Her brother made a sound, half hum and half growl, that she’d come to know meant he was thinking. “Actually, this is good. We needed an explanation, and now we have one. Once we dig up the ground there, we might have some answers.”
Without even looking at him, Cait felt Noah’s tension.
“That doesn’t help Cait,” he said. “We don’t know who the second man is. But Cait saw him. Even if it’s what we think it might be, she’s the only person in the world who can put him there, burying a goddamn body.”
“Can you find the house after so long?” Nell asked.
“All we’d have to do is call up property records,” Cait told her. “But I’m pretty sure I can. I rode my bike a lot. I swear, I can still picture every bump for ten blocks around where the sidewalk was buckling over a tree root.”
“First thing in the morning,” her brother said decisively. His gaze rested on Noah. “You planning to come with us?”
“Yes.” That was all. Yes. Noah didn’t even look at her.
Hadn’t it occurred to him that he was seriously endangering the plan of keeping their relationship clandestine? A plan, it occurred to her, designed to protect her job, not his. So maybe he didn’t care that much.
He and Colin were discussing when to meet. Not where—they’d already decided that. They would start in front of her childhood home. The one she’d had no desire to visit for old times’ sake.
Nell gave her a sudden, sympathetic grin that neither of the men noticed. Cait rolled her eyes in return.
“All right.” Noah pushed himself to his feet, apparently satisfied. “I’ll see you in the morning.” His back to Colin, he smiled at Cait. “It’s good you remembered.”
“I should have remembered,” her sister-in-law said.
Colin kissed her cheek. “Yeah, you should have.” But he didn’t sound at all critical. His Nell walked on water as far as he was concerned.
Cait went to the door with Noah, but he didn’t let her step outside. “Sleep tight,” he said in a low voice, but there were no good-night kisses for her.
She locked the door behind him and turned to meet her brother’s eyes.
“You’re getting yourself in trouble there,” he said. “You do know that, don’t you?”
“What makes you say that?” she asked, with fair dignity, if she did say so.
He shook his head. “I’m not blind.”
She was an adult. She did not have to answer to her brother. “We’re being discreet.”
“You barely got rid of one son of a bitch, and you’re taking on another?”
“Don’t you dare compare Noah to Blake,” Cait said hotly.
He blinked in surprise at her furious reaction. “I didn’t mean to. But he can be ruthless. Don’t kid yourself he’s not.”
“He’s come to my rescue every time I called.”
Her brother relented. “He has. I’ll give him that. But long-term…” He shook his head.
“Maybe I’m not looking for long-term.” Why even say that when she was? She was.
His expression froze. Oh, he didn’t like that. But after a moment Colin gave a stiff nod. Cait suspected Nell had squeezed his hand or elbowed him or something.
“I’m going to bed,” she announced and went, leaving a crashing silence behind her.
* * *
COLIN DIDN’T SEEM any more inclined to talk this morning than she did. Seeing the house where they’d both grown up was unlikely to cause him any heartburn—he’d lived in it for several years after she was gone, after all, and had been the one to have to clean it out and sell it after their father had died. Plus, in all the years since, he was bound to have driven past it now and again.
Her tension grew as the route became increasingly familiar.
She’d been friends with the girl who lived there, on the corner, but couldn’t remember her name. Cait had even had sort of a crush on the girl’s older brother. Kurt, she thought suddenly. Kurt and…Sarah. She wondered what had happened to them, and whether she’d recognize either of them if they came face-to-face.
Oh—and there was the spot she’d fallen off her bike and broken her arm. That was an awful summer. She hadn’t been able to swim, or ride her bike, or do hardly anything for ages.