Page 42 of The Meaning Of You

I sensed him smile. “I can do that.”

I took a shaky breath and squeezed out, “I think of you as my brother too, Samuel. I mean it.” And I did. As terrifying as the idea was to my heart, I did.

“Good.” He sounded pleased. “So, what’s this question you have for me?”

I sighed, happy to move on. “I was wondering if you or Lizzie had been down to Clark’s Beach since Davis’s accident?”

“Clark’s Beach?” Samuel sounded surprised. “No. I haven’t been there for ages, long before the accident. In case you’ve forgotten, I’m hardly the caravanning type. That was Davis’s thing. I’m a dyed-in-the-wool city boy, you know that.”

I did know. In Samuel’s world, roughing it meant a three-star hotel, and anything less than a flushing toilet and room service made him break out in hives. “Yeah, I didn’t think so. What about Lizzie?”

He went quiet for a few seconds, thinking. “As far as I know, Mum hasn’t been there either. She’d pretty much handed the place over to Davis as his writing retreat all those years ago, but I’ll ask her, if you like. That section had always been earmarked for you and Davis to build on if you wanted. You knew that, right?”

I blinked. “It was?” The shock was clearly evident in my voice.

Samuel huffed. “Of course you bloody were. Goddamned golden child and his grumpy mate,” he teased but without any heat. “Mum gave up on my sorry arse the second Caroline came to her senses and left me in a pool of self-recrimination.”

I countered, “Caroline was crazy about you.”

“Maybe.” Samuel hesitated. “But it didn’t help me hold on to her, did it?”

I gave a soft snort. “I think you’ll find that what reallydidn’t helpwas you spending every free moment you had studying and doing extra shifts to grab all those promotions you wanted.”

He sighed. “Brutal but true. Anyway, lesson learned. Why the sudden interest in the caravan?”

Why indeed.I needed to be careful around this. There were a lot of reasons Davis might’ve kept things from me, not only the obvious. “Davis had the van’s keyring with him that day.”

“The Mickey Mouse one?”

“Yes. It was in the box of stuff the police handed back to me. I was too exhausted at the time to pay any attention, but it usually lived in his desk drawer unless he was planning to go down there.”

“Huh.” Samuel paused. “You think he went to the caravan that day before he went to... well, wherever the hell he went?” Samuel sounded as irritated about not knowing the answer to that as I did.

I said, “It makes sense since the accident site is only about twenty minutes from Clark’s Bay. He hadn’t been there in a while, not since he’d pushed the deadline on the final edits forBlowback. But if that was his plan, then why didn’t he say anything that morning before he left? I know we weren’t exactly on cordial terms but still.”

“Maybe it slipped his mind.”

Maybe if I hadn’t blown up at him? Maybe if I’d just let it go? Maybe Davis would’ve been more careful? He might’ve told me where he was going. He might even still be here.

“Stop it.” Samuel read my mind. “It wasn’t your fault.”

I ignored him. “I can’t find his research folder either.”

I pictured Samuel’s raised brows. “The Screamone that was practically chained to his wrist?”

I snorted. “That’s the one. It’s another of those things I hadn’t thought about until I was going through his office today.”

Samuel fell quiet. “What’s really going on, Nick? This isn’t only about a research folder and a set of keys, is it?”

I scrubbed my hands down my face, then watched Shelby’s ribcage move quietly up and down in sleep, her whiskers twitching as a fly tried to negotiate a landing spot on her head.

“Nick?”

A sigh broke my lips. “No, it’s not just those. Davis left a list of instructions about what to do with all his publishing stuff. He mentioned a copyright folder that I hadn’t come across, so Iwent looking for it and found a receipt and warranty for a new laptop in the process. He’d bought it a couple months before the accident along with a second phone.”

Two beats of silence and I knew the phone had thrown him a little. “And?” he finally prompted.

“I knew nothing about either of them, Samuel.” I sounded a lot more pissy than I’d intended. “His old laptop was still on his desk and he never said a word about a new one. You know how much he hated changing any tech stuff. He took forever to decide and I had to practically buy the damn things for him.”

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