THE DOOR BEHIND Alex slid open and Pierce stepped outside. Madison saw his jaw tighten when he looked at her, as if he realized what Alex was doing.
Interrogating her.
She tried to gather her composure, and offered a small smile.
“You’re supposed to be grilling steaks, Alex, not Madison.” Pierce eyed the other man with suspicion and set a bucket of iced-down beer by the railing. Austin wheeled up beside him with a second bucket in his lap. Pierce grabbed the bucket and set it down beside the first one.
When Pierce stepped toward Alex looking like he was ready to do battle, Madison grabbed his arm.
“Alex was just telling me about your family.”
Pierce narrowed his eyes at her. He didn’t look convinced.
Alex smiled, his eyes mirroring his approval. “Austin, you need to take your meds before we eat.”
Austin’s smile dimmed, and he said a few choice words beneath his breath as he wheeled around and headed back inside.
“You shouldn’t treat him like a kid,” Pierce said.
“You’re right, but he hero-worships you, and I didn’t want him upset. It’s not good for him.”
“Why would he be upset?”
“You got shot. I want the details. All of them.”
Pierce leaned back against the railing and crossed his arms. “Madison, would you mind going inside to check on Austin?”
“Now who’s treating him like a kid?” Alex said.
Madison rushed to the door, more than happy to avoid this particular discussion, and to put some distance between herself and Alex. “I don’t mind,” she said, heading inside.
The sound of cursing led her toward the front of the house into the kitchen. Austin’s wheelchair was rolled up to a table and a pile of pill bottles was spread out before him. A bottle of water sat to his right.
He glanced up when she entered the room. His face turned a light shade of red. “Did Alex send you in here to help me? I swear he thinks I can’t open these damn things by myself.”
She pulled out a chair next to him and took the bottle out of his hand. “Judging by the cursing when I came in here, he’s right. But, actually, it was Pierce who sent me in here. He wanted to speak privately to Alex without me overhearing.” She twisted the cap off and set it on the table. “How many?”
His mouth twitched and his frown melted into a grin. “You’ve got some sass in you. I like that.” He nodded toward the bottle. “I’m supposed to cut that one in half.”
She glanced around, then got up and went to the kitchen counter. She pointed at a knife and cutting board. “Is this what you use?”
“Yeah.”
She washed her hands at the sink, then carried the knife and cutting board to the table. After sitting down, she shook out one of the pills.
“I wouldn’t have thought to wash my hands first.”
“That’s because you’re a guy.”
He shrugged. “I suppose.”
“Why do you call him Alex?” she asked.
“Because that’s his name.”
“Now who’s being sassy? He’s your father, right? So why do you call him by his first name?”
He shrugged. “I grew up hearing everyone else call him Alex. The ‘Daddy’ label never took.”
They sat quietly for a few minutes, shaking out pills, putting them on a napkin. Madison cut three of them in half, per Austin’s instructions. When they were done, she capped all the bottles. “Where do you keep these?”
“On the counter.” He waved toward where the cutting board and knife had been. “But I can put them up myself.”
“I’m sure you can. But I’ve got nothing better to do at the moment.” She carried them to the counter, rinsed and dried the board and knife, then rejoined Austin at the table.
He started taking the pills, two at a time, chasing them with a swallow of water.
“That’s an awful lot of pills. Do you take them every day?”
“On this most recent study, yeah. Some of the studies are worse than others.” He shrugged. “None of them seem to do any good for very long. I keep getting worse.”
“Worse? In what way?”
He waved his hand toward the wheelchair. “This is new. Before this last study, I could walk . . . sometimes. The paralysis is a side effect of the medication. Temporary, supposedly. I’m starting to wonder if the potential benefits are worth it. But the doctors swear the medication will result in long-term gains like it has for other diseases. If all goes well, in a few months, I should be out of the chair again.”
She glanced at his legs. “The pills paralyze you?”
“Yep. Can’t feel a thing. Alex is terrified I’ll burn myself or something and not know it. That’s another reason he sent me in here, I’m sure. To keep me away from the grill.” He grinned. “Heck, maybe I should burn myself just to see him freak out.”
“Very mature.”
His grin widened.
“Sounds like the cure is worse than the disease.”
He sobered. “Sometimes it is.”
“What’s the prognosis?” When he raised his brows, she rushed to apologize. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be so nosey.”
He shook his head. “I don’t mind. You just surprised me. Most people avoid looking at my wheelchair, or asking questions. They pretend there’s nothing wrong.” He took a sip of water. “The prognosis is that the doctors don’t know. There haven’t been enough people in the world with my disease for them to make any predictions. I could keep losing muscle function and become completely dependent on others for my care. Or I could stabilize and live a long, relatively healthy life. They just don’t know.”
“That must be incredibly frustrating.”
He cocked his head, studying her. “You’re not at all what I expected.”
“What you . . . expected?”
“You know, for a party girl who dumped my brother to scope out the dating scene in New York.”
Her face flushed with heat, and she jumped up from her chair.
“Hold on a second,” he said. “Okay, okay, I admit that was out of line. I shouldn’t have said that. Don’t go.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Why shouldn’t I?”
He waved his hand toward his wheelchair. “Because I’m a cripple, and I’m lonely?”
The puppy-dog look on his face was so ridiculous she couldn’t help but laugh.
“Oh, fine. But no more insults.”
She plopped down in her chair.
“Those were my words, by the way, not Pierce’s,” he said. “Pierce was much more diplomatic when he explained about the breakup.”
“I’m not talking about that anymore.”
“What were their names?”
“Excuse me?”
“The guys you dated. You did tell Pierce you were”—he raised his hands and did air quotes—“ ‘moving on.’ ” He lowered his hands. “What’s wrong? Can’t make up any names fast enough to answer the question?”
“Of course I can.” She flushed, realizing how that sounded. “I’ve met several . . . ah, really nice guys.” She waved her hand in the air, desperately trying to think of a name, any name. “There was, um . . . John, and uh, Mike, of course.”
“Do John and Mike have last names?”
“I came in here to help you, not play games.” She shoved her chair back again.
He grabbed her arm when she started to get up, holding on with surprising strength. “You know what I think? I think you lied to my brother. I think you’re still hung up on him. I saw the way you were looking at him when he opened the door. That’s not the look of a woman who has moved on.”
She shook off his hand and shoved back from the table. “My feelings for Pierce are none of your business. What is it with this family? First, Alex, now you. You sure know how to make a stranger feel welcome.” She gripped her chair to stand, but he moved forward, using his wheelchair to block her way.
He grinned. “Did Alex lecture you? He’s good at that.”
She glared at him and wondered why she’d liked him earlier. She didn’t like him at all right now.
He cocked his head again. “If you really wanted to date other guys, you wouldn’t act so defensive. So I have to conclude you lied to my brother.”
She clutched the chair in frustration. “What do you want from me?”
“Tit for tat. I shared personal details with you.” He waved his hand toward his wheelchair. “How about you do the same? Just between you and me. Answer one question, honestly, and we’re even.”
She crossed her arms. “What’s the question?”
“Don’t insult me by pretending you didn’t lie to Pierce when you broke up. The real question is . . . Why did you lie?”
She forced a swallow past her tightening throat. “I never wanted to hurt him. I hated leaving the way I did,” she whispered.
“You still care about him.”
“Yes. Always”
“Then why did you lie?”
“Because I couldn’t tell him the truth. I needed him to let me go. I had to tell him something awful, to make sure he wouldn’t try to stop me.” She drew in a ragged breath.
He backed away, his expression smug. “My work here is done. I’m starving. I think I’ll go outside and grab a thick, juicy steak.” He looked past her shoulder. “Oh, hey, Pierce. I didn’t notice you there.” Austin winked at Madison and wheeled out of the kitchen.
Damn. Madison’s pulse thudded in her ears. She took a deep breath and slowly turned around.
Pierce was standing in the kitchen doorway. His jaw was tight, his eyes narrowed. She braced herself for his accusations, his barrage of questions.
Without a single word, he turned and walked away.
THE RIDE BACK to Pierce’s house was taut with silence. Madison kept waiting for him to demand that she tell him why she’d lied. But just like their earlier car ride from Mr. Newsome’s house, he was completely silent.
As soon as he opened the front door of the cabin, she tried to rush past him, fully intending to spend the rest of the evening in the bedroom, hiding like the coward she’d just discovered she was.
But his hand shot out and grabbed her wrist, preventing her escape. She glanced up at him uncertainly, but he wasn’t looking at her. He disabled the alarm, locked the door, then reset the alarm, before turning and giving her his full attention.
His jaw muscles were tight, and he looked more serious than she’d ever seen him. Calm, too calm, like a dormant volcano ready to explode. “We need to discuss a few things.” His words were short, clipped.
Her stomach sank. He towed her the few steps to the couch. She plopped down, but instead of sitting next to her, he stepped to the small desk against the wall and powered up the laptop sitting there.
He typed for a moment, then he swiveled the laptop around so she could see the screen. “This is your home security alarm company report for the past month, the report I requested after you realized some pictures were missing from your albums.”
She frowned, puzzled. This was what he wanted to talk about? Not why she’d lied when she broke up with him? She got up and crossed to the desk to view the report. It had yesterday’s date. “Why didn’t you tell me you had this?”
“I guess I forgot. Kind of like you forgot to tell me about the note and phone call Lieutenant Hamilton mentioned at Newsome’s house.”
She winced, but she didn’t respond to his goading, which she thought was admirable. Instead, she scrolled through the report. “The alarm hasn’t been tripped. I already knew that.”
“What about the dates and times the alarm was set or disabled? Do they look right?”
She pressed the keys, paging through the report more slowly. “I couldn’t swear to every time, of course. I didn’t exactly keep a log. But overall, it looks right.”
“No one else knows the alarm code?”
“I already told you and Hamilton that I changed it after I moved in. I haven’t shared it with anyone—not even you.”
He swiveled the laptop back toward him. “Did you use your birthday for the alarm code? Or some other date your husband might be able to guess?”
Her pulse sped up, and she moved back to the couch. “Ah, no, Damon wouldn’t know the code. It’s not significant.” To him. It was, however, significant to her.
“You’re sure?”
The code was the month and day of her first date with Pierce. She swallowed, her throat tight. “I’m sure.”
“What’s the code?”
“Why?” She tried to think of a reasonable excuse for not telling him the code, but just like when she was talking to Austin, her mind was coming up blank.
“I want to judge for myself if the numbers are a pattern Damon might be able to guess.”
“How would you know if it was?”
He waved toward the computer. “Casey e-mailed a file with some information on Damon. I read some of it on my phone earlier. Before I go through the rest, I’d like that code. There might be something in his past, your shared past, that would make him able to guess the code. I’ve got to figure out how he got in your house to take those photographs from your albums—or even if he did get inside your house. Sometimes moving companies store everything for a short period in a warehouse before making the final delivery. He might have searched through the boxes at the warehouse.”
The thought of Damon going through her things had the hairs standing up on her arms. “I suppose that’s possible. After the movers packed my apartment, I stayed in New York a few days wrapping up loose ends before I flew down here. They delivered my furniture the day after I arrived. They would have had to store my belongings.”
“The code?”
Guys didn’t remember things like when they had their first date, did they? Especially when the relationship ended so badly. She drew a deep breath and told him the code.
His dark gaze flew to hers, and for a moment she thought maybe he’d realized the significance of those four numbers. But then he simply nodded, and looked back at the screen.
She let out a relieved breath, feeling as if she’d just been given a reprieve. “If there’s nothing else, I’m going to bed. It’s been a long day.”
“Not yet. I want to know about the note and the phone call.”