Page 79 of Lost to Thievery
“O?” I prompted.
His eyes fell shut as his shoulders dropped an inch lower, but he shook his head. He hadn’t briefed Liam on the invite.
Sighs of relief flooded through the room. Emerie’s eyes were trained on Owen. She reached for his hand. “Owen, I’m…”
He pulled his hand from beneath hers and pushed his chair out. “Don’t, Emerie. I don’t want your sympathy. I want everyone on a fucking polygraph,that’swhat I want.” He stormed out the door.
I followed him into the men’s bathroom, and locked the door behind us, then checked the stalls to make sure we were alone.
Owen pressed his palms against his eyes and sagged down against the bathroom wall. My heart broke seeing my friend so devastated. I dropped down in front of him and brushed a thumb over his hand still covering his eyes. He caught my hand and silently pulled me into him, wrapping his arms around me and burying his face in my hair. His body was shaking as he held me on his lap, his fingers clasped tightly onto my torso. I stroked his hair, counting each of his ragged breaths.
After a while, he pulled away, resting his head on the bathroom wall and wiping at the tears on my cheeks. We sat like that for a moment longer, just watching each other.
“I want him in an interrogation room. I need answers,” his whisper sliced through the silence.
I nodded and swallowed. “Okay. I’ll be right beside you.”
An hour later, we stared at Liam Taylor through the one-way window, both unable to speak, both mustering the courage to go in there.
The other members of our task force were momentarily detained and separated until they were polygraphed and questioned by the director himself. Everyone went willingly, but there was a shift in the air—betrayal and mistrust lingered like a sickening stench between us. A fundamental trust had beenshattered amongst us. Where there once was easy camaraderie, now were weary eyes and guarded smiles.
Liam sat perfectly still. The shaking in his hands the last time I’d seen him, was gone. He showed no emotions whatsoever as he stared at the wall—so unlike the Liam I’d come to know and love.
I clasped my hand around Owen’s, and he jolted a little, like he had forgotten I was there. “You ready?”
He squeezed my hand a little tighter and gave a heavy sigh. “No. Where do I start? What questions do I ask? What if he lies to me? Would I still be able to tell if he lied to me? Or was his tells just an act too? Jesus, look at him, A! That’s not the Taylor I know. That’s a fucking robot in there. That’s…”
I clasped my hands around his cheeks. “Look at me, Owen. Look at me.”
He lowered his gaze to me, his chest heaving.
“Let me help you, okay? Let me ask the questions. I’ll take the lead on this. But you have to go in there. You have to face him, or it’ll haunt you forever. Not knowing will kill you even more, trust me.”
Owen’s breath came out in a woosh as he closed his eyes. When he opened them again, they were soft and pained as he stared at me. “I’m sorry, Ava. I see now I had been a little harsh on you.”
I frowned, not understanding.
He brushed a thumb over my cheek. “In the hospital. In Florence. I shouldn’t have said what I said. It was cruel. And insensitive. I thought I was helping, but…” he rubbed his thumb over my cheek again, “it must have hurt like a mother-fucker.” The smile tugging at his lips were pained.
My heart swelled with hurt and love for my friend. “It was necessary. I needed to hear it. You snapped me out of the insanity, Owen. And I never thanked you for it.”
Owen swallowed hard and took a step closer to me. Our bodies touched, ever so lightly and my heart skipped a beat. “Isn’t that what friends do?”
My mind went a little hazy with his proximity. It wasn’t like I hadn’t been this close to him before, but this felt different somehow. I lifted my chin to find him staring down at me, his gaze flickering between my lips and my eyes. There was a desperation hiding behind his stare that clawed at my insides.
Friends? Friends wouldn’t look at each other this way. Friends wouldn’t be standing this close.
Owen’s hand slipped underneath my hair, his gentle caress on the back of my neck making a shiver run down my spine. He lowered his face to mine, ever so slowly, like he was afraid to startle me.
My heart was pounding against my ribs and my limbs locked in place. One half of my mind was screaming at me to run, to push out of his hold and run for the hills. The other half was mesmerised by the look in his eyes, curious to where it would lead, how it would feel.
But none of it mattered. I couldn’t move—paralyzed by the battle in my mind.
His shuddering breath fanned over my face and my mind went still. I lifted my chin just an increment more, and our noses touched. Owen closed the distance and with the soft brush of his lips against mine, the tiniest of flutters bloomed in my stomach—something I never thought I would feel again. A sensation I was certain had been ripped away along with my soul.
I pressed up on my toes, hungry for more, but a sound behind me had me spinning around, my breath caught in my throat.
The director cleared his throat, pinning me with a disapproving glare. He stood in the door, still holding it open with one hand. He took two slow steps into the dark room and released the door behind him, never taking his eyes of me.
