Page 70 of Call Back

Chapter 14

I wokeup in a cold sweat and tangled in the sheets, traces of my nightmare lurking in my subconscious. Brady wasn’t in bed, and the digital clock on his nightstand read 3:44. Had he gotten another phone call in the night?

I got up and went into the bathroom, then wandered into the kitchen.

Brady sat at his kitchen table with a bunch of papers and photos spread out before him. His head jerked up when he saw me. “Maggie. What are you doing up?”

“I woke up and you weren’t there. I thought maybe you got called in on a case. Did you ever come to bed?”

“I did, but I woke up and couldn’t go back to sleep.” He stood and walked around the table toward me. “I would have told you if I had to leave.”

I tried to look around him, tensing when I saw a photo that looked like a naked woman in an awkward pose. Had Brady gotten out of bed with me to look at porn? But a second later, I registered that it was a photo of a dead woman. I wasn’t sure that was much better. “What are you doing?”

“Just going over some paperwork,” he said, putting an arm around my back and ushering me back to the bedroom.

“How long have you been up?”

“Long enough that I’m ready to go back to bed.” He guided me to the edge of the mattress and lifted the covers. “Hop in. I’ll be back after I get a glass of water.”

I did as he asked while he headed back into the kitchen. After a minute or so, I heard the water running, and Brady appeared a few moments later. He set the glass on the nightstand and then slid in beside me, pulling my back to his front. His hand reached under my shirt, skimming my stomach. I resisted the urge to pull away.

“Say, are you working for your mother Saturday night?”

After the last fundraiser I’d worked ended in murder, Momma and Tilly forced me to take the night off. Still, I wasn’t about to tell Brady I’d agreed to go with Colt. “I’m not sure,” I hedged. “Why?”

“My mother wants me to go with her to a fundraiser. My father will be out of town on a business trip, and she doesn’t want to go alone.”

“The Middle Tennessee Children’s Charity event?”

“That’s it. Is your mother catering it?”

“Yeah. But you know it’s a masquerade ball, right?”

He groaned. “My mother failed to mention that part.”

“You’ll be fine,” I said. “Most people don’t wear their masks for long.”

“I don’t suppose I can convince you to come with me?” When I didn’t say anything, he continued, “I don’t want to pressure you. I realized you’d need to ask your mother for the night off if you work.”

Crap.Colt had asked me to the same event, and I’d said yes. If I went with him, I was sure to run into Brady. Part of me wanted to avoid the fundraiser all together, but if Colt actually found the gold and followed through with the handover, it didn’t feel right to skip out. I owed it to him to accept the risk too. Nevertheless, I took the chicken way out. “I’ll think about it.”

“Good.” He pulled me closer and buried his face into the back of my neck.

I closed my eyes, but all I could see was the photo of the dead woman. “What were you looking at?” I asked.

He stiffened, then pulled me closer. “I told you. Paperwork.”

“For a case?”

He rolled me over to face him and caressed my face. “This kills me, Maggie, especially when I know trust is a huge issue with you, but most of my job is confidential.”

“So it was for your job?”

“Yes.”

“I saw a photo of a dead woman. How can you stand it?”

“What I see is hard sometimes.”

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