Cold Pursuit - Carla Neggers [48]
“I was the victim of a prank,” she said, then added quietly, seriously, “You were shot, Elijah.”
He shrugged but kept his eyes on her. “All’s well that ends well.” His tone was unreadable. “I have leftover grilled chicken if you can come up with something to go with it.”
“I can toss a salad together and bring it over to your place. I’ll follow you back to the lake.” She smiled at him. “Don’t speed.”
She decided she didn’t need to remind him that her father used to nail him all the time for speeding when they were teenagers—before the army, the Secret Service. Long before his father’s death on Cameron Mountain.
As she got in her car, Jo saw herself and Elijah as teenagers, walking hand in hand through the fallen leaves on the town green, and she felt a surge of tenderness for the crazy-in-love kids they’d been.
Not an image for a long, dark Vermont night.
Best just to go back to the lake and make salad.
Twelve
“You’re still a little in love with her, aren’t you?”
Thomas Asher quickly clicked off his Internet connection at the desk in his first-floor study as if Melanie had just caught him watching porn videos instead of the two-minute clip of Jo Harper tackling the vice president’s teenage son. It was even more entertaining than he’d expected—and just the distraction he’d needed from Alex’s death and his own appalling behavior.
Jo had called and told him Nora had taken off into the mountains.
What the hell was his daughter thinking?
What had he been thinking that morning when he’d panicked and run from the hotel?
He swiveled in his leather desk chair. “Not even a little,” he said, smiling at the woman who would become his wife in less than two months. She stood in the doorway, looking more amused than annoyed.
“Uh-huh,” she said.
Thomas knew he couldn’t fool her. He didn’t want to. But Melanie believed he harbored feelings for Jo Harper, and he couldn’t convince her otherwise.
She entered the study and put her slim hands on his shoulders as he swiveled back to his computer. She had yet to suggest he sell his northern Virginia house after they were married. He and Carolyn had bought it together nineteen years ago, raised their daughter there. Thomas didn’t know why, but he couldn’t part with it—it was as if selling the house would somehow mean the Thomas Asher of the past had never existed.
Melanie kissed him on the top of his head. “I know it’s been an awful day for you.”
She slid her hands down his chest, her nails shining, polished a neutral color, and nodded at the blank computer screen. “Do you think Jo gave Charlie Neal what he deserved?”
“Everyone thinks Jo gave Charlie Neal what he deserved. She’s a professional, but she’s blunt by nature. Generally speaking, I’m sure that’s an asset in her work.”
“I like that,” Melanie said. “I hate when people don’t speak their minds.”
She didn’t know he’d run that morning. He leaned into her and wished for the thousandth time that he hadn’t panicked. Now he had to live with his shame and guilt. He had nothing to hide, but fleeing the scene the way he had would look suspicious to the police. He wouldn’t lie to them, but he hoped they left him alone. He couldn’t bear the thought of Melanie and his daughter—even Carolyn—finding out that his only instinct when he’d realized it was Alex dead on the street was to get out of there.
Thomas’s only hope now was that the police would find the driver of the car that had hit Alex—without his help.
Why hadn’t the messenger reported what she’d seen?
His complicated history with Alex didn’t help matters. Thomas cringed at the thought of the police suspecting him of having a role in his friend’s death, but what could he do? It was no secret that Alex had betrayed their friendship by taking up with Carolyn. Everyone knew it and would assume that, regardless of how mature he’d wanted to be about the situation, he’d had moments when he’d wished Alex a bad end. He was only human, after all.
His love for Nora had forced him to step back from his hurt, his anger, his humiliation and get on with his life. Now