Page 46 of The Meaning Of You

However, the last topic puzzled me. Money laundering was my jam. I worked on it every day as part of my job. But Davis hadn’t come to me? Why spend hours searching online when he was married to a damn expert? I slow blinked, then scrubbed my hands over my face and told myself to get over it. But there were too many things that didn’t make sense.

I closed the search history and peeled my damp T-shirt away from my hot skin to waft some air between the two. Davis clearly hadn’t wanted to talk to me, let alone have me stumble onto any of his notes. It was the only explanation for all the secrecyandthe fact he’d kept me in the dark about how much time he’d been spending at the caravan.

Shifting me attention back to the laptop, I glanced nervously at the twenty-seven emails sitting in the inbox like they might jump off the screen and bite me. Many were spam, but the remainder were from a single source, someone called Lachlan, no last name given. The email address,pieinthesky,told me absolutely nothing, but it wasn’t a leap to wonder of this was the L in the L. K. from Davis’s desk calendar.

Fuck.I rubbed my hands together, sent a silent prayer skyward to who the fuck knew, and then opened the first email.

It had been sent the day before Davis’s accident.

Lachlan—Are we still on for tomorrow?

Shit.My heart lurched.

Davis—Yep. See you at the caravan around ten. I’ll grab us lunch on the way.

Lachlan—Great. How long do we have?

Davis—A couple of hours maybe. But I can’t keep hiding this from Nick. It’s killing me and it’s not fair on him. We need to make a decision.

Lachlan—Agreed. Let’s talk tomorrow.

The caravan faded into nothing and I fell back against the seat, the boiling air pressing down on my chest, dense and suffocating.It’s not fair... we need to make a decision.I couldn’t breathe, my heart rising into my throat, my pulse racing.

This couldn’t be right. It couldn’t be happening.

It just fucking couldn’t.

The voice of reason told me to calm down. Don’t jump to conclusions. And I was trying, I really was. But it wasn’t easy. In fact, it was pretty fucking impossible.

I scrolled to the next email, and the next, all sent over a few days, each trying to get in contact with Davis, each sounding more desperate than the last, starting with the night of the accident, the night we were supposed to be celebrating our anniversary.

Acid churned in my belly but I couldn’t stop reading.

Lachlan—What’s happening? You’re not answering my texts.

I blinked at that. Davis’s phone had been crushed in the crash but I’d downloaded all his stuff to a new phone and there’d been nothing like this in his text history, which meant only one thing. The receipt for that new phone hadn’t been a mistake.

“Bastard.” I swore at the ceiling, then kept going. Bring it the fuck on. I wanted to know. I needed to know.

The next email was sent the day after the accident.

Davis, what the hell’s going on?

Good fucking question.

Then later that day. I’m freaking out here. Please, Davis, text, or email, or something! I’m worried. Please!

Then a couple days later. Call me at the office. I mean it, Davis. Youhaveto call me.

The final one had been sent a week later. I’m gonna stop using this email just in case. You know where I am. Jesus, Davis. What the fuck happened?

“Just in case what?” I slammed the screen shut. “In case your fucking husband finds out?”

Oh god.A gaping hole ripped open in my chest and I barely made it outside before spewing the contents of my stomach onto the brittle brown grass. Again, and again, until my belly felt hollow, my cheeks wet with tears. When the cramping finally stopped, I spat the sour dregs onto the ground and grabbed a water bottle from the car to sluice my mouth.

I drank until the bottle ran dry, a war of emotions raging in my chest. Pain. Grief. Hurt. Disbelief. And above them all blazed a white-hot fury.

I roared and threw the empty bottle across the grass, dragging my fingers through my hair as I fell to my knees, my heart breaking open on the sun-baked earth.

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