I nodded. “I’ll fix it.”
As Levi walked away, the words echoed quieter now, stripped of their sharpest edges. Maybe Jaime hadn’t been tearing me down. Maybe he really had been standing up for me.
I was hoping to have some alone time when I returned to the hotel room, but Jaime and Pampi were already there. After taking a few calming breaths, I closed the door quietly behind me.
The room was dimmer than when I’d left. One of the lamps was on low, casting a warm amber pool across the carpet. Pampi laysprawled on her side near the foot of the bed, paws twitching faintly as she dreamed.
Jaime stood near the window, arms crossed, posture tight enough that I felt it before he even turned around.
“Where have you been?” Jaime asked. No, it sounded like a demand.
I stopped just inside the door, the weight of the evening still clinging to me. The smell of the bar, of beer and whiskey and old wood, probably followed me in like an accusation.
“I went out for a drink,” I said. “With my brother.”
Jaime’s eyes narrowed. “You didn’t answer your phone.”
“I didn’t hear it,” I shot back, irritation spiking. My head was still buzzing, not enough to blur the room but enough to make everything feel a little louder, a little sharper. “I’m allowed to step away for a couple of hours.”
His gaze flicked over me, assessing. Then his mouth tightened. “You smell like alcohol.”
That did it. Something defensive rose up in me, fast and ugly. I crossed my arms, mirroring his stance without even meaning to.
“So what? I had a few drinks. I didn’t disappear. I didn’t do anything reckless,” I pointed out.
“I didn’t say you did,” he replied, but there was an edge there now too. Concern had sharpened into something harder.
I opened my mouth, the words already lining up. I was going to tell him about the clinic and what I’d overheard, about how those words had lodged themselves under my skin and wouldn’t let go.
But the mood had shifted. The warmth I’d imagined bringing back with me had evaporated somewhere between the bar and the elevator.
I was suddenly exhausted, my chest tight with too many emotions stacked on top of each other.
I closed my mouth again. Jaime studied me for another beat, then exhaled and turned away slightly.
When he spoke again, his tone had changed, smoother but distant. “What did Cooper say?”
The abrupt shift threw me off balance.
“What?” I asked.
“Your meeting with Cooper,” he clarified. “You said you were going to follow up. Did you learn anything?”
I stared at him, a petty, sour thought rising unbidden.Funny how he trusts Cooper without question.
For half a second, I considered not telling him. Letting him wonder. Letting him feel the same uncertainty that had been gnawing at me all evening.
The thought made my stomach twist. I sighed and ran a hand through my hair.
“Yeah. I talked to him. And the sheriff. I questioned Jimmie Hodge.”
Jaime turned back fully now, attention sharpening. “And?”
“He didn’t say anything useful,” I admitted. “Refused to talk. But Cooper and I both think Jimmie’s holding the line for someone else.”
Jaime nodded slowly, thinking.
“Jimmie Hodge doesn’t sound like our culprit,” he murmured. “At least not the mastermind.”
