David took her hand. “You don’t have to worry, okay? Just tell us what happened.”
Mati nodded. “I knew something was wrong right away. Usually, it was…I don’t know,normalafter sex. We’d shower, he might go home, or he occasionally spent the night. Only this time he was shifty. Wouldn’t look at me, showered for a really long time, and went home with hardly a word and no kiss goodbye. I thought it was weird, since he’d definitely enjoyed himself, and we hadn’t really done anything all that kinky. I asked him about it on our next date, and he snapped at me. Said some nasty shit and made it sound like I’d done something wrong. So, I left. No great drama, I just put down some cash for my half of the bill and left. I told him he could call me later in the week in the hope that he’d calm down and find a way to talk about the real issue. The next night he was at my door, begging for forgiveness. I invited him up to talk about what went wrong. He wouldn’t speak of it, and when I pressed, he snapped at me again, this time worse. Dragged up all this religious shit and suggested I needed to come back to the church. Torepent.”
David’s instincts prickled, his teeth clenched. That sounded ugly and cruel, no matter how calm Mati sounded.
“I asked him to leave and he did,” she continued, “but that started a pattern of him showing up on my doorstep, and a couple times at my parents’ house, when he knew I’d be there.”
“They must have been furious,” Reese said.
Mati smiled sadly. “To this day they’re pushing me to get back together with him.”
Reese’s brows lowered. “You should tell them how he treated you.”
“I have. Not the details, but I told them he was unkind and that he wasn’t to be trusted. That he wouldn’t leave me alone. But they believe Father Anthony is a better character reference than I am.”
David knew better than to badmouth someone’s family, or their priest, but that fucking sucked.
“What made him stop?” David asked.
“Father Anthony, actually,” Mati said. “After a couple months, when I couldn’t take it anymore and Frankie showed no signs of letting up, I told Hodges what was happening and asked what he thought I should do. He took me to the RCMP and introduced me to an officer there so I would feel comfortable coming back with the paperwork. In the meantime, I told my brothers what was going on and one of them told Father Anthony. The next thing I know, Frankie isn’t showing up anymore and Father Anthony tells my brothers to tell me that Frankie will let it go.” She shrugged. “And he has. I haven’t seen him, except for the rare occasions I have to go to church for my nieces and nephews.”
“Does he say anything when you see him?” David asked.
“Not really. Just hello when he chats with my parents. He isn’t rude, and I give him a wide berth.”
“So, you think he’s moved on,” David concluded.
“Well…” Mati scrunched up her nose. “My sister-in-law says he asks her about me all the time and that he watches me in church when I wouldn’t notice. She also says that if he’s dated anyone since me, she hasn’t heard about it.”
David did not like the sound of that. He didn’t give a shit if Frankie spent the rest of his life as celibate as a monk, but if the guy was still pining after Mati, he was sailing in the wrong direction and needed a serious course correction.
“Do you think he had something to do with the break-in?” Mati asked.
David rocked his head back and forth. This guy sounded like a problem, but not necessarily the kind of problem that would break into Reese’s house and search it. “We don’t know. We’re looking into everything.”
“For what it’s worth, I’d be shocked if he knew how to hack a digital lock. He’s a bright guy, but he’s not into technology at all.”
“That’s good to know,” David agreed, but the whole thing had him on edge. He didn’t like the idea of some asshole up in the middle of nowhere waiting for Mati to come home.
He felt twitchy, and foolish, since he wasn’t about to go charging up to Canada, was he?
David stood, taking a deep breath and stretching his arms above his head, trying to pull the tension from his body. Mati and Reese both eyed where his shirt rode up and exposed his belly. He hadn’t yet bothered with pants this morning.
That uneasy feeling wasn’t going away. His head was too full of what they knew about the break-in, and Frankie, and Reese’s father, to consider getting back into bed. Even with these two. Maybeespeciallywith these two.
At least, not right away. He had every intention of ending up there eventually, but first, he needed to get out of this hotel room for a few minutes and clear his head.
Mati and Reese couldn’t go with him, but they were safe here in the hotel, particularly since, thanks to Frankie, Chance had stationed someone in the hotel lobby full-time, and his techs were getting jacked into the hotel’s perimeter security cameras.
And if they were going to be trapped here for a while, there were a few ways he could make it a lot more pleasant.
“If it’s okay with you guys, I’m going to go for a run. I can hit the local market and get us some supplies while I’m out.”
He was relieved when they agreed that would be great.
“Make me a list of whatever you need or want, okay?”
Mati was reaching for a pen before David had made it to the bathroom. When he came back out in his running clothes, he took a slip of paper from Mati, which he noted was green. This was personal, apparently.
