“They’re not weird—that’s closed-minded.”
“—and taking bubble baths. Put me in, coach!” she grins.
I smile back and tuck her hair behind her ear. “I’ll work on getting you a setup of your own.”
34
Madison
Caught like a rat in a trap.
Wesley is hiding something. The thought is twisting in my stomach, filling me with anxiety. It’s all I could think about every time I saw him yesterday or this morning—the look of surprise on his face when I opened the door. Like he’d been caught.
There’s something in that book he doesn’t want to show me. Maybe he didn’t even want me to see the book at all.
Why won’t he let me help him? Surely he knows that two heads are better than one? There’s so much data on that drive, it would take him the rest of his life to go through it all by hand. I know he’s writing a program to sort it for him. I know he knows that’s firmly in my wheelhouse.
So why is he keeping me at arm’s length?
I don’t know how to reconcile the two sides of him. There’s the part that holds me tenderly, fucks me roughly, croons praise into my ear in the worst Spanish accent I’ve ever heard, and makes me feel like the most beautiful woman in the world. And then there’s the part that looks at me with a kind of shuttered fear, like he’s some kind of crone who’s seen into the future and doesn’t like what happens. That part of him is too far away for me to reach, like the top cabinets in that ridiculous kitchen where they haven’t gotten a stepstool because “no one has needed one.”
I don’t care if he thinks he’s protecting me. I don’t care if he thinks he’s taking care of me. I want to know. I want to help. I want him to treat me like an adult and stop assuming he knows what’s best for me.
And I really want to know what’s in that notebook.
I wait until he takes a trip to the bathroom and slip inside his office. Some Bills greets me with a trill and winds through my legs. “Not now, buddy,” I whisper, feeling weird for sneaking around like this.
Tossing a look over my shoulder to ensure I’m alone, I creep towards his desk. I don’t remember which drawer he put the book in, so I try a few near the top. Normal office supplies—pens, paper clips, a tangle of USB cords that came with electronics but are too short to be useful—and no notebook. When I get to the top middle drawer, I realize it’s one with an extra compartment at the top. A secret compartment.
Alockedsecret compartment. It doesn’t budge when I jerk on the handle lip.
“What are you doing, Madison?”
My heart leaps into my throat, and my head whips up to find Wesley in the doorway. He’s got a fresh can of energy drink in his hand, so I was apparently wrong to assume he was headed for the bathroom.
Caught. Caught like a rat in a trap.
And what does a rat do? It attacks—it bites back. “Why is your desk drawer locked?” I accuse.
He frowns and crosses the room, setting the can down on his desk and standing over me. He’s already almost a foot taller, but he seems bigger right now for some reason. Maybe it’s the shame of sneaking around that makes me feel smaller. I square my shoulders and lift my chin.
“Madison, why were you trying to get into my desk?”
“Oh, we’re doing a question for a question?” I ask, setting my jaw. “What was that black book I saw yesterday?”
His eyes drop to the drawer, a pretty clear tell. “Notes. I told you—”
“Why do you keep notes locked up?” I interrupt, feeling my indignation rising as his expression closes off.
He opens his mouth, then blows out a breath and shakes his head. “Habit, I suppose.”
Not good enough. I ask what I really want to know. “Why are you shutting me out of this investigation?”
He frowns. “Madison, I’m not. I told you I was going to get a computer setup foryou—”
“So you can sit in here and only feed me the pieces you want me to see. I’m not stupid, Wesley. You want this to be like how it was, when you were the one in control, managing everything from the middle of your web—when you didn’t have to tell me anything and I just did whatever you wanted. That’s not how it is anymore.”
“Madison, calm down,” he says slowly.
