‘I guess.’ Adam’s stomach lurched. If this was normal, he hated it. Hated the silence in his cabin. Hated the way everything felt so empty. He felt constantly on edge without her.
Jesus Christ, he missed everything about her. And it didn’t seem to be getting any better.
‘Why haven’t you gone back to the house yet?’
Adam’s mouth tasted of regret. ‘I can’t face them,’ he said. ‘I ruined everything. I messed Christmas up.’ He couldn’t help but think of Jonas’s expression, his mother’s tears, the way his father had been so disappointed. ‘They don’t want me there.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because they haven’t come down to see me.’ Adam started to pull at a loose thread on the chair arm.
‘Maybe they’re giving you some space. You’re the one who walked out and told them to leave you alone,’ Martin pointed out. ‘Perhaps they’re feeling exactly the way you are. The fact Everett hasn’t called the cops seems like a good thing, doesn’t it?’
Adam shrugged. ‘Maybe.’
Martin was silent for a moment, though he continued to look at Adam. There was a soft wind outside, rattling the office windows. ‘Do you miss them?’ he finally asked.
Adam closed his eyes, feeling his chest ache again. It was becoming so familiar to him. ‘Yeah, I do.’ Well some of them anyway. Especially the girl who lit the cabin up whenever she walked into it. He missed her so much it was painful.
‘Maybe you should go see them.’
‘Maybe.’
Sensing a dead end to the conversation, Martin changed tack. ‘Are you going to involve your lawyers this time?’ he asked. ‘To stop the movie?’
Adam waited for the familiar anger to take hold of him at the mention of Everett’s plans. But there was nothing. ‘I couldn’t give a shit about the movie.’ Not quite true, but compared to everything else that had happened it had paled into insignificance.
Compared to her.
‘And have you heard from the girl?’ Martin asked. Could he read Adam’s mind on top of everything else?
‘From Kitty? Not a peep. Not that I expected to.’
Martin crossed his legs, tapping his pen against his lip. ‘Why not?’
‘Why would she want to hear from me?’ Adam was perplexed. ‘She saw me lose it in front of all my family. She saw what I was capable of.’ He couldn’t forget the expression on her face when she saw Everett’s nose bleeding. She looked disgusted.
‘And yet she still followed you out of the house, and tried to talk to you. Does that sound like the act of somebody who didn’t want to talk to you?’
‘I think she felt guilty,’ Adam admitted. ‘That it was her fault I went crazy. She was just trying to make amends.’ And he’d shaken her off like an annoying animal, never looking back at her as he almost ran back to the sanctuary of his cabin.
‘Why would she think it was her fault?’
‘Because she knew all about the movie.’ Adam’s stomach contracted just thinking about it. He took a mouthful of ice-cold water, but it did nothing to quell the ache in his gut.
‘She knew about it?’ Martin finally looked surprised. ‘Was she in on it like Lisa was?’
Placing the glass back down on the table beside him, Adam blew out a long mouthful of air. He hadn’t thought about Lisa for weeks. She’d been his assistant in Colombia, a friend with benefits, no more than that. And yet when she’d agreed to work on the movie with Everett it had felt like a betrayal.
But compared to Kitty, it was nothing. Absolutely nothing.
‘I’ve no idea,’ Adam said. But he couldn’t really believe it, in spite of the things he’d shouted. She was too kind, too open for that kind of subterfuge.
‘You didn’t ask her?’
Adam shook his head, trying to remember everything they said. The scene in the dining room felt like a half-forgotten dream. He could remember small sequences of events, but nothing quite clicked together. His head was doing a pretty damn good job of suppressing the bad memories. ‘She said something about knowing for a few days, but that was it. I didn’t let her say anything else, I was too furious with her.’
‘It sounds as though you may be more angry at her than you are at Everett,’ Martin reflected. ‘Why do you think that is?’