Page 36 of Trick of Light
Her eyes flashed with anger. “Watch yourself, Carmichael. You’re back to sounding like a Carmichael instead of a human being.”
He ground his back teeth together. That was a low blow. He wasn’t speaking as a Carmichael, he was speaking as a…well, a Brown. “What are you after?” he repeated. “If it’s for your damn podcast, forget about it. Her situation is not fodder for your career.”
She set her hands on her hips, looking ready for a fight despite her disheveled bedhead appearance. “It must be nice, knowing you don’t have to worry about a career. You’re set for life, aren’t you? You can travel the world and do anything you want. You can hike until your feet fall off, then hire a helicopter to pick you up and take you to a spa in Bali to recover.”
That was a highly distorted version of an actual incident in his life. Through a haze of anger, he realized she must have researched him. “That’s not what happened. I rescued someone whose feet got injured and called in a chopper.”
Her eyes gleamed, since she now had him on the defensive, explaining himself rather than interrogating her. He needed to regain the advantage. “Why should you complain about resources? Your mother is a state senator and your father’s a federal judge.”
She wasn’t the only one who could research.
Her mouth fell open. “You googled me?”
“As soon as you met Tamara, yes. Okay, maybe before,” he admitted. He felt heat on his face. Must be the sun. Certainly not embarrassment. “Let’s get back to the point. I’m very protective when it comes to my grandmother.”
“Why do you think I’m trying to hurt her? I’d never want to do that!” she cried.
“Okay. Okay. My bad. Maybe I’m coming on too strong.” Damn the Carmichael in him. It came out at the most inconvenient moments. “I’m just checking in to see what your intentions are regarding Tamara.”
And now he was sounding oddly formal, as if he were a Victorian father confronting a potential suitor.
He watched amusement flicker across her face—so pretty, with her shining eyes and delicately carved features. “My intentions are honorable, I promise.” She hesitated, then beckoned him farther away from the building, behind an overgrown lilac bush. Although it was no longer blooming, a faint fragrance still hovered in the air, like a memory of sweetness.
“If I tell you what I’m up to, will you promise to keep it to yourself?”
“I’ll try,” he said warily, “but if it affects Tamara, I can’t promise anything.”
“It does affect her, but not how you think. Heather and I don’t believe that Tamara was involved in Amelia’s death, and we…well, we sort of illegitimately found a possible lead. I wanted to ask Tamara about it while I had the chance. That’s why I got myself arrested.”
He stared down at her, jarred out of his automatic defensiveness regarding Tamara. “You’re trying to clear her?”
“Yes. But this lead is so flimsy, it may not be anything. It’s nothing the police would even bother with.”
“That’s why you didn’t tell my brother, an actual constable?”
Were they trying to solve her case before the police did so their podcast would get all the glory?
Gabby nervously ran her tongue across her lips. “I mean, we will tell him, or the Harbortown police, when it’s the right time. We just wanted to firm it up first and give them more to go on. I was hoping Tamara would give me something to work with.”
“Did she?”
“Maybe. As soon as I get to my computer I’m going to follow up on some things. They took my phone away and the battery died overnight.” She waved her iPhone in the air—its purple case sparkled in the sun—looking so outraged he had to laugh.
“Cruel and unusual, for sure. Is a night without your phone even worse than a night in jail?”
She laughed, and the tension between them eased. If she was trying to help Tamara, he wasn’t going to get in her way. The opposite—he wished he could cancel the rest of his day of meetings and tag along. Standing here with her, shielded by lilac branches, warmed by the sun, unable to look away from her…his fingers twitched with the urge to touch her skin, just there, next to the curve of her lips.
She cleared her throat, breaking the spell. “You know, that information about my parents isn’t easy to find. It doesn’t come up on a simple Google search. It’s not in any of my online bios. You had to hunt for that.”
“I was curious,” he said uncomfortably. “Not stalking, I promise.”
“What, then?”
Did he owe her the truth? Yes, he decided. Otherwise she would think he was a stalker. “I wanted to know more about you after we had that argument in the conservatory. You were a wild card.”
“You could have asked me.”
“You seemed to dislike me too much for that.”
