Page 86 of The Pretender

“So, we’re back to the same place.” Harris almost groaned at the thought.

“Actually, no.” Damon held up four fingers. “One down. Three to go.”

Chapter 23

Gabby no longer drank, which was probably a good thing. Today if she started she might not stop until she downed an entire liquor cabinet. The good news was the days of relying on wine and vodka to numb her frazzled nerve endings and quiet her brain were long gone.

She stood on the guesthouse patio and paged through the chat room transcripts Damon had found. Every word leapt off the page. The affection between Craig and Tabitha struck her. Gabby didn’t have to dig through innuendos and subtext to find it. They shared ideas and talked about their struggles. But it was the flirting that made her smile. Craig’s gentle coaxing to bring Tabitha out of her shell.

Over time, the tone between them changed from serious crime discussions to something deeper. She could pinpoint the exact week where Craig stopped using a persona and his own voice came through. Gabby had no idea how Tabitha didn’t make the connection. Craig all but spelled it out for her. He stopped at using his name, but the information was right there.

They’d been off Craig’s boat for over an hour and Damon was back at the main house making phone calls and tracking the movements of all the players still on the island during the months since Tabitha’s murder. The police had done that already, but Damon was convinced they’d missed something and vowed to retrace each step.

That left Gabby and Harris alone to work through what they’d learned. She didn’t know where to begin. She struggled to take it all in. Her sister had spent time with a man who really cared about her. Gabby never thought something like that would be possible, never imagined Tabitha could experience that sort of happiness. The fact someone stole it away made Gabby violent. She wanted to kick and scream and fight back.

Her stomach flipped over at the thought of how much Tabitha had lost. The cost, the toll, was so much higher than Gabby originally thought. She put a hand over her heart on instinct.

Harris had been sitting in the chair the whole time, watching her with a gaze that skimmed over her like a caress. It grounded her despite the flurry of emotions battling inside her. He didn’t say much, which she appreciated. She craved the comfort of silence right now, and he provided that.

A quiet strength radiated off him. Behind the hypnotic deep voice and stunning face lay a man who was much deeper than he pretended. He joked, he deflected when it came to his work to the point that she was convinced he worked undercover for the police, but he’d shared the personal pain about his mother. Gabby sensed his mother’s life and her choices went to the very heart of who he was. The son of a woman confined in prison.

In his mind, he may have resolved his feelings about that, but the scars remained. His past made him real and genuine and vulnerable. She guessed he hated all of that, but she didn’t. That mix of control and humanity compelled her, reeled her in. Had her wanting more from him—with him.

She, the woman who ran from ties and feared losing one more person, had opened the door. Just a crack, but it was open. In such a short time she had come to think of him as hers. That they were bound together in some way.

She hadn’t fallen for someone in such a long time but she remembered this sensation. The free-fall, no net, going-to-crash flailing panic. She wanted to refuse to care about him, to block her heart and abolish the wordlovefrom her head, but she couldn’t do it. Her defenses were down and no matter how hard she tried to lift them again, they would not click into place. Not with him.

She hoped Tabitha had felt a portion of this. That she’d gotten a taste of how exciting, and, yes, scary, it was to fall for someone. To love without a safety net or parents watching over her and guiding her every move.

The man without real emotions—his proclamation, not hers—frowned at her in what looked like genuine concern. “You okay?”

“I will be.” For the first time in a long time Gabby believed that. The killer was still out there and someone had attacked her and tried to frame Craig, but life moved forward. She no longer sat and churned and wondered every second what could have been if she hadn’t been robbed of her family.

The confusion and pain still lingered. It always would, but it didn’t have to define her. She got that now.

“With Craig eliminated, the pool of potential suspects is even smaller.” Harris stretched his long legs out in front of him. “Your uncle, Kramer and Ted.”

Back to business. It was the right answer, but a part of Gabby wanted to wallow in the happy feeling for a few seconds. “None of them fit.”

“One of them has to.” Harris leaned his head against the back of the chair and stared up at her. “Look, a stranger didn’t sneak onto the island at the start of a storm just to manhandle you. Something else is happening here.”

God, she wanted him to be wrong. Life would be so much easier if they were dealing with some unknown person with no connections to the family. Someone who’d wandered in and they could find and then forget. But she no longer believed in that less likely theory of the case.

She sat down on the table next to him, close enough that her legs rested against the armrest of his chair. “Like what?”

“These things generally break down into pretty simple categories. People kill for money, for revenge, to hide something or because they just like the destruction.”

She could eliminate one even though a part of her, that vengeful angry part, wanted to blame him. “My uncle has enough money.”

“He’s on the verge of divorce.”

She swallowed a sigh. “He’s a multimillionaire.”

When Harris glared at her, she glared back. This was not just a family thing. There was no way to make the leap in her head. She refused to believe Uncle Stephen would hurt Tabitha. He hadn’t overindulged her like their parents, but he had talked about the need to keep her safe.

“Fine. I’ll give you that one,” Harris said, finally conceding.

“I’d think.” Right or wrong, she knew her uncle. The man today might be moved to violence. He’d been pushed so far to the edge that it was no longer impossible. Gabby knew if Uncle Stephen had a target, it would be her.

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