Wren tilted his head deliberately to the side. “How would you know?”
“You’re full of good questions today,” Ledger said. He held his hands up. “Look. You’re right. It isn’t my business.You’renot my business.”
He went back to his chair and folded himself down into it. The spill of paper and photos on the bed was where he’d left it. Ledger stared at it as he tried to work out where to start. Something occurred to him, and he glanced at Wren.
“Do you need to take this stuff back?” he waved a hand at the bed.
Wren shook his head. “Keep it,” he said. “The boss never looks at it.”
“Thanks.”
Wren shrugged that off and headed for the door. Rather than watch him leave, Ledger swiveled back around on the chair to get to work. He had just picked up a photo—a gray-haired woman who looked familiar—when he heard the lock open.
“I didn’t mind,” Wren said.
Ledger half turned to face him. “What?”
“That you asked,” Wren said. He shrugged one shoulder. “It didn’t bother me.”
He left without waiting for a response, leaving Ledger staring at the closed door. That hadn’t been an answer to his question. He got halfway out of the chair on impulse, but the crinkle of the photo in his hand brought him back to earth.
Two days.
There wasn’t time to care who was or wasn’t fine. Not ifhewas going to be. After one last uncertain look at the door, Ledger returned to work.
* * *
The blareof a car alarm woke Ledger up. He sat bolt upright in alarm, and the bed receded away from him into the distance. It all had a nightmarish quality until the back of the office chair hit the wall, and he managed to shake the last dregs of not-enough sleep from his head.
“Shit,” he muttered.
He didn’t remember going to sleep. It hadn’t helped much. Of course—he glanced over at the window, and it was still dark outside—he’d not slept for long.
It wasn’t a car alarm, his brain finally registered. It was the room phone. Ledger screwed his eyes up and scrubbed his hands over his face. That didn’t help either.
“Do you think you’re funny?”
It was Lachlan, Ledger’s self-appointed rival, despite the fact their professional paths were rarely in competition. Three times, maybe? No. It was four. Ledger had found that family Bible at an estate sale where Lachlan had been bidding through a proxy. That had apparently been part of it, even though Ledger had been happy to sell it to Lachlan for a very fair price.
Right now, Lachlan didn’t sound happy. Good. It was nice not to be alone. Ledger scratched the side of his head, his hair damp and matted where it had been pressed against the bed. “What?”
“That’s what this was, right?” Lachlan demanded. “Some joke that you and the bottom feeders you associate with came up with?”
“Probably not. Have you been drinking?”
“I’ve been working,” Lachlan said. “On your job. Admit it, you sent me on a wild goose chase.”
Shit. Ledger sat down on the edge of the bed.
“You didn’t find anything?” he asked. “Nothing?”
“Of course I found something,” Lachlan said, his voice snippy with annoyance. “I’m good at my job, Ledger, not just lucky. I hunted through dead end after dead end. Mildewed ledgers, burned down churches, rodent-infested newspaper offices. Even the notary died in a hackney accident a week after he signed it. I finally found it, and you think that’s funny?”
Ledger pinched the bridge of his nose between finger and thumb. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Lachlan,” he said. “But I’m not going to pay what you charge for a prank.”
There was a pause, and then Lachlan gave a testing-the-waters chuckle. “You mean, you don’t know?”
“No,” Ledger said. “That’s what I paid you for.”
