around her waist, cupping a breast in his palm. He gave it a gentle squeeze, rolling the nipple in his fingers.
They lay there like that for a long moment, so long he began to wonder if she’d changed her mind.
“I’m not sorry about this,” she said at last. “Maybe I’m losing my mind, but if that’s the case, I don’t think I want to find it.”
“Ditto.” He cleared his throat. “We’re going to find out who did this, Peyton. And we’re going to see where this goes. We can do them both at the same time. Do you believe that?”
She let out a long sigh. “Yes. I shouldn’t, but I do.”
He smiled against her hair. “Me, too.”
He fell asleep with her naked body curved against his and memories of their hot sex flashing in his dreams.
Chapter Nine
Peter Kendrick looked at his watch. It was the evening and the last thing he wanted to be doing after a long day in court was sitting here in his den with Warren Sulzberger. But the man was doing him a huge favor and he owed him a lot. And if it got Owen off the hook, he wouldn’t care if it was three o’clock in the morning.
He glanced at the other man now, who was sitting in one of the large armchairs in the den in his library, sipping single malt Scotch and smoking a cigar. Despite the subject of their meeting, he should have looked relaxed. Instead he looked like someone sitting on an electrified fence. Kendrick was sure that whatever news he had was far from good, and not for the first time wanted nothing better than to beat the shit out of his fully grown but hardly mature son.
“First of all, I cannot tell you enough times what a fucking big mess your son has made. Accept the fact that it’s so big it’s taking an earthmover to clean it up.” He took a swallow of his drink. “You also didn’t think the sister would be a problem, and look at the mess she’s stirring up.”
“We’re handling it.”
Sulzberger made a rude noise. “You mean I’m handling it.”
“For which I am very grateful. Thank you.” He ground out the words. They had still barely scratched the surface of what needed to be done. “By the way, your people obviously did a good job at the Hollister house,” Kendrick pointed out, “since there hasn’t been any fallout from it.”
“Of course they did.” Sulzberger glared at him. “My people always do a good job. And we now have both laptops and the desktop computer. Besides, the crew I sent was meticulous about not leaving anything out of place. They left it exactly as they found it.”
“Damn, Warren, I’m giving you a compliment and expressing my gratitude.” Kendrick smiled, although there was little humor in it. “The fact no one has reported any break-in or anything stolen is more proof, I’d say, that no one is checking on the house. You even took care of the problem with the security system.”
“We needed to kill it to gain entry to the house. Couldn’t have any alarms going off to the security company. Then we called and canceled the service, which, under the circumstances, no one questioned.” Sulzberger took a sip of his drink.
“I’d have asked you to do it sooner, but I couldn’t afford to have anyone show up before the funeral and Hollister’s parents left town. Too chancy.” Kendrick took another swallow of his drink, bigger than the last one. He’d need a gallon of whiskey by the time this clusterfuck was taken care of.
“I agree. You know these people. How long do you think it will take before someone finally does check up on it?”
Kendrick shrugged. “I’d guess, under the circumstances, a long while. The parents are gone, Brianne Hollister is still in a coma and as far as we know the sister is focusing all her time and attention on her.”
“Except when she’s badgering the police or trying to hire a private investigator.” Sulzberger’s voice had a nasty edge to it.
Kendrick had to restrain himself from snapping at the man. He couldn’t argue the implication that much of this was his fault for not keeping a closer eye on his son in the first placed. “She hasn’t been to the house. If she did go and had discovered anything out of sync we’d have heard about it by now.”
“I agree.” Sulzberger shifted in his chair. “Let’s talk about the cars next. You