Murder Takes the High Road(19)

“Will you keep out of it?” Trevor shouted. “This isn’t any of your business.”

“Sure, it i—”

The lamps flared and went out.

Granted, there hadn’t been much illumination radiating from those antique wall sconces before. But the sudden and absolute total darkness did shut us all up for a nanosecond. The startled silence was filled by the running tap water.

There was a squeak of taps and the water stopped.

I heard Trevor’s breathing get funny. He’d always had a problem with claustrophobia, and this tiny room—the chilly blackness that seemed to press in from all sides—probably flipped his switch.

“The place is supposed to be haunted.” John’s tone, drifting through the darkness, was conversational.

Trevor’s breath hitched. I opened my mouth to say something reassuring—old habits, I guess—but the lights blazed on. I blinked in the sudden brightness.

“Funny.” Trevor glared at John, as though he thought John had played a trick on him.

John raised his hands like don’t look at me.

“Okay,” I said briskly. “Enough.” I yanked open the door. “Go,” I told Trevor. “We’ve got less than ten minutes to get ready for dinner and if you don’t get your ass in gear we’re going to end up sitting together. Won’t that be nice?”

“What would be nice,” Trevor began. “Is if you and Mr. P—”

I shut the door on the rest of it.

“Hey,” John said mildly. “I wanted to hear my nickname.”

“Mr. Personality is your nickname, and to be honest, Mr. Personality, you weren’t helping.”

“No?” John surveyed the reflection of his cleanly shaven jaw with satisfaction. “You know what I think?”

I eyed him warily. “What?”

“I think Trevor’s afraid his boyfriend did try to shove you into the road.”

I stared at him. As much as I wanted to deny it, when I remembered Trevor’s face, that angry, scared glitter in his eyes, I suspected John might be onto something.

“You know what else I think?”

“No.”

“There’s a reason Trevor keeps turning up on your doorstep.”

“Uh, yeah. He’s trying to get me to leave the tour.”

“Try again.”

I must have looked genuinely confused, because John said, “You could probably get him back, if you want him. You’d have to be crazy, in my humble opinion, but you got involved with him in the first place so maybe you are crazy.”

I could see my reflection in the mirror behind him. I was openmouthed with astonishment. Also, I looked pretty good in that black long-sleeve T-shirt. “What are you talking about?”

“The guy’s a prick,” John said almost kindly, like he was breaking it to me.

“That, I know. I mean what’s the rest of that supposed to mean?”

“About getting him back?”

“Yes.”

John shrugged. “Think about it. There’s a reason his boyfriend thinks getting you out of the way wouldn’t be a bad idea.”

“Oh, but that was just—”

“And it’s the same reason Trevor keeps popping up to remind you that you’re supposed to be eating your heart out over him.”

I was surprised at how uncomfortable this conversation was making me. How uncomfortable I was with the idea that Trevor had regrets. “It’s not that,” I said. “He’s mad at me for coming on this trip.”

John’s brows rose in polite skepticism. “I think it’s a little more complicated than that.”

“And you’re an expert on relationships?”

“Yep. You kind of have to be in my line of work.”

“Selling insurance?” I asked blandly.

“Uh...yes.”

“Hmm.” I was doubtful.

John finished buttoning his shirt. He was wearing a cream-colored dress shirt and brown wool-blend trousers, and he looked handsome in a business casual kind of way. “Business casual” had never been my type, but it turns out “unemployable” isn’t exactly the stuff of romance either.

“Anyway. Something to think about.” He headed for the door. “See you at dinner.”

The room was very quiet after he’d left, and his aftershave lingered pleasantly. I finished dressing, waited a minute or two for the handyman—though mostly I was just stalling while I considered John’s troubling theory—and then finally went downstairs to dinner.

There had been a time—not really so long ago—when the idea that there might still be a chance Trevor and I could patch things up would have made my evening. But over the months that had changed.

There are things there’s just no forgiving. In my case, the worst part wasn’t the affair with Vance—devastating though that had been—it was what an asshole Trevor had been during the uncoupling process. Despite having been the one who had the affair and was breaking off our relationship, he had continually treated me like the bad guy, the villain, the untrustworthy one. I didn’t know if that was his way of handling guilt—convincing himself that even his infidelity was somehow my fault?—or if he just really was a complete jerk. He’d fought me over everything, from idiotic, trivial things like who had purchased a particular green plastic spatula, to bigger things like wanting “his share” of my retirement fund. Thank God, we hadn’t actually married. Legally, he hadn’t had a leg to stand on—which, weirdly, had made him all the angrier and more hostile.