I reach for a towel to dry the sweat from my face. “How’d it go?”
He shrugs. “The same as it always goes. A waste of time and yet another fishing expedition.”
“Any chance it’s likely to stop soon?”
Nash shakes his head. “Doubt it. My uncle wasn’t happy when I refused to incriminate myself. He’ll be less happy when the sheriff calls to tell him my attorney threatened to file a harassment charge if he keeps arresting me.”
“Save planting evidence, there’s not much he can do.”
When Nash doesn’t respond, I pull the towel from my face and give him a probing look. “He wouldn’t do that, would he?”
He furrows his brow. “Someone planted my mom’s necklace in Byrdie’s bag.”
“It was whoever came looking for Byrdie. They wanted us to accuse her of theft and throw her out.” I toss my towel onto the weight bench and reach for my bottle of water on the black mat beside my feet. “They were waiting to snatch her up as soon as Makhi did what they wanted us to do.”
We already talked about this in the days after Byrdie went missing. Those three frustrating, agonizing days where I kept wanting to wring Makhi’s neck. I also wanted to charge after Byrdie, but with no idea where to even start looking for her, it would have been a waste of time. And I like Makhi. He pisses me off like no one else ever has or will, but he’d been trying to protect me and Nash from someone he thought was using us. He doesn’t always think before he acts, but when he has your back, he has your back.
“Yeah,” Nash says, but he doesn’t sound convinced.
Someonehadbeen in the house. We’d found one of the living room doors left open, rain and muddy boots tracked inside. And the front gate, which should have been locked, wasn’t. I’d have put money on it being Lydia leaving it that way on her way home after cleaning, but she said she closed it behind her, and I have no reason to think she’s lying.
“How’s Byrdie?” Nash asks.
“Makhi took her out on his bike.”
“He did what?” From his scowl, he’s not thrilled about it.
I wasn’t either when I heard her calling out to Nance to let her know where she was going. Nance had tried to stop her, and I’d been on my way to the door to do the same when I recognized the new note I heard in Byrdie’s voice.
Excitement.
“I wasn’t happy about it either, but she sounded like she was looking forward to it.”
He eyes me for a beat, not hiding his surprise. “I didn’t think she’d want to do that.”
“Part of it is that she was bored out of her mind and probably would have agreed to go bungee jumping if it meant having something to do since Nance has been so firm about not letting her clean.”
“And the other part?”
Nash is the reason Nance told Byrdie not to clean. She stopped being a maid here a long time ago. The only person who doesn’t realize it is Byrdie.
I take another sip from my water bottle before returning it to the floor. “She nearly died in the desert. Maybe getting on Makhi’s bike is something she wouldn’t have agreed to do before, but an experience like that changes you. It might be just what she needs.”
After she broke down on the roof last night, she’s talking again, eating a little, but she’s still quieter than she was before someone abducted her. We learned more about her than she would have willingly revealed about herself, and I don’t know if she’s shy, embarrassed, or just not ready to talk about her past. But I’m waiting for the day she is. I’ll wait forever for her.
Understanding flashes across his face. “And the reason you decided you needed to work out now was…”
“So I wouldn’t follow.” I know how fast Makhi likes to ride. “Makhi acts as if the speed limit is a suggestion rather than a rule. Ihopehe’s not being reckless, but I also know Makhi.” I smile sheepishly at him. “Turns out working out isn’t as good a distraction as I needed it to be.”
His eyes sharpen at the note in my voice. “You’re not thinking about?—”
“Drinking?” I snort. “Not that I could even if I wanted to with Makhi using it to marinate his liver.”
Also, I’m not eager to drive down into town to buy another bottle of whiskey. I drank to hide. It’s not something I’m proud of, and it’s not a person I want to be ever again.
“I didn’t think he would be the one to reach her,” he says.
“Me too.” For a short time, I’d been a little jealous it wasn’t me who broke through. “She didn’t need kid gloves. She needed someone to shock her awake.”
