Page 83 of Keeping Secrets

“No, I’m not busy. What’s up?”

“I got a call from that detective that questioned Keely.”

Travis’s pulse lurched and sped. He closed his laptop on the shift schedules that he had been working on and stood up to pace the confines of his apartment.

“We need to talk.”

“Okay. Are you coming here?”

“I’m at Keely’s place.” A pause. “She wants you to come back over.”

“Why?” he asked reflexively. He’d left hardly two hours earlier.

Then he winced. He knew why. She wanted his help keeping her brother out of trouble. Still, he found it hard to believe that she would let him back into her home after everything he had said. Maybe with her brother there as a buffer, she felt okay.

“Never mind,” he said before Nick could answer. “I’m on my way.”

He disconnected the call and picked up his car keys, but his hands were shaking so badly that he put them down again. It wasn’t a long walk to Keely’s place. He was better off in the open air than behind the wheel.

Maybe the walk would clear his head. He didn’t feel fit for conversation just yet.

Halfway out the door, he remembered that he had promised Scot dinner from the Bottlenose. He shot off a text saying that he wouldn’t be in for a while, that he needed to go to Keely’s house for a tough conversation first and could Scot call his order in and have one of the other employees deliver?

No problem, Scot texted back. Go get your girl.

Travis winced and pocketed his phone.

Keely wasn’t his girl. And now she never would be.

How had he gotten himself into such a mess? Scot was counting on him, and he would be lucky if he didn’t end up in jail. Worse, Nick might end up right there with him. The authorities were closing in. But where was the justice? Where was the sense in any of it?

Maybe if he had just turned himself in right away, they could have avoided all of this. With Rachel’s testimony, they might not even have charged him. But now, after waiting so long, there was no real hope of escaping this without jail time.

Maybe it was just as well. Maybe it was karma.

He could try to justify it all he liked, but he had killed two men.

Who did he think he was, that he could do that and just go on living his charmed life here in Pelican Point?

His thoughts weren’t much clearer at the end of the walk than at the beginning, but physically he felt a bit calmer. At least, he felt relatively calm right up until knocking on Keely’s front door. Stepping into her house, seeing her again, brought his blood pressure right back up to a frightening hammering that pounded through his veins.

She had her back to him, chopping apples at the kitchen counter. It had been just a few hours since they had last seen each other, but the gulf between them felt uncrossable. All he wanted to do was take her into his arms and comfort her, and the knowledge that he didn’t have the ability to bring her any comfort settled into his chest like a physical pain.

At a gesture from Nick, he settled awkwardly into one of the kitchen chairs. Even after he shed his jacket, it was uncomfortably warm in the small kitchen.

Three mugs of chamomile steamed on the kitchen table. The smell of apples and chamomile tea should have been soothing, but Travis felt queasy. He reached around behind his chair and opened one of the windows. A cool breeze came in off the ocean, bringing instant relief.

“I don’t have to go through with the interview,” Nick said, breaking the heavy silence. “I could call and say that I have a family emergency out of town.”

“That’s too suspicious,” Keely said without looking up from her work.

“And they’d probably just ask you to answer the same questions on the phone,” Travis told him. “Or get an actual warrant or something. If you refused to cooperate.”

Nick blew out a breath and ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah, probably.”

“Anyway, how long would you stay away?” Keely dumped a cutting board full of apples into a big mixing bowl and squeezed lemon over them. Travis could smell the fresh citrus all the way across the kitchen. It hurt to look at Keely, her graceful hands and pale face, but it was impossible not to. “You can’t just run out on Chloe.”

“Of course not.”

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