Broken Compass
Page 167
He had his phone. What about his laptop?
I check the closet, check under his bed, but only find dust bunnies and a pair of running shoes. I pull them out, wipe at my nose and try to stop a sneeze.
“Looking for Kash?” Nate says, startling me. He has his hip propped against the doorjamb, one hand on his hard stomach, over a riot of bruises. “Think he’s hiding under the bed?”
“You’re not funny, Nate.”
“Dammit.” Nate got the day off work. Doc at the hospital said he should rest. He won’t admit it, but he still has a lingering headache, and he’s so bruised even lying down hurts. “You’re gonna bruise my ego.”
“We wouldn’t want that, would we?” I put the shoes down. “Where would Kash keep his laptop?”
He ambles over to the closet and reaches down with a wince. Out of a plastic bag, he lifts a slim silver laptop. “This laptop, by any chance?”
“Yes!” I pounce on it, grabbing it, then rising up to place a quick kiss on his lips. “Thank you.”
“What did you want it for?” He winces again, and I pull him to the bed, tug until he sits down. “Ow.”
“You should be resting. Doc’s orders.”
“I am.” He looks pointedly down at the bed we’re sitting on. “The most strenuous thing I’ve done today was take a piss.”
I tsk and open the laptop. I don’t know what I’m looking for, or how to find it, but I press start anyway.
When the request for a password comes up, I glance at Nate. “Any idea what it might be?”
“Sorry, no fucking clue.” He closes his eyes, takes a shallow, pained breath. “What’s on your mind?”
“He wouldn’t leave his laptop behind. Not if he’d planned to leave.”
“Okay, Sherlock. What if he didn’t plan it?”
“So he’d just leave? Without his stuff. Without his laptop. Without telling us. Tell me how this is supposed to make sense.”
His eyes flash. “I told you. He got a good look at my dirty past and took a hike.”
“Kash isn’t like that, and you know it.”
Nate looks down where our hands are linked. “I know you want to believe it…”
“And I do. He saved you.” I lean my head on his shoulder. “I’ll never be able to thank him enough for this.”
“Syd…” He shakes his head, his eyes a bit too bright.
“I could never lose you.”
He kisses my temple. “Maybe he got tired of saving me.”
“I told you that you’re not funny.”
He snorts softly.
I lift my head. “His journal.”
“Come again?”
“He had a journal. I saw it. It could contain some clue, something to tell me who he really is, where to find him.”
What happened to him.