“I have a whole team of lawyers that I assure you my brother already called,” he assured me, indignant and proud, vehemently wanting to set me straight. “I’ll be out of here shortly.”
I shook my head.
“You doubt me?” He was aghast, his anger ramping up.
“This is the FBI,” I soothed him, keeping my voice level. “They can do whatever they want in the investigation of a crime.” He was going to argue, but I lifted my hand to stop him. “Something is going on with your sister, and they think you’re involved,” I explained, pulling out the chair beside me. “Until they know what’s going on, you’re stuck here.”
“But I have no idea what Lane has done.”
I nodded. “I know that, but they don’t. So until they question you and are convinced you aren’t involved in whatever she’s up to, you’re stuck here.”
“And what about you?”
“I’m here to protect you, but if they want me out of here, I have no choice but to go. Hopefully they will allow me to remain with you, but we’ll see what happens.” I smiled at him, trying to come off as reassuring. “Either way, I won’t leave. I’ll be outside in the lobby if they don’t let me sit in here with you.”
“Yes. Good,” he choked out, taking a breath.
“Come sit down.”
He sank into the chair beside me, close, so his knee bumped my thigh under the table, and then folded his arms and laid his head down on them.
I was surprised that Dallas hadn’t taken our phones from us, until I realized that there was absolutely no reception at all in the building. Their scrambler, I was certain, was military grade.
We’d been sitting in the interrogation room going on an hour now, and I was sure this was some sort of torture method to make Brig want to spill his guts when they came to speak to him.
“Eric’s going to murder me for this,” Brig whispered.
It was an odd thing to say; their plan may have been working.
“He texts me every couple of hours when we’re in different cities, and I reply with something like, not dead, in one piece, talk to you soon—whatever.”
“Every couple of hours?”
He rolled his head on his arms to look at me. “I know it sounds strange; it’s what everyone thinks—look at Digby—but Eric and I live together. I mean, I don’t actually need a bodyguard at home, because that’s what he does.”
Now I was interested. “Do you have a picture of Mr. Foster?”
Leaning back in the chair, he pulled his phone from the breast pocket of his suit, and it was not lost on me that the first picture he pulled up was that of his caretaker. When he turned the phone to me, I noted the softness in his eyes.
The man was not at all what I was expecting.
He was tall, at least six-four, if the refrigerator he was standing in front of was an indicator, and muscular, with dark brown hair and eyes and a full beard and mustache. The smile was playful and warm, evidently candid, and definitely meant for the photographer. Brig swiped left, and the next picture was of him and Brig, leaning on the hood of a pickup truck. Eric’s arm draped over Brig’s shoulder was somehow both casual and possessive. It could have been a picture of any two friends, except it wasn’t, because while Eric was looking at the camera, Brig’s head was turned toward Eric, and he grinned with such open, raw hunger that I understood what I was looking at. The affection in his gaze at Eric was missing when he looked at Astor Finnel. I turned from the screen and studied Brig.
“You look like you have a question.”
I cleared my throat. “Even though I know he’s not your butler, I was still expecting more Downton Abbey and less ranch foreman.”
He smiled and nodded.
“You know, you can be honest with me. You’d have to be blind to miss how your brother looks at Astor.”
His brows furrowed as he looked down at the table, thinking, deciding what to say.
“I don’t care, and I’m contractually obligated to keep your secrets, Brig,” I assured him, giving him a trace of a grin. “Who you love—that’s your business.”
He took a gulp of air.
“You know what, never mind. I shouldn’t have presumed to––”
“Eric is really close to leaving,” he confessed breathlessly. “It’s him or my family and my business, and…how am I supposed to be me without either?”
Jesus Christ. Brig Stanton’s life was a disaster. The man was not only on shaky ground in his business and with whatever was going on with his sister, but his private life was falling to pieces as well.
“Everything is up in the air.”
I knew it was. And I knew he was in a terrible spot. He had a horrible decision to make, a ridiculous one in the twenty-first century. “So basically, you have both Eric and Astor hanging on a string, both of them waiting to see who you choose.”