Page 89 of Mad As Hell

“Okay, when did you swallow a Hallmark store?” I demanded, shaking my head as I sat up. I ran my fingers through the knots in my hair.

He rolled his eyes. “Mind if I use your shower?”

“Of course not.” I yawned and leaned against the headboard, wondering if I wanted to get up or sleep in for a few more hours. Undecided, I grabbed the TV remote from the drawer in my bedside table while Ryan went into the bathroom.

I flipped through the channels mindlessly, finally stopping on a rerun of a sitcom that had aired a decade earlier. As the shower turned on, I snuggled under the covers and did my best to pay attention to the storyline and not the naked man in my bathroom.

When a commercial came on, my mind wandered and I flipped to another channel to distract myself before I did something stupid like join him.

“The collision on interstate one-oh-five last night took hours for rescuers to clear. Sadly, the driver was pronounced dead on scene. Channel six news has since learned that it is believed he was heavily intoxicated at the time of the single-vehicle accident. Due to the driver’s reckless speeds, the car veered off the road and collided with a concrete barrier wall before it exploded into flames. The unusually dry November conditions led to a small fire that spread into the trees, but was ultimately contained by firefighters.”

Damn. I winced as the camera panned from the woman with dark hair and a perfectly schooled expression of grim horror to a destroyed black car. Pieces of it were strewn across the road, and the grass around the area was charred from where it had been on fire.

The screen returned to the news anchors, both who looked simultaneously bored and energetic. “Linda, any word on the identity of the driver?”

It cut back to the field reporter, Linda, who nodded gravely. “Yes, Pam, he’s been identified as Adam Kindell, long-time business partner to Cabot Industries CEO Gary Cabot.”

The room spun a little as I felt all the color leached from my face.

Holy fucking shit.

Adam was dead.

That mangled, burned-out husk of what used to be a car had been his. He’d probably been heading back from here when…

“Ryan!” I shouted, and a second later the water turned off.

He made it to the doorway, dripping, with a towel barely wrapped around his waist. “What’s wrong?”

I pointed at the screen.

He looked and frowned. “A car accident?”

“It’s Adam’s car,” I choked out. I expected Ryan to react with the same surprise I felt. To say something like, Damn, Maddie. It’s what he deserved.

Instead he just murmured, “Huh.”

I watched him closely, from the way he assessed the grisly scene with almost clinical indifference before looking at me.

“You don’t seem surprised,” I said slowly. A feeling I couldn’t place niggled at the back of my mind. “Why don’t you seem surprised?”

“Accidents happen all the time,” he replied, his expression giving nothing away.

“Ryan—” I cut myself off because no. No way. I was being crazy.

“What?” Ryan pressed, a thread of steel in his tone that hadn’t been there a second ago. His gaze sharpened as he watched me.

“Did you do this?” I whispered.

He might as well have been carved from slate for all the emotion he was giving. “Did I do what?”

I swallowed uneasily. “Did you… Did you kill Adam?”

His brows lifted slowly. “It looks like Adam killed Adam.”

“That’s not what I asked.” I could feel my heart pounding in my chest. I fisted the comforter in my hands, desperately needing something to hold on to.

Ryan gave me a careful look. “Maddie, I need you to think about what you’re asking me. And then ask if you really want the answer, because I don’t want to lie to you.” He held up a finger when my eyes went wide. “I mean it—Adam killed Adam. His choices sealed his fate.”

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