Page 58 of Hiss and Make Up
“I didn’t ask what it was for until after I’d told her,” Adrien said. “Besides, Chloe can be persuasive when she wants something.”
“She’s persistent. I’ll give your sister that.”
“Oh, yeah? Just how persistent is she, Marc?”
Crap. His head was pounding, his lungs were tight like a grizzly bear was sitting on his chest, and he still hadn’t heard Sierra’s voice that morning. He didn’t need to get into a pissing contest with Adrien over the guy’s sister.
Marc closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Adrien had hated Marc since high school. It had nothing to do with Chloe. Just a personality clash. But Chloe’s obvious infatuation with Marc only fueled the existing friction between them.
“I haven’t touched your sister, Adrien. I swear.”
“Yeah, well, dragging her along like you do is almost worse.”
“I’m not dragging anyone along.”
“Why don’t you do us all a favor and leave her alone?”
“What do you want me to do? Be rude to her when she says hello?” Marc paused. “Listen, she’s great, but I’ve got no interest in starting any kind of work thing. Maybe you should talk to her.”
Adrien snorted. “Like I haven’t tried that. She doesn’t listen to me. She’s gonna keep after you until you break her heart.”
“I’m not breaking anyone’s heart.”Except my own. His mind ran back to the night before.“I’m not going to encourage her, but I’m not going to be rude to her either. She’s a grown-up. She’s gonna make her own choices, and you and I are both gonna have to work around that.”
Adrien was silent. Marc imagined his nostrils flaring or flames shooting from his ears. Eventually, Adrien said, “Just stay away from her.”
With that, the call went dead, and Marc stared at his phone wondering what the hell had happened. He had enough to deal with without adding Adrien to the list. Marc rubbed his forehead and sipped his beer.
Freddy sat on the other end of the couch and tapped his foot on the coffee table. “What the hell was that all about?”
“Chloe’s brother. The woman from work. The one who gave me the info on how to track that email,” Marc said. “He’s less than enthusiastic about my interactions with his sister.”
“I got that.” Freddy raised an eyebrow. “Could that be your guy?”
“Adrien?”
Just stay away from her.
Well, there was an implied threat there. And Adrien sure as hell didn’t like him. And maybe he might threaten Denise in some sister-to-sister revenge against Marc. But was he violent? Would heburn down a house?
“No, Adrien would come straight for me instead. Like he just did.” But Adrien’s call reminded Marc of something he needed to finish.
He moved to the kitchen table, where he’d spread out the papers Chloe had given him. He picked at what was left of his beef lo mein and looked at the instructions written in Chloe’s neat, looped handwriting.
He had highlighted the IP address in the email header, so now he needed to go to a couple of websites and plug in that information. Easy enough.
Except he was distracted. Not by the dog or Freddy or even Adrien.
When Denise had called to check in, Marc had asked if she’d talked to Josh yet. She’d been in touch with him, but she wouldn’t talk about it with Marc.
Fine. He could respect that. Josh was at the mercy of his job. Wherever he was at the moment. But if it was Marc’s house and family, no job would keep him from getting back to them to make sure they were safe and to take care of things.
Josh wasn’t coming home.
So why not? Was he involved in something he shouldn’t be involved with? Did he owe money to someone? Did he piss someone off?
It sounded ridiculous in Marc’s head, but so did the events of the last couple of days. And this nagging suspicion of Josh would bug him until he looked into it.
At least he had the perfect opportunity with Denise out of town and no one at her house. The back half of the house was a wreck, but Denise kept their records and files in a closet in the living room. There was smoke and water damage throughout, but maybe he could find some usable documents in a file cabinet or safe box. Credit reports, bank statements, tax documents, whatever he could get.
