Page 45 of Dead Man's Alibi

Whatever was going on wasn’thersto worry about.Even if Cal had insisted she was a part of this and all that.She should keep herself scarce.Help where she could when directly asked, but otherwise—

The door jerked open, and Jill flinched in surprise.

Cal looked rough.He hadn’t shaved, his hair was sticking up at all sorts of angles and getting a little long, all things considered.He had circles under his eyes and, strangest of all, a sock on one foot and not the other.

“Is everything all right?”

“No,” was his quick and harsh answer, but he moved out of the doorway and gestured her to follow him inside.

When he walked up the stairs, she felt like she had no choice but to follow him up there too.The door on the second floor was open, and he stalked inside.

She glanced back downstairs.Quiet and dark.She figured they’d talk in the office, but she supposed if Sam wasn’t open yet, and technically the office wasn’t Cal’s, the apartment upstairs made sense.

She’d never been up here.Hadn’t anticipated being up here.Cal waslivingup here, so it felt like a private place and going into it was… weird.

Not that she could fully articulate why.Cal had been in the tiny cabin up on the mountain more times than she could count, and that washerliving space.So why shouldn’t she be invited into his?

It was cute.Small, but the old historical building details gave it a kind of charm.From where she stood by the door, she could see most of the apartment.

Some of that cute was detracted by a very large TV dominating one wall in the living room and, across from it, a kind of recliner that looked exactly like the kind of chair one would expect a single man who made a decent amount of money to have in his apartment.Leather, but weirdly modern.With a cupholder.

The kitchen was a little galley separated from the living room by a counter.He had a very fancy-looking coffeemaker taking up half the space there, seemingly incongruous to the older appliances.

The giant rug over the slightly uneven wood floor from kitchen counter to wall of windows was pretty though.A misty kind of watercolor pattern.Maybe Sam had left that, because it certainly didn’t match anything else.

The windows that dominated the living room wall were beautiful too.And Jill bet it was kind of neat to look down on Main Street and see the goings on of a spring morning.Feel the very slow bustle of Marietta waking up.So different than Boston as a whole, but maybe not totally different from her little neighborhood back home.

But she wasn’t here for the view, or reminiscing, something she was reminded of harshly when Cal spoke.

“Nate was arrested.”

Jill turned from the windows to look at him and found herself utterly speechless.Arrested.But…

Cal stood in his kitchen, gripping the counter in a kind of wide stance that had him hanging his head down in between.He looked so lost and alone.She took a few steps toward him, some inner desire to comfort that she managed to stop herself from offering.Because they were casual friends… not hugging friends.

“I can’t figure out what kind of fucking evidence they could have to get this warrant.Everything I know about is circumstantial.No self-respecting judge issues on that.”He looked up at her then, dark eyes shadowed and intense.“What the hell do they think they have?”

“You haven’t slept,” she said instead of answering his question.

A wave of sympathy swam through her.She’d seen Cal in a lot of less-than-complimentary situations.She’d seen him lost in his own memories, terrified by his own trauma.She had seen him furious and determined, like with his father’s case last winter, but she had never seen this kind of baffled frustration.

He looked around the apartment as if surprised to discover her observation was true.“Sleep?No.Too much to do.”

“But surely you need some sleep to do it effectively.”

His gaze sharpened.“My brother is injail.Formurder.”

Okay, so she wasn’t going to be able to convince him to take care of himself.“Have you eaten?”she asked, moving toward the kitchen.“I could make you some breakfast.”He’d have better luck if she went and got him something from the diner, but she didn’t think he should be alone.Not just yet.

She marched over to his refrigerator and opened it.There was next to nothing in there.Not even eggs.She could have scrambled some eggs.

“Aly rub off on you or something?”

She laughed in spite of herself and closed the fridge.“I don’t quite have Aly’s kitchen skills, even after taking care of Grandma, but I can make some toast or something.Do you have bread?”

He sighed.Moved to a cabinet and pulled out a loaf of bread.“I’ll handle it,” he muttered.“You eat yet?”

“Well, no, but I’ll just get something at the diner later.”