Page 51 of Devoured By the Forbidden Mountain Man

MEREDITH: I’ve been thinking about our conversation. There is something about Gavin I should have told you. I have planning time until twelve-thirty if you can call from somewhere private.

I checked the time. We had less than twenty minutes, and Georgia was already standing.

Case saw her face from behind the bar and started toward us, but she met him halfway. I packed the laptop while she explained quietly that Meredith had reached out and they needed to leave.

Case asked no questions he wasn’t entitled to.

He squeezed Georgia’s shoulder once and told her the schedule was under control.

By the time we reached the truck, she already had her notebook out.

The drive back to the property took only minutes, but Georgia spent most of them staring at the blank page she had opened rather than inventing theories aloud.

I left the silence alone.

Whatever Meredith had decided to say, Georgia was going to hear it soon enough.

The field office felt colder after the warm restaurant. I turned up the heater while Georgia removed her coat and sat at her desk.

Before calling, she sent Meredith one question: whether she was comfortable with me being there.

The reply came almost immediately.

MEREDITH: Yes. I know Rex is helping you. Please just keep it between the two of you.

Georgia put the call on speaker.

Meredith answered in a low voice, and I could hear the faint sounds of a school behind her: a door shutting somewhere down the hall, distant children talking, then quiet.

“My class is at music,” she explained. “I have about fifteen minutes.”

Georgia didn’t rush into a list of questions. She rested her forearm beside the notebook and waited until Meredith spoke again.

“I kept thinking about what I said last night. Especially when you asked whether Gavin knew the thing I wasn’t telling you.”

Georgia’s eyes met mine briefly.

Meredith drew a breath.

“I saw him after he made bail.”

The admission changed the entire shape of the room.

Georgia’s fingers tightened around her pen. “You talked to him?”

“Yes. He came to my apartment a few days after he got out. He knew I was hiding something because my statement didn’t line up with what he remembered about me that night. I tried not to see him at first, but Gavin was worried, and he kept trying until I finally let him in.”

Her voice had none of the distance she’d used when describing the first confrontation with Brad.

This memory belonged to her in a different way.

Georgia leaned back slightly, giving herself room.

“What did you tell him?”

Meredith was quiet.

“Enough that he understood why I was scared. Not everything I’m ready to tell you today.”