Page 54 of Everything We Found

Nobody would have believed her.

And if she’d mentioned anything to Nadia? Nadia would have told her she was out of touch with reality. Delusional with grief. That she needed to move on.

No wonder she’d kept this to herself. Nadia would have.

She had been, she thought with a lurch to her stomach. She’d been keeping James a secret all this time.

“Call her, Nadia. She won’t listen to me.” Her whirling thoughts halted at Kristen’s request.

“And tell her what?”

“Convince her not to go. She’s only going to get hurt.”

“She’s not going to find him.” Nadia didn’t know if he really was in Puerto Escondido. Thomas not only hadn’t told her, but had said James was hidden deep in Mexico’s witness protection program. Whatever proof of life Aimee thought she had was bound to send her on a search that would eventually lead exactly where Kristen had said it would: to hurt, as well as disappointment. And quite possibly, her death.

But what if she did find James?

Nadia’s breath caught. She could stop lying. She could stop pretending. But Aimee’s discovery could bring the danger Thomas had been trying to avoid for all their sakes to their doorsteps. They’d already lost James to it, even if he was still alive. She couldn’t risk the lives of anyone else she loved.

Oh, my. She was starting to sound like Thomas.

Nadia stood up to dress, her thoughts narrowing into a solid plan.

“I’ll head over and talk to her,” she told Kristen, taking off her night slip.

“Thank you,” Kristen said with obvious relief. “Call me after. I won’t be able to sleep until you do.”

“I will.” She ended the call and pulled on her pink bedazzled tracksuit and wrapped a wool scarf around her neck. She should call Thomas and warn him about Aimee. But that wasn’t what she did.

Twenty-five minutes later, she was knocking on the door at an address her gallerist friend Wendy Yee had just texted her. Ian Collins, a landscape photographer Wendy frequently promoted, opened his door wearing a rumpled Yosemite shirt and sleep pants. His dark sandy hair was sticking up on the side and fell in a playful mess over his forehead. She couldn’t believe Aimee hadn’t jumped his bones yet. She’d really been hoping Aimee would get together with him, even if only to assuage herloneliness. But she’d never gotten over James. In fact, it was worse.

The lines between Ian’s brows deepened at the sight of Nadia at his door at this late of an hour. “Nadia? What are you doing here? Is Aimee?—”

“Let me in. We need to talk.”

“Okay,” he said warily when she boldly nudged past him into his apartment. His place was small, one of several units in a moderately sized complex on the outskirts of downtown Los Gatos. He was walking distance to Aimee’s Café and Wendy’s gallery. Large, scenic prints covered the white-washed walls, the only color in the main room. Everything else, the furniture, carpet, tile, were in monochromatic grays and industrial steel.

Ian closed the door and Nadia swung around to face him. He eyed her warily. “Can I get you a water? I’m too tired to make coffee.”

“No time. Do you love Aimee?” She went straight in with the punch.

His mouth fell open.

“Well, do you? It’s a simple question.” She’d seen the way he looked at Aimee. What she would give to be on the receiving end of that kind of longing. Mark, this guy she’d been dating—if she’d even call it that. He was going through a divorce and had enough baggage for the both of them—never gazed at her with a drop of what Ian had for Aimee. Just as well. It wasn’t like Nadia intended to ever marry. Men only ended up leaving like her dad did. So she’d erected walls, and no man had ever made the effort to get through. Except one. But that was years ago, and she wasn’t sure it counted. They were only teenagers.

“Hardly.” He folded his arms. “I’m not answering that, not when—” He stopped, his gaze dropping to the floor with a slight shake of his head.

Nadia’s brows lifted. “Good enough for me,” she said with a quick smile. He wouldn’t say it out loud, not when he hadn’t yet told Aimee how he felt.

“That can’t seriously be what brought you over at this hour. Are you drunk?”

“No.”

“Well, whatever this is, can it wait until later?” He yawned and reached for the door. “I have a shoot in a few hours.”

“What do you know of her ex-fiancé, James?”

That got his attention. “I know he died almost two years ago in a boating accident and that it broke Aimee’s heart.”