in danger by finding her, he was damn well going to keep her alive.
And if she was imagining that she was being followed... Well, it didn’t hurt to keep the vigil. He missed going to the gym and his leg was a little stiff Tuesday morning as he rolled out of bed after only a few hours’ sleep, but he felt better than he had in a long while.
It was preferable to be doing something, rather than just waiting. Miranda had unknowingly freed him to watch her closely without freaking her out.
The burner phone, which he was keeping out of the sock drawer and close to him whenever he was in his apartment, dinged a text from the nightstand beside his bed.
Nude except for his boxers, he practically dived for the thing. Brian or Gail. Either way, the message could be critical.
It was from Gail. And not at all what he’d expected.
Totally off the record... Brian O’Connor was diagnosed with terminal lung disease four months ago. Mesothelioma, is what I was unofficially told. Maybe the “vacation” is to get treatment?
Shit. The news hit him hard. Just...damn. Gail’s point about the vacation made sense. O’Connor clearly didn’t want Tad to know he was dying. Treatment would explain why he hadn’t told him he was on vacation. And why he’d said he couldn’t come immediately because he had “business that I can’t leave unattended.” It could also explain the apparently drunken state the man had been in. Chemo and other treatments, with heavy pain meds, could’ve had the same effect. Or he could have been drinking as he’d said. The medications could also explain the unusual irritation. The mood changes.
Dropping his phone on the bed, he walked to the living room, looked outside, entered the kitchen, then left again. Miranda and Ethan were going to get back with her father only to watch him die? She’d lost the last years with him?
Back at the sliding glass door leading out to the small balcony, he stared at the ocean in the distance. And...
God, no.
Had Brian contracted his services to find her, in spite of the danger to all of them, because he couldn’t die without seeing them?
Had he fudged that coroner’s report? Was that why he’d been so adamant about refusing to let Tad know any more about Miranda’s ex, Jeff? Because the man really wasn’t dead?
The string of words that came out of his mouth as he headed back to his bedroom weren’t ones he normally used. They were profanities and referred to improbable sexual acts. And eased his anger not at all.
Forgoing a shower, he shoved his legs into jeans. Pulled a shirt off the hanger and let the clothes holder lie untouched on the floor where it landed after flying off the rod. He grabbed socks, leaving the drawer open, and, yanking on tennis shoes, left them untied as he collected his keys, wallet and both phones and hightailed it out of the apartment.
Miranda was pretty certain she was being followed. If Brian O’Connor had lied to him—and he had by omitting his illness as it would be at least part of the motive for Tad’s employment—then there was every possibility that Jeff Patrick was still alive.
And, because of Tad, right there in Santa Raquel. Lying in wait.
* * *
Ethan’s little tushy looked too darned cute as, in jeans and a T-shirt, he ran toward the school building wearing his backpack Tuesday morning. Watching from the car, as she always did, she saw him turn at the door and wave at her. She waved back, and he was gone. For another day.