Page 34 of Carry on Wayward Son

“Strand’s in here,” I said.

“I saw.” Layla didn’t glance up. “Feasibility study. And there’s a follow-up correspondence where he’s requesting a meeting with Miles that seems to have been scheduled, and then nothing. No notes from the meeting. No follow-up documentation.”

“Meetings that don’t leave a paper trail.”

“Very common when you don’t want a paper trail.” She set down the highlighter. “You said he wanted to develop the land that had been in your family for generations. Were there others before him?”

“Oh yeah. My dad, for one.” I set down the lo mein. “He’s a venture capitalist. He’d been pushing my grandfather to develop that land for years, and Granddaddy always said hell no. Willa’s a chip off the old block there, which is a big part of why it was right that the land go to her.”

“Was there any connection between your dad and Strand?”

I turned the question over. “None that I’m aware of. But I’m hardly up on his business associates. I didn’t cut my parents off as cleanly as Willa did, but I’m not the favored son anymore.” I paused, looking at the Strand contract on the table between us. “Do you think my dad could have been involved? In any of this?”

“I have no idea.” She said it without softening it, which I appreciated. “I think anyone with significant money connected to this island deserves a second glance.”

“That could be a lot of people. There are plenty of vacation homes here.”

“True. But it makes more sense to start with people who have a genuine operational connection and work outward from there. If money was being laundered through businesses on the island, the money has to be coming in from somewhere nearby. Taking it straight to be laundered gives less opportunity to be caught with it.”

“Fair argument.” I leaned back against the sofa. “But whoever’s at the top of the food chain doesn’t have to be physically present to oversee it. They’d have an enforcer. Someone who handles the operational side, who would’ve been the one to approach Miles directly and make the threat. And that person, if they’re smart, isn’t walking around looking flush all the time.”

“True.” She picked up the highlighter again. “Which means we’re looking for two different things—the money architecture and the operational layer. They might overlap, but they might not.”

“Which is what makes it complicated.”

“All the good ones are.”

We worked through another hour of it, trading observations when something snagged one of us, building a rough map of names and companies and relationships that might mean something and might mean nothing. Pete Wharton kept appearing. Coastal Meridian Holdings had some correspondence that used language similar to Strand’s development proposals in a way that could be coincidence and probably wasn’t. Blue Water Infrastructure had a principal whose name showed up in connection with a real estate LLC that had purchased two properties on the waterfront the year after Miles took office.

Eventually Layla set down her highlighter and stretched her arms over her head in a languid motion that pulled the fabric of her shirt taut across her body in a way that was distracting as hell. I forced my attention back to her face, which didn’t help much. It was a damned fine face.

“It’s getting late,” she said, her voice carrying a note of reluctance that matched what I was feeling. “I’m not going to ask you to stay.”

“Too damned bad.” I looked at her across the coffee table and the scattered papers covering every available surface between us, documents that suddenly felt a lot less important than they had an hour ago. “Does that mean this was a onetime thing?”

The corner of her mouth lifted in a slight smile I was starting to recognize—the one that said she was amused but trying not to show it. “I believe you already proved it wasn’t.”

“Then I’m putting in my vote to keep it going while you’re here. Exclusively.” I held her gaze, making sure she understood what I was saying.

“Putting in your claim?” There was a challenge in her tone, but not an unfriendly one.

“I don’t share, Layla.” I let the words settle between us, plain and unadorned. “Not my style.”

She held my gaze for a long moment, something shifting in those dark eyes before she answered. “Neither do I. And yeah, I’d like to continue this while I’m here.”

“Good.” I got to my feet, feeling the pleasant ache in muscles I’d put through their paces earlier. She stood with me, and I pulled her in for a kiss and took my time about it, a seal on what we’d just agreed to. When I finally let her go, I took her slightly dazed look as a compliment. Her lips were swollen, her breathing just a little uneven. “Very good.”

“Very, very good,” she agreed, her voice rougher than it had been a moment before.

I gathered my jacket from where I’d draped it over the arm of the sofa and collected my share of the files we’d divided up for further review, letting myself linger by the sofa a beat longer than necessary, in case she changed her mind about me leaving. She only moved toward the door, though, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear in a gesture that seemed almost self-conscious.

“How long do you usually spend on location?” I asked as I followed her to the entryway.

“Anywhere from a few days to a few months. Depends on what we find and how fast we find it.” She paused with her hand on the doorknob. “Why?”

I wasn’t sure why I said what I said next. It wasn’t planned. The words just came out, propelled by something I didn’t want to examine too closely. “Ford and Bree are getting married. After the New Year. You want to be my plus one?”

She stared at me, her eyes widening a fraction. “That’s weeks away.”