You could just not tell her… It didn’t have to be in opposition to what they’d just talked about.Direct didn’t mean telling every truth.Keeping her out of this didn’t changeanythinghe’d said or meant.
He finally put down the phone, shoved it in his pocket.When he managed to turn to face her, she was standing in her kitchenette wringing a dishtowel in her hands.“That sounded… tense.”
Nate didn’t know how to wade through all the tense.And he knew looking at her, that wariness in her expression, as much as hewantedto keep this from her, keep this complication away fromthem, it would blow up in his face if he took the coward’s way out right now.
If he and Sam were going to be at odds over this, he couldn’t fix that.But he could make sure everything they’d started last night stayed intact while they disagreed.
So, he went with direct.Direct worked.Direct could hurt, but it didn’t… confuse.“Detective Hayes went and talked to Glenda yesterday.”
“About her statement?”
“About the man you’re investigating.”
Sam’s eyebrows drew together.“Bo?”
“Apparently.She wouldn’t tell that to Jill.But today…” He took a few steps closer to the kitchen, not liking all this distance between them.“She told Cal we need to keep him far away from here.”
Chapter Fifteen
Honor’s Edge Investigations Office
Detective Jake Hayesdidn’t often worry about beingfair.His job, the way he saw it, was about being right.Not proving his own preconceived notions were right but actually finding the truth.He had a lot of respect for the truth.
He saw a similar determination in Samantha Price.But he had to admit, he didn’t understand how she could deal with the Bennets as much as she did.The way Jake saw it, Bennets were just about allergic to the truth.
It wasn’t that Jake believed in the sins of the father or anything like that.Benjamin Bennet was your typical narcissistic, manipulative, sociopathic abuser.They were a dime a dozen, really.Maybe alittlesmarter than most to have avoided the truth coming out for so long, but not smart enough to get away with it forever.
His kids were their own brands of asshole, far as Jake could tell, even if they were victims in their own right.Still, they were grown men.Grown men who rubbed him the wrong way, the whole lot of them.Maybe he could stomach Landon, because the man had the good sense to keep to himself.But Cal was some asshole criminal defense attorney—and didn’tthatfigure.And Nate…
Well, none of them were murderers, far as he knew, so he’d give them that.The rest didn’t really fall into his purview.Long as they stayed on the right side of the law.
Jake had spent his day yesterday following up on Sam’s break-in and didn’t like what he’d unearthed.At all.He also didn’t like all the questions he still had, even after talking to Glenda Harrington.Sam wouldn’t be able to answer his questions any more than Glenda had, but if he gave her the tools, maybe she’d ferret out an answer before he did.
Jake considered himself equal opportunity that way.
Besides, she needed to know what to be on the lookout for.Maybe it wasn’tdangerous, but it wasn’t benign either.
So, despite the questionable roads, Jake decided to drive on over to Honor’s Edge.Surely, he’d be able to catch her alone today.He had no intention of discussing this in front of Nate fucking Bennet.
Jake couldn’t stand the guy.Something about thestillness.The other two, all arrogant posturing and whatnot, Jake didn’t like, but he understood.They were what they’d always been.Known Bennet entities that made sense in the context of Marietta as a whole.
Jake did not understand Nate Bennet.Couldn’t get a read on him.And no matter how much digging he did—on his own time, because he knew how to separate the personal from the professional—he couldn’t find any dirt.
Just military commendations.
Whythatrankled didn’t take a mind reader.Maybe he’d never seen any real indication Sam and Nate had something going on, but Jake considered himself an exceptional observer.There was no way that Sam turning him down this summer wasn’t wrapped up in Bennet insomeway.
Which was all well and good.Jake could take no for an answer.And he wasn’t asshole enough to be bitter about it.
Much.
Sam was hardly the only woman in the world.That Harrington woman was a looker—if Jake could get over how much her grandmother irked him.Especially after yesterday.
Glenda Harrington.She hadn’t given him shit to go on.She’d played up the frail old lady—and she wasn’tthatold—and thetraumaticmuteness.It wasn’t that he didn’t believe a person’s brain could play tricks on them.What he didn’t believe was that she couldn’t communicate atall, since she was clearly with it enough to know what was going on.
But she’d given him nonanswers and little shrugs and feigned a headache.Something there.Something Jake was going to get to the bottom of.
But first, he’d let Sam in on what he’d found.He pulled his Tahoe into the back lot of Honor’s Edge and spotted Bennet’s truck parked next to Sam’s junker of a car.
