Gone (Deadly Secrets #2)(21)

“Is that coffee?” she asked, staring at the coffeemaker.

“Yeah.” He pulled a mug from the cupboard and held it out to her. “Here.”

“Thanks.” She took the mug without touching his fingers and reached for the carafe.

He watched in silence as she filled her cup, feeling like an even bigger louse because she couldn’t look at him. “Sorry there’s no creamer.”

“It’s fine.” She lifted the mug to her lips and sipped without turning.

Whatever he’d felt in his chest dropped like a stone into his stomach, because this was worse than yesterday at the hospital. Worse even than that awkward meeting at his parents’ party. He racked his brain for something—anything—to say. “How’s your leg?”

“Fine.”

Fine. That was a word he knew well. One he used to get people to back off. Guilt twisted tighter inside him. “Raegan, about last night—”

“Nothing happened last night.” She moved back toward the living room, limping slightly in a way that told him her leg wasn’t fine at all. “I already called a tow truck. It should be here in a half hour. Can I take a quick shower?”

“Yeah.” Why did knowing she’d already called the tow make him feel like more of a schmuck? “I mean, that’s fine—good,” he corrected, silently cursing his word choice. “There’s a shower in the bathroom at the top of the stairs. Towels are beneath the sink.”

“Thanks.”

He followed her back into the living room. Watched, helplessly, as she grabbed her purse and headed up the stairs with her mug. He looked after her until all he could see through the spindles of the staircase was her bare feet and then finally nothing as she moved into the bathroom and closed the door with a snap, never once glancing his way.

His chest stretched tight as a drum, and a thousand emotions he didn’t want to feel pummeled him from every side.

Turning away, he scrubbed his hands over his face and told himself this was why he couldn’t be around her anymore. Because just the slightest smile or touch or brush of her skin against his made him miss her. And missing her—needing her—was a slippery slope for him. Tumbling off the edge of that slope had nearly killed him once before.

But even as he tried to listen to his own sound reasoning, he realized he was taking the easy way out. One of the steps in his recovery program had focused on making amends. He’d done that with his parents and siblings, but he’d never made amends with Raegan. At the time, he’d rationalized that she wouldn’t want to see him and that interrupting her life would just make her miserable all over again. But he wasn’t interrupting her life now. She’d come to him.

His feet stilled. He could make amends with her now. Even if it sent him into a funk for the next month, he could apologize and, hopefully, give her what she needed so she could finally let go of the past and move on.

Heart racing, he lowered his hands and turned back toward the stairs, already thinking through what to say. His elbow knocked into her laptop bag sitting on the back of the couch and sent it toppling over. Cringing, he tried to grab the straps before the bag hit the floor, but he wasn’t fast enough. Papers, a calculator, and a half-empty water bottle dropped out.

He knelt for the bag, relieved there was no laptop inside. Righting it, he shoved the water bottle and calculator back inside, then shuffled up the papers and was just about to replace them as well when he realized they were news printouts. About missing-child cases in and around the Pacific Northwest.

Unease spread down his spine as he scanned the top page, flipped to the next, and scanned it and the others. He counted eight different articles about eight different kids, some as young as a year, others as old as three, who’d gone missing under questionable circumstances. A few he’d seen before, but several others were new.

New and in Raegan’s bag. Research, he realized. Not for a story but for an obsession she still hadn’t let go.

Slowly, he pushed to his feet and stared at the papers as his unease shifted first to disbelief and then to shock.

She hadn’t driven out here last night in the middle of a snowstorm because she’d been worried about him. She hadn’t shown up at his parents’ party because she missed or cared about his family. She’d done both of those things because she wanted to suck Alec back into a useless search. Into a search he’d never survive if he let her. And she wanted that so much she’d even been willing to make a pass at him in his kitchen to get it.

“Thanks for the shower,” Raegan said, the stairs creaking as she came down. “Where do you want me to put my tow—”

She stopped two steps from the bottom. Lifting his head, Alec noted she was back in the clothing she’d worn yesterday, her purse slung over her shoulder, her hair pinned up, and her face clean of any of yesterday’s makeup. Only now that face was pale and full of guilt.

Without even asking, he knew he was right.

He lifted the papers in his hand. “What are these?”

Her gaze flicked from his eyes to the papers. “Just some research . . . for a news segment.”

“These were all printed yesterday. The time stamps say”—he glanced at the top paper again—“an hour before my parents’ party last night.”

Twisting the damp towel in her hand, she moved down the rest of the steps. “It’s not what you think, Alec.”