Page 34 of The Fix
His lips thinned, and he seemed offended by the offer, but how could she not? He’d all but told her to fuck off a couple of days before, and then she’d shown up at his home asking for his help and expertise. To assume he would or should give anything to her for free felt wrong on her part. “I don’t need your money,” he said.
Ah.So that was it. His pride was making him feel like she was offering to pay him because she still saw him as the poor kid with the torn backpack walking among the elite of Aspen Cove.
She let out a small breathy laugh. “Rex, the truth is, I can’t pay you much. My business barely makes a profit, and I put most of that right back into the business, and that’s fine because I love it, and it makes me happy. It brings me peace when I thought I’d never find peace again. I’m able to feed and house myself and give some money to foundations that honor my mother and my sister. But if you think I’m offering to pay you out of some sense of charity, then one glance in my bank account will quickly clear that up.”
His gaze washed over her face, and she wished she knew what his enigmatic expression meant, but instead of clueing her in, he simply nodded. “I’ll need to see the video.”
“I didn’t bring it. It’s an older laptop, and it needed charging, so I left it at home. The person told me that I could only log in on one device. I don’t know how they’d know if I used my phone but ... I’m not sure, so I did as she said.”
“There are multiple ways, one being an IP address,” he murmured. “It’s a unique address that identifies a device. The dark web anonymizes it, but they, or she, would know if more than one was logging in.”
“Okay. Well, I’m glad I followed the instructions then. I could go get my laptop and—”
“How about we go back to your place together? I have to run a few errands afterward anyway, and it’ll save you having to drive back and forth.”
“If you’re sure. Thank you. I can’t ... I really can’t tell you how much I appreciate this.”
“Don’t be thankful yet. I might not be able to help at all.”
“Just the fact that you’re willing. Most people wouldn’t be.”
They both stood, and Rex switched off the coffee maker. She hadn’t taken a sip from the mug he’d given her, but she wondered if he’d set it before her so she’d have something to do with her hands. He was thoughtful, and he noticed things others might not. And she hoped that those qualities could help her solve whatever it was that had just landed in her lap.
Cami followed him out of the kitchen, toward the front door. She’d been so distressed when she’d first walked through the front room that she hadn’t really taken it all in. She did now, noticing the piles of boxes labeledGoodwilland others that saidMom.
He locked the door after they’d walked outside, and then they turned toward their cars, his a black truck parked next to a residential rental dumpster.
“I’m sorry about your grandfather,” she said. It would take a good amount of effort to clean out his house and maybe fix it up too. She wondered if he was planning to stay or if he was planning to sell.
He glanced over at her as they moved toward her vehicle. “Thank you. We weren’t especially close in these last few years.” He squinted over his shoulder quickly. “He was an old grump who refused to get a cell phone and only answered his home phone once in a blue moon. His house—well, you saw the inside—is a junk pile.”
They stopped next to her driver’s side door, and she nodded over to the side yard. “It already looks so much better. I see the potential.”
He glanced at the house and paused for a second as though seeing it for the first time, or perhaps through her eyes. “I’ll follow you to your place,” he said.
“Okay. Thank you.” Then she opened the door and got inside her car, taking a deep, calming breath before she pressed the ignition and made a three-point turn in front of his house.
She sat there waiting for him to get in his truck and begin to follow her, her gaze moving to the explosion of roses falling over the porch overhang and remembering back to when she’d first seen him there, looking at her with suspicion in his dark gaze.
GI Joe at the prom.
It was a ridiculous thought that had sort of made her want to laugh, but it’d also spoken of how solid he looked, how competent and strong. Maybe that was another reason she’d blurted out the truth, why she’d shared her fear with him. Helookedlike a hero, and damn, she was in need of one of those right about now.
He fired up his truck and turned around. She glanced in her rearview mirror as she drove down the dirt road, the large black truck looming behind her, and she wondered for a brief moment if she’d fallen asleep the night before and still hadn’t woken up.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Cami’s open-concept condo was tidy and serene, the exact opposite of his grandpop’s house, the one he’d been stuck inside for the last few days, and Rex took a deep breath of the clean, vanilla-scented air. “This is nice,” he said and then barely held back a cringe at the fact that he’d sounded like she’d invited him there for a date.
She gave him a nervous glance and a small tip of her lips before closing the door behind them. He felt awkward, too, even though he was in her home for a specific reason and by her invitation. But the feeling that he didn’t belong there was strong and born of the history between them.Get over it. She asked you for help, and you’re going to give it your best.
He had this other feeling, though, too—the sense that he’d become embroiled in something that wasn’t going to be easy to walk away from and of which there might not be a clear conclusion.
He followed her from the living room to the kitchen area off to the left, where there was a laptop open on the table. Cami leaned over it and clicked over the keys for a moment before standing up and stepping aside. “There,” she said, sweeping her hand toward it. “See, I’m pretty sure I was right about it being a live video. I couldn’t see the moon during the night, but now it’s there, outside the window.”
“May I?” he asked, nodding to the chair.
“Yeah, of course. Please.”
