The sigh that came back told Brantley far more than Magnus probably thought it did. The problem was he needed to know everything.
And if they had any chance of finding Ava March, he needed to know it now.
*
TREY FELT LIKE AN ASS.HE COULDpractically feel Magnus’s concern, yet he’d spouted off stupid fucking questions in the hopes of helping things along.
Okay, maybe that was a lie.
Maybe he was asking stupid fucking questions because he wanted to know the stupid fucking answers. Oh, and he had more. Lots more. Like: Was Magnus involved with Ava March? Were they sleeping together? Was she someone Trey had to worry about? What had happened to Magnus’s mother and sister?
The bigger question, the one he should’ve been asking himself: Why the fuck should he fucking worry in the first fucking place?
Yeah. Those were the kinds of stupid fucking answers he was looking for.
Trey took a deep breath, vowed to mentally erase the F-word from his vocabulary for the next hour at least. It was getting out of hand, even in his head.
And yes, he knew he had no business sticking his nose in Magnus’s life. He was the one who’d said no strings and had managed to keep Magnus at arm’s length for the past year. Magnus had held up his end of the bargain. Just because they would be in close quarters for this case didn’t mean Trey had any business making it personal.
“You still wanna grab coffee?” Brantley asked when they entered the Coyote Ridge town limits.
“Yeah,” Trey muttered.
“The diner?”
“Sure.” Anywhere was fine with him just as long as there were other people around. Just as long as he could keep himself in check and remember that this was about a missing woman and not about his own fucked-up personal life.
He wished he could say he hadn’t felt anything when he saw Magnus, but that would’ve been a lie, too. In fact, he’d felt something from the moment he’d learned Magnus was in police custody. What spurred that defensive feeling, the need to protect Magnus, he didn’t know and wouldn’t think too long or too hard on it, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there.
When Brantley pulled into the diner and found a spot, Trey was the first out of the truck. He didn’t look back as he headed into the restaurant, told the hostess they needed a table for three. Thank God she had one, because he would’ve lost his shit if she’d told him they only had booths left. He was not going to sit that close to Magnus. He didn’t trust himself right now.
Once seated, it only took a minute to place an order for coffee, everyone waving off the idea of lunch. Trey wasn’t hungry, but even if he was, he wasn’t sure his stomach was in any condition to eat right now.
Brantley looked up from texting on his phone. “Reese kept an eye on the police while they did their search.”
Magnus nodded, his expression blank. “I don’t know what they were lookin’ for, but it won’t matter. Ava hasn’t been in the house since New Year’s.”
Trey thought back to the night he’d stumbled upon Magnus with Ava. He’d suspected something was going on between them. Their interactions had been innocent enough—Magnus consoling her, offering her a place to stay—but he’d sensed something deeper.
He then recalled what had transpired once Ava had gone to Magnus’s house, leaving him and Magnus alone together. As was usually the case when they were in close proximity to one another, things had gotten out of hand. Magnus had ended up on his knees with Trey’s cock in his mouth. The look on the man’s face that night had been so full of passion and pleasure. It was difficult to see him like this, to know he was hurting.
When the coffee arrived, Trey focused on adding Splenda—three packets, one at a time, when he only needed two—and doing his best not to watch Magnus.
Brantley kicked things off. “Although I can’t speak for the Round Rock Police Department, who’s lookin’ at you for this, my goal is to find Ava. I’ve called in a few others, and we’ll do whatever it takes to find her, independent of whatever the police are doing. That means we’ll need as much information as you can give us, so we know where to start lookin’.”
Magnus nodded, stared at Brantley as though waiting for the first question.
“Ava was reported missing this morning,” Brantley continued. “We can only assume yesterday’s the last time Harrison saw her.”
Magnus took a deep breath. “I wouldn’t know. Like I said, I haven’t seen her in a few weeks. And I haven’t heard from her in several days.”
“Did she hang out with anyone specific?” Brantley prompted. “If she did go out with friends, do you know who?”
Trey glanced at Magnus, who was shaking his head. “I don’t know any of them well. I’ve only met one or two of them. But it doesn’t matter. Ava doesn’t hang out with her friends. Harrison doesn’t let her out of the house unless he’s with her. He keeps her on a tight leash.”
“You said she came to see you? If that’s the case, how’d she get away from him?”
“I figure she snuck out. I know on New Year’s she ran away.”
