The Best Man to Trust - By Kerry Connor Page 0,34

him.”

“I’m glad you did,” he said.

“If I did,” she pointed out. “If he’s not somehow involved in this—”

He suddenly frowned, his brow furrowing and eyes sliding away from hers. She started to drift off in midsentence, about to ask what was wrong. He suddenly twirled his finger, prompting her to continue, and mouthed, Keep talking.

Not understanding, she still tried to comply, scrambling to pick up her earlier train of thought. “Hopefully the phone lines will be up soon and we can contact the police. Even if they can’t get through due to the storm, they should be able to check where he is...”

She continued talking as he slowly, cautiously made his way to the door, leaning toward it with one ear, as though he was listening for something. Which was exactly what he was doing, she realized. When he was almost there, he slowly reached out to grasp the knob...

The door abruptly swung inward, slamming right into him.

With a curse, he reeled backward. Meredith stopped in shock, her monologue forgotten, then lurched toward him. By the time she did, he managed to steady himself. Lunging forward, he grabbed the door and ripped it open, bursting out into the hall. His face dark with anger, he checked in both directions.

Meredith stepped into the hall behind him, doing the same. There was no one in sight. The corridor was empty, all the doors along it closed.

“Did you see anyone?” she asked.

“No,” he said tersely. “Whoever it was either managed to get into one of the rooms or made it to the stairs.”

Meredith eyed the closed doors. Haley’s room was roughly in the middle of the ones where she’d placed the wedding party. Scott and Rachel’s room was one door down on one side to give them some privacy, with Jessica’s next door on the other side and Tom, Greg and Alex across the hall. Whoever had been there could have easily escaped to one of the rooms, or even the staircase, which wasn’t far, by the time Tom had recovered and made it into the hall.

“What do you think they were doing there?” she asked. “Listening to us?”

“I’m sure they were,” he confirmed. “And they didn’t want us to know.”

“How did you know?”

“I thought I heard the floor creak outside the door. Now we just have to wonder how long they were there.”

And whether whoever it was had heard anything important. Meredith doubted it. She and Tom had simply been speculating. Yet whoever it was still hadn’t wanted them to know who’d been listening, going far enough to lash out to prevent them from catching him or her.

Meredith looked up at Tom, noticing the red spot on his forehead where the door had slammed into him. Cringing, she reached up without thinking to brush her fingers over the spot. “Does it hurt?”

As soon as her fingertips made contact with his skin, she froze. Her eyes shot to his to find him watching her, his deep blue gaze intent and unyielding. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking, couldn’t read the emotion in those depths. Everything in her wanted to keep trying, unable to bring herself to look away.

It occurred to her she should drop her hand, even as she registered the warmth and smoothness of his skin against hers. It was rude to just reach out and touch him like this. She had no right.

But he didn’t offer a word of objection, simply watching her, his expression inscrutable.

“Not too much,” he said softly, the sound of his voice washing over her skin. “I’ll be fine.”

“Good.” Her voice sounding tight to her ears, she quickly pulled her hand away and glanced back at the room. “Is there anything else we need to do in here?”

She sensed him follow her gaze. “I don’t think so. I think we checked everything there is. Do you want to check the rest of the house? Just to be safe?”

It wasn’t a bad idea. She doubted there was anyone unknown to her hiding in the house. But reality said she couldn’t be absolutely certain of that without checking. And given everything that had happened so far, they couldn’t afford to take any chances.

Chapter Nine

“There’s no one here,” Tom concluded.

“I don’t think so, either,” Meredith agreed. He couldn’t tell if what he heard in her voice was relief or simply exhaustion.

Either one would make sense. They’d spent hours going through Sutton Hall from top to bottom, finally winding up here, in the ballroom in the west wing.

They stood in