Page 62 of The Ruse

I considered sending his call to voicemail and just calling him later, so that I could get back to Asher’s story. But I figured it would probably only take a minute.

“Hello?”

“Hey,” Nash said, sounding somewhat anxious. “Ava just told me that you got left in the cabin with Asher, and I just wanted to see how you’re doing.”

“Oh.” I took a seat on the edge of my bed. Then I lowered my voice to a level that Asher hopefully wouldn’t hear from down below. “I’m doing good. We were lost in the woods for a while, so I was confused about what was going on at first. But I’m feeling a lot better now.”

“That’s good,” he said with a sigh. “I can’t believe they left you up there.”

“I guess they thought I went back to Eden Falls with you guys for some reason.”

I didn’t know how that thought had come to be, since I didn’t know their great-grandma and I wasn’t Nash’s girlfriend or anything official like Ava was to Carter…but apparently, I was tied to their hip enough that it had seemed believable.

“If I wasn’t snowed in at my grandma’s house right now, I’d totally try to save you from a night alone with Asher.”

“I’m sure you would,” I said, hoping that Asher couldn’t somehow overhear us and know what Nash had just said.

“He hasn’t done anything to make you uncomfortable, right?” Nash asked, like he really thought it was a possibility. “Because just say the word, and I’ll ask one of our staff to drive a snowmobile up there to get you.”

“No, it’s been fine,” I hurried to say before he could think anything was wrong. “You don’t need to do anything like that. I don’t want anyone else put in danger when I’m perfectly safe staying here.”

“Are you sure?” Nash asked. “Because I know how creepy Asher can be. Bailee told me stories.”

She did?

“What kind of stories?” I asked, my pulse suddenly pounding in my temples.

“Just how he was so obsessed with her,” Nash said. “I know a lot of people thought they werecouple goalsand everything, but from what Bailee told me, it sounded like she wasn’t as serious about him as it seemed.”

“Really?” I asked. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” Nash said. “I always kind of wondered if they were fighting that night because he was super controlling or something.”

They had a fight the night Bailee disappeared?

I looked around the loft, suddenly afraid that Asher was going to come upstairs any moment and hear what Nash was telling me. I quickly dashed to the bathroom and shut the door for more privacy.

“Someone saw them fighting?” I whispered after locking the door.

“It was me. I actually saw the fight,” he said. “I was grabbing some takeout from The Italian Amigos and saw them arguing in a booth.”

“Did you overhear their conversation?” I asked, feeling that whatever he may have heard could be vital.

“I wasn’t close enough to hear,” he said. “But I could tell they were arguing about something. I’m pretty sure Bailee was crying. Which is why I told the police about it when she didn’t show up at the school again.”

Nash had told the police about it?

Was that why Asher had been under investigation? Because of something Nash had reported?

I mean, couples argued all the time, right? And even if they were breaking up, that didn’t mean Asher hurt her.

I wanted to defend Asher, since what Nash was saying was purely speculation and I was pretty sure their ongoing feud could have clouded his judgement of the situation.

But since I wasn’t there and hadn’t seen what he’d seen, I just said, “Well, hopefully Bailee is all right. Hopefully, she’s just, I don’t know, hiding out somewhere and having a good laugh at everything.”

“Hopefully.” There was a beat of silence before Nash seemed to remember something and said, “Actually, I have something else that I wanted to ask you.”

“You do?” I asked.

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