Page 26 of Carry on Wayward Son

“You call me,” he said. “Anything goes wrong, anything seems off, you call me. I won’t be able to come, but I can maybe point you toward someone who can.”

“Okay.”

“I mean it, Layla.”

He did.

“Thank you, Bruce.”

He held my gaze for a long time, as if he were trying to memorize every feature of my face. The face he’d been the first to see after the surgeons had done their work, repairing the visible signs of what had been broken. Then he went to the door.

“Take care of yourself,” he ordered.

“Promise.”

The door closed behind him.

I stood in the middle of the cottage and listened to his car start and pull away. I sat down on the couch. Koa climbed half into my lap, seeming to understand, as he always did, that I needed full canine weighted blanket mode to get through this.

I wrapped my arms around his thick neck, pressed my face into his fur, and absorbed the full weight of what I’d just chosen.

Thirteen

JACE

Courtesy of Madden, less than an hour after I’d left Layla, I headed back to the AirBnB, loaded down with files. I was half a block away when I spotted the man coming down the front walk of the cottage. I pegged him as mid-fifties, broad through the shoulders. He moved with the deliberate economy of someone who’d spent a long time being paid to be careful, and he got into a dark sedan at the curb, pulling away after a brief hesitation, where I saw him glance back at the house.

I noted the make, model, and plate number automatically, the way I noted everything, and watched him go.

Not a delivery. Not a local. I’d have placed him if he were, or at minimum recognized the type, and this man didn’t fit any category that belonged on Hatterwick in late November. Something about him gave me the impression of government—either active or someone who’d been part of the fold for a long time. Beyond that I didn’t have enough to work with.

What I had was a stranger leaving Layla’s cottage, and Layla hadn’t mentioned she was expecting anyone. Not that she owed me the details of her interactions, but something about the whole thing made me vaguely uneasy. I’d long ago learned to never ignore my gut.

I gave it two minutes, idling at the curb down the street, then pulled into the driveway and knocked.

It seemed Layla took a long time to answer, though it was probably less than a minute.

Her eyes were dry, but the redness around them wasn’t, and the effort she’d made to compose her face hadn’t entirely taken.

“What’s wrong?” I demanded. “Who upset you?” My voice came out gruff, driven by an instant aggression I wasn’t quite sure what to do with.

“No one.” She wiped at one eye with the back of her hand, reflex rather than necessity. “This work is just hard sometimes.”

It was a truth, but I didn’t think it was the truth.

“Did you find something?”

“No.” She stepped back from the door. “What can I do for you, Jace?”

I held up the stack of fat, expandable files. “Copies of everything Madden’s compiled. She thought you’d want to go through it yourself.”

Layla blinked, and something that was almost her normal expression crossed her face. “Good. Thank you.” She took the files and set them on the coffee table beside her laptop, moving through the small living room with the restlessness of someone who had too much energy and no clean place to put it.

“You sure you’re okay?” I wanted to ask about the guy who’d been here. Who he was. What he wanted. But I’d wait to see what she said.

Layla turned to look at me, and whatever she’d been about to say shifted somewhere between her brain and her mouth. “Honestly? I could really use a gym. Is there one on the island? Preferably one with punching bags and mats.”

I hid my instinctive surprise. “It so happens there is. I’ll take you.”