Page 60 of Teach Me
“Damn, this is good,” Con said around a mouthful of meat. Jess sipped her drink, then set it aside to dive in to the food.
Jack snorted. “You’re just saying that because you didn’t have to cook it.”
“Anything he doesn’t cook is good,” Jess teased.
Jack huffed out a laugh at her comment. “The honeymoon is ovah!”
Con ignored them and took another bite of his food, half of a fajita disappearing into his mouth.
“You got a little…something”—Jack swiped at the corner of his own mouth—“right…there.”
“Hmm?” Conlan brought a napkin to his face.
“I think it’s drool,” Jack said.
Conlan threw him a mean look from behind the white paper square. “Asshole.”
Jess laughed. The two were definitely like brothers, that was for sure.
They were halfway through their meal when the crunch of tires on the gravel driveway was heard. Conlan jerked up from the couch.
Jack held out a calming hand. “It’s Patrick. Try not to shoot him.”
“He’ll be lucky if I don’t. He should’ve called.”
“He texted me earlier,” Jack said.
“Why didn’t he text me?”
Jack’s gaze drifted from Conlan to Jess, his dark lashes hiding something that made her distinctly uneasy. Whatever Gaines was here for, she had a feeling she wouldn’t like it. And from the sour look on Conlan’s face, she didn’t think he would either.
Conlan had the front door open before Gaines could knock. “All of a sudden it’s Grand Central Station around here,” he said, tension grating through his voice.
Gaines didn’t bother to reply, just stepped inside. He watched as Conlan closed the door and reset the alarm before turning toward the living room. “Ms. Kingston.”
Jess sighed. The bite of refried beans she’d been about to take went back to her plate. “Detective Gaines.”
“If I’d known dinner was on, I’d have waited to come out.”
“Or come earlier,” Jack suggested. Settling into an armchair, Gaines returned Jack’s smirk with one of his own. That small tilt of his lips transformed the man into someone less unassuming, more real. No wonder he kept that bland-accountant look for police work. Hiding a true personality behind no personality.
“Just tell us whatever you came to say, Gaines,” Conlan demanded as he returned to his seat next to Jess.
Gaines shrugged. “Dental records on our Jane Doe came back. They’re a match to Rebecca Wellsley.”
Well, he told us why he came.Jess shoved her plate away, her stomach roiling too much to finish. Deep inside, in a place she hadn’t wanted to acknowledge, she’d known this would be the outcome. She’dhopedit wasn’t, that Rebecca was somewhere out there, living a carefree, Brit-free life on her own terms.
But she wasn’t. She wasn’t living at all.
“What about my parents?”
Gaines shook his head grimly. Jess sucked in a shaky breath.
“We don’t know. Based on the limited evidence still available to us, we will probably never know,” he said. “Off the record, I don’t think the timing of their deaths and Mr. Wellsley’s would be that convenient without ‘help,’ but we can’t prove he did anything to cause it.”
“Oh…God.”
Conlan reached around her shoulders and drew her under his arm, nestling her close. The thump of his heart in her ear was normal, reassuring. As she listened to it, she realized hers was too. The idea that Brit was responsible for the deaths of so many people sickened her, made her grieve, but over the past week, somehow she’d accepted it, numbed herself to it. It didn’t make her afraid—or maybe she was just so used to fearing Brit that it didn’t register anymore.
