Page 17 of Disarming Caine

I ran a hand over my face, jostling my sunglasses. “The whole point of moving out of the Brenton Arms is to set down roots. Make a commitment to stay in this town. If I move in with you, you’re still the one with the lease and I can still leave.”

“What about—”

I put up a finger to cut her off. She was trying to help, but after yesterday and this morning, my fuse was barely existent. Antonio didn’t trust me. How could he say he loved me and wanted a future with me, but still think I’d screw around on him? Without trust, what kind of relationship could anyone have?

He was plagued with irrational fears I’d cheat on him. I hadn’t met Faith, but I’d never had such an overwhelming desire to punch someone square in the face my whole life. Here I was, bending over backward to find a new home so he’d believe I wanted to be with him.

The hotel was a great place to live. Housekeeping, gym, pool, complimentary breakfast...

I blew out a deep breath.

A hotel was a great place to live in the short term, like when I’d planned to leave Brenton in the spring. He wasn’t the only one looking for a future between us. So why couldn’t I find an apartment I liked?

“Geez, you’re in a pissy mood today, Sam.”

I scowled at her, pulling to the side of the road in front of a two-story red brick Colonial with a concrete walkway leading to large double-doors. She looked at the house with its real estate agent’s sign and ‘Coming Soon’ rider at the top.

“So, you’ll buy a house instead?” She launched the realtor’s website and started reading.

“I was talking to Rhonda Wells at Mason’s yesterday—”

“Did you say hi for me?” She didn’t stop scrolling through the listing.

“—and she said there’s a suspicious painting in this house.”

“Ooh!” Lucy wiggled her hips in her seat, forcing me to crack a smile.

“The sale opens in a couple of weeks, so I can’t get inside to look before that. I was thinking—”

Her head snapped toward me, eyes glowing with excitement. “Digital snooping!”

“It sounds creepy when you say it that way.” Scrolling through the images on her phone, I stopped on the one of the bedroom. “The master bedroom has a photo with a sliver of the painting in it.”

She zoomed in. “Where?”

“It’s reflected in the—” I leaned over to point to it, but it was the wrong photo. There was no reflection of the painting in the mirror. I flipped back and forth through the photos, eventually taking her phone to look closer.

“What do we do when we’re done? Call Officer Williams?”

Janelle Williams of the Brenton Police Department had been my best friend growing up until we had a falling out in college. We’d patched up some of that damage since I’d moved home, but she wasn’t the person for the job. “I have a contact with FBI Art Crimes. I’ll call him if it looks like Rhonda’s right.”

She popped a bubble at me. “You ever going to tell me about that FBI thing?”

“I was in, I left, and that’s the entire boring story.” After cycling through the listing three times, I pulled out my own phone and showed her the screenshot I’d taken at the gallery. “This photo—the one Rhonda called me about—is gone.”

“Even better! I’ve so got this.” She dropped her phone into her bag and hauled a laptop out of her backpack. “Lemme get started.”

“Why do you have your laptop with you?”

“You don’t take yours everywhere you go?” She hooked a thumb over her shoulder to the back seat office of my F-150 Raptor, where I had a mobile desk, printer, and all the supplies I needed for doing my work on the road.

“Valid point.” I pulled the truck out. “But let’s go do this at my place before they think we’re doing more than snooping on an upcoming listing.”

“Yes!”Lucy’sarmsshotup into the air, startling me. She’d been talking in a constant low hum while she typed and clicked, so much that I’d blocked out both her and the program she had streaming through the television.

We sat next to each other on one of the couches in my hotel room, the junior suite I’d lived in since I moved back to Brenton last summer. Sitting room, bedrooms branching off either side, and a kitchenette which saw very little use.

I stuffed my fork into the heap of noodles in my takeout container and hit mute on the television remote. “I assume that means you found something?”

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