Chapter 9: Harbor House

I turned my second phone face down on the pillow.

Vaughn was in my kitchen, barefoot, in last night's trousers and a shirt that was open at the throat.

He was making coffee in a pot I had never used.

"Your cupboards are empty," he said.

"I'm not home much."

"You have one mug."

"I have two. You're holding the other."

He glanced at the mug in his hand and, for a moment, looked almost shy.

I slid my second phone under the pillow and showed him my first, the one with Rory's link.

He read the headline and the muscle in his jaw jumped.

"I'll have them take it down," he said.

"It's a photograph of a man leaving a club."

"It's a photograph of me leaving with you."

"You can't see my face."

"I know," he said. "That's the only reason I'm not on the phone to a lawyer right now."

He put the mug in front of me.

"Someone knew where I'd be," he said. "At that hour, at that door. Rory says it was a staged shot."

"Who would stage it?"

He looked at me for a long moment.

"I'm working on it," Vaughn said.

I picked up the coffee so I would have something to do with my hands.

I did not tuck my hair behind my ear.

On Sunday I drove to Harbor House with my mother's favorite lemon cake in a tin.

I had not asked him to come.

He had been in the passenger seat since the end of my block, in jeans and a grey sweater.

He looked more nervous than he had at any board meeting.

"You really don't have to do this," I said.

"I know."

"She'll talk to you. She talks to everyone."

"Good."

"She doesn't like men who shout."

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