The Dangerous Edge of Things - By Tina Whittle Page 0,55
in my hand.
And then I heard a familiar voice. “Tai? What’s happening? Open up!”
Trey switched on the light and opened the door. Eric stood on my doorstep, a vision of moral outrage in navy slacks and baby blue dress shirt.
“What the hell’s going on here?” he demanded.
Chapter 28
I marched up to him, broom in hand. “You don’t get to show up at…whatever time it is.”
“Nine forty-seven,” Trey supplied.
“Yeah, nine forty-seven, with no warning—no call, no text, no nothing—and demand that I tell you what the hell is going on!”
Eric took off his glasses and stuck them on top of his head. “I own this place as much as you do. And I did text you!”
“You said you were coming back to Atlanta—you didn’t say anything about driving up to Kennesaw.”
“I thought you’d be at the house. Only when I get there, the guest room is empty and your stuff is gone. So I check the Ritz, and they tell me you checked out. This was my next guess.”
Eric shut the door behind himself. He looked just like his usual J. Crew self, and he wasn’t at all tan. I’d expected him to be tan.
“I’m not pleased about this,” he said. “You shouldn’t be here this late at night.”
I waved my broom at him. “Now you decide to be concerned? You vanish for five days—”
“I didn’t vanish.”
“—leaving me with a murder in my lap and the police breathing down the back of my neck. You sic Phoenix on me, only you don’t see fit to tell me. You install a security camera—which you also don’t tell me about and which I only discover because somebody took a brick to it.”
“A what?”
“A brick.” I pointed. “Why do you think the front window’s boarded up?”
He glanced at what used to be the window. “Oh my god, what happened?”
Trey moved forward. Now that the threat was over, he’d tucked the H& back in its holster. “Now that you’re here, we can find out.”
***
We gathered around Dexter’s desk. Eric sat. He pulled up the log-in screen and typed his password. The archived footage was grainy, but after fiddling with the resolution, it cleared. Unfortunately all it showed was a sweatshirt-hooded figure, wrapped in shadow. Thick, hunched, brick in hand. Blurry face covered, hidden in the dark.
“Two-eleven am,” Trey said.
It didn’t show whoever it was slipping the threatening target under the door. That must have come afterward.
Eric slumped back in his seat. “This is news to me.”
“What, you weren’t checking things out with your little spy set-up?”
At least he had the decency to look chagrined. “I was going to tell you when I got back.”
“Why didn’t you tell me when you installed it?”
“Think about it. If I’d said, hey, let me get you a bodyguard, or hey, let me install this security system, you would have done what you always do—argue.”
“You’re acting like Dad.”
“And you’re acting like a child.”
That tripped my switch. “Don’t you dare—”
But Trey cut me off. “I’m sorry. I have to go now.”
In the heat of the argument, I’d forgotten he was in the room. Eric looked as abashed as I felt. He stood up and shook hands with Trey. “I appreciate your keeping an eye on her for me.”
Trey shook his head. “That’s not why I was here.” Then he looked at me. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”
I smiled. “No, you’ve done plenty. Thanks for coming.”
“You’re welcome. The access codes are beside the cash register.” He slipped his yellow pads into his briefcase and left without looking back. I soon heard the Ferrari rip into the gravel and roar into the street. Zero to speed limit in two point seven seconds.
Eric looked at me. He shoved his glasses further into his dirty-blonde cowlicks. And then he got that patient “this is for the best” look. “Tai, there’s some things you need to know about Trey.”
“Like the fact that he cared enough to come out here tonight and help me undo what you did?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Screw complicated, Eric, I’m more interested in the things you haven’t told me.”
Now he looked surprised. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, come on! It’s the question everybody’s been asking.” My voice shook despite my efforts to control it. “Were you involved with Eliza Compton?”
He exhaled slowly. “Don’t you think the police checked me out? And don’t you think they’d have pulled me in for questioning ASAP if they’d found anything? I barely knew the girl.”
“You knew her enough to change your plans to meet with her—secretly,