any real thought to conversation. He’d wanted beer. As much as he could get, as quickly as he could pour it down his throat.
He hadn’t left her sitting there crying, though. He’d made the biggest mistake of his life. He’d invited her along.
“I like your hair shorter,” he said, mostly to remind himself that the night in question was long ago. To get his head out of the past and into his current situation.
Some women might have raised a hand to their hair. Made a comment. Smiled even. Harper just nodded.
Although he was having more difficulty than he’d expected holding her eyes, he’d refused to look lower than that pencil in her hands. But when she continued to assess him, his damned gaze dropped.
And noticed the gun strapped to her hip. The beige uniform hadn’t surprised him. Both of the guards, her employees, whom he’d met the night before, had been wearing them. They’d been armed, too, but...
“I’m fully trained to use it,” she said, seeing where his gaze had landed.
He nodded. “Graduated at the top of your academy class,” he said, letting her know he remembered. From what he’d been told, she quit the Albina police force when she divorced his younger brother. According to his father, for the two years she’d served, she’d been a good cop. Good instincts. No hesitation.
It wasn’t like she was hesitating now, either. She was...waiting.
He’d asked for the meeting. This was his call.
“My grandmother...” He stopped, met Harper’s stare. In his line of work as an independent crime scene investigator, he saw a lot of gruesome things, studied horrific photos and picked apart heinous crime scenes down to the smallest detail. He’d learned how to compartmentalize a long time ago. He opened his mind, not his heart. And yet, he had to take a minute to stop the quiver inside him as he thought of the scene he’d come upon the evening before.
“I’ve been working in Alabama for most of the past month,” he began. “Was on a serial killer job in Boston before that. With all the new DNA technologies, cold cases are coming out of the woodwork, and departments don’t always have the manpower or the time necessary to study the evidence and pictures...”
She seemed fully focused on him.
“Anyway, you don’t need me to get into that,” he concluded.
She held the pencil in one hand now, while two fingers of the other moved up and down the shaft. She wasn’t as composed as he’d thought.
His family wasn’t hers anymore. Hadn’t been for all that long anyway. Didn’t mean she didn’t care about Miriam. They were still her daughter’s family.
He’d seen pictures of the kid a couple of times in the past four years. Cute. From what his grandmother—who chattered about her on a regular basis—had relayed, Mason figured the child might be a bit too inquisitive for his comfort, but smart. According to Miriam, the little girl had a great disposition, not at all whiny.
Harper wasn’t the whiny sort. He couldn’t imagine her being tolerant of it in her daughter.
She was still watching. Waiting for him.
“I make it a point to stop and see Miriam as soon as I return from a job. Especially since Dad’s been gone...”
Harper hadn’t gone to Oscar’s funeral. Brianna had been there, but Mason only got a brief glimpse of her. In Bruce’s arms. Clinging to him and burying her cute blond head in his shoulder as someone approached. Mason had spent most of his time watching over his inconsolable grandmother, and Bruce had left him to it. Keeping his distance from the older brother who’d betrayed him.
Miriam had taken her son’s death much harder than her husband’s, and Mason had his hands full. Back before his mother died, she’d always been at Gram’s side, and then his father had stepped in. Now it was up to him.
“I was expecting to be in Alabama until next week, but I caught a break in the case and got an earlier flight out. Gram’s been struggling a lot this year. Seeming to age right before my eyes...”
“Did you talk to Bruce about it?” He listened carefully as she mentioned his brother. Her ex. Trying to determine if the closeness his brother had alluded to truly existed. Her tone, her expression... She could’ve been speaking of a mutual friend.
“I did,” he said, watching her even more astutely now, wondering again if she and his brother were as close as Bruce wanted him to believe. If maybe she knew more than he’d expected. Speaking slowly, choosing his words with care, he said, “More than once. Each time he told me I was imagining things. Says she’s just getting older and that if I saw her more often I’d know that.”
Harper’s brow furrowed. “I thought...” She shook her head, looking perplexed, giving him cause to wonder for a second if she actually knew Miriam was there. Then he remembered that he wouldn’t be standing in her office if she didn’t know. Lila’d had to talk to her before Mason could see her.
“Thought what?”
“Miriam...you... Bruce...” She shrugged and he remembered how shocked he’d been the first time he’d realized how slender her shoulders were. They could carry a lot of weight. “I thought you and Bruce were working together here...running some kind of undercover investigation to figure out what happened.”
Now he was the one who felt confused. And tense all over again. How exactly did a guy go about turning in the brother he loved? “Bruce has been abusing her, Harper. I thought... Lila said you knew.”
The pencil dropped as Harper leaned both hands against her desk. “She said as much. I figured you guys were using Bruce as a cover, you know, so as not to alert whoever you suspect...”
She thought he and Bruce were a team? That they’d somehow reconciled? Which had to mean she and her ex weren’t that close, after all. With Bruce it was sometimes impossible to tell exactly where he stood—even for Mason, and he’d had more experience resisting his brother’s convincing charm than anyone else.
“Bruce still won’t be in the same room as me if he can help it,” he said. “Which is why I always make appointments to see Gram when he’ll be away from the house.”
“He won’t be in the same...” She shook her head again, alarm emanating from her expression, her posture, everything. “I really thought you were working together here...”
“The agreement didn’t disappear just because your marriage did,” he said now, glad he hadn’t taken a seat in the chair across from the desk. He’d have had to stand up again. “He still has the goods on me, and I still don’t want them spilled.” That made him sound like a total ass, and while he was one, his reputation wasn’t the reason he continued to honor his little brother’s wishes. “I hurt him,” he said now. “My presence still hurts him. Staying away is the price I pay for the choice I made.”
“A-agreement?” She completely ignored the rest of it.
He might have been forgiven for thinking she was slightly daft. If he hadn’t known her better.
“The agreeement.” He drew the word out, certain that neither of them wanted to get any further into it.
“I’m sorry, Mason, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
White-hot anger at the injustice of life shot through him and was gone as instantly, leaving calm in its wake. A level, assessing calm. With a reminder that just because something changed one person’s entire life, that didn’t mean it affected another’s. Just because the agreement had hurt him irrevocably, didn’t mean it had changed Harper’s life at all.
“Bruce wouldn’t go to Dad or Gram, or create any kind of family rift, as long as I never contacted you and stayed away from you. And as long as I gave him his space, stayed away from him as much as possible. He’d speak to me when necessary, but otherwise I wasn’t