And her suspicions were only stirred at the fact that he hadn’t left a voicemail after any of his calls. As the buzzing continued, Emma gave in and checked the screen only to see it wasn’t Michael but a number she didn’t recognize. She bit her lip. He wouldn’t be sneaky enough to call from a different phone, would he? She answered it and brought the phone to her ear. “Hello?”
“I didn’t think you were going to answer,” said the familiar, deep voice.
“Jace,” she breathed. “I thought you were done with me.”
“I thought so too, but apparently my conscience doesn’t want you getting hurt because I was too stubborn to help. So I’m taking you up on that blank check offer to help. Where are we starting?”
Her mouth fell open in shock. Was this some sort of elaborate joke? Or had someone else gotten to him... “Did my cousins put you up to this?”
“I promise that no one but you asked me to help,” he insisted. “But, hey, if you’ve changed your mind...”
“No! I mean, I still want you. Still want you to help.”
“Great. So tell me where to meet you, and I can head over now.”
Half of her wanted to keep asking him more questions about what changed his mind, but the other half just wanted him to get his ass over there and start helping now. She quickly rambled off the address she was at. “I’m assuming you remember how to get here?”
“Oh yeah. That place is burned in my memory,” he muttered. “I’ll get a cab and be over there as soon as possible.” He hung up.
Emma stared at the phone in her hand and tried to figure out whether she just imagined the entire exchange. Jace had seemed so adamant he wanted nothing to do with her that morning. Maybe he was lying and it really was her cousins who put him up to helping her.
But why would they want her to have help? If anything, they’d want her to go back home and stop getting in the way.
A sense of renewed hope swirled within her. This was a man who knew what he was doing. He knew how Joslyn reacted, what she said, what she did the night of the attack. He knew the questions to ask, and he would probably be able to help her find who to ask. But she had to get ready for him arriving. As soon as he got there, he’d want to know what she’d already done and how much she already knew.
Emma pulled her laptop out of her bag and powered it up. She already had a rough brainstorming spreadsheet she’d created. Now she just had to get everything in a readable order so someone besides her could make sense of it.
By the time she heard a knock on the door, she felt almost ready to face Jace again. She jumped up and ran to the entryway, almost surprised he’d shown up. She was still half convinced he’d still been playing with her as he made his little phone call earlier.
Sure enough, there he was. Standing in the hallway and right in front of her. He’d changed clothes since she’d seen him last. Instead of wearing workout clothes, he was now in a crisp, white t-shirt and jeans. The v-neck of the shirt made the cords of his neck stand out, and the sleeves exposed the hint of biceps she’d already noticed before. Why was she still looking at his damn biceps?
“So can I come in?”
Emma winced at the direction her thoughts had taken. “Yeah, please.” She moved out of the way for him to enter.
“Do you have a trash?” He held up a clear, empty cup with some sort of green stuff left along the edges.
She wrinkled her nose in disgust. “What on earth is that?”
“Breakfast. Kale, apples, some flax, and about as many vitamins and minerals that can fit into one drink with no added sugar.”
“What’s so bad with added sugar?” She tried her best not to imagine how horrible the abomination he described tasted.
He smiled at her obvious discomfort. “It’s an acquired taste,” he admitted. “And it’s not like it’s the only thing I eat.”
She shuddered at the thought. “God, I hope not.”
“I take it you don’t eat a lot of vegetables?”
“Oh no, I eat boatloads of vegetables. They just look like they did when they came out of the ground when I eat them.” She could’ve sworn he rolled his eyes at her, but he looked away before she could be sure as he scanned the room. “I think the trash is over here.” She crossed to the kitchen and randomly opened cabinets. “Or maybe not,” she muttered.
Every cabinet and drawer she opened was empty. Jace moved to the other side of the kitchen and opened the overhead cupboards. “Looks like your sister didn’t really have a chance to settle in.”
“That’s one way of putting it.” More likely was that Joslyn never meant to spend any time here. The last cabinet Emma opened was right next to the sink and had a small plastic bin. “Here’s a trash.”
As he took care of his cup, she walked back into the living area and looked at the mail she’d already seen when she walked in. The pile was soaked in some sort of dried red liquid and everything was addressed to Joslyn’s alias, Casey Jones.
“I saw the mail and thought she might’ve actually used this place to live.”
“I don’t think anyone can escape junk mail.” Jace picked up the pile and thumbed through it.
“Whatever’s on it...people don’t spill things on ignored junk mail, right?”
His lips tightened as he met Emma’s eyes. “Victoria spilled her drink on it.”
“Huh?”
“When Victoria got suspicious about what Joslyn was up to, she spilled her drink as a distraction so she could text her boyfriend for help,” said Jace. “This pink stuff is margarita.”
“Oh.” Well, there went that idea. One more way Emma tried to humanize Joslyn just went out the window.
“Don’t look so defeated,” said Jace. “There’s still a lot more apartment to go through.”
She squared her shoulders and took a steadying breath. “You’re right.” She never really expected Jace to be the voice of optimism, but she’d take what she could get.
“You want to check the bedrooms together or divide and conquer?”
“I thought I’d update you on what I know so far.” She sat on the sofa and opened up her computer. “I have her laptop and one of her email accounts had a saved password so I could get into it. But it looks like she had a second account that didn’t have a saved password. I’m also working on getting the password to her bank accounts.” She studied Jace, trying to determine whether he judged her for her less than legal activities.
His face was blank, but she could tell he was skeptical. “And who exactly do you know who can hack into bank accounts?”
“His name is Russell. We went to school together back in Oxford and I know he had a bit of a, um, checkered past. I figure if he didn’t know how to gain access to her accounts, he’d know someone who could help.”
He narrowed his eyes. “You went to Oxford?”
She snorted. “Oxford, Yale, and UGA. I’m a bit of a school whore.”
“You went to Oxford and Yale? Because one wasn’t enough?”
“They were all such different experiences. Besides, a person can never have too much knowledge.”