He Came Back Running (Maya and Mason) novel Chapter 206

Chapter 206

Chapter 206

Maya’s POV

The suitcase had been open on the bed for forty minutes.

Not because I didn’t know what to pack…. packing was not the problem. The problem was the notebook on the side table, which I kept looking at in the way you looked at things you were trying to convince yourself to leave behind and couldn’t quite manage.

Reeves had everything he needed. Carter was recovering and his file was with the right people.

Everything that could be in motion was in motion.

Nothing I did in the next few weeks would accelerate it.

I told myself this.

I continued looking at the notebook.

Alex came in carrying the smaller travel bag.

He took one look at me and then at the direction of my gaze and his expression did the thing it did when he was finding something genuinely amusing and was not going to pretend otherwise.

“You’ve been looking at that notebook for ten minutes,” he said.

“I’m not,” I said.

“You have,” he said. “I timed it”

I looked at him.

“You timed it.”

“From the doorway,” he said. “Ten minutes, two seconds when I started speaking.” He set the bag on the bed. ” You haven’t moved.”

I picked up the notebook…..

“I know this sounds strange,” I said.

“It doesn’t,” he said.

“I can’t leave it behind.” I looked at the cover… worn at the edges, “every answer about my father seems to be hidden inside these pages. The key. The L-17 reference. Whatever the unknown caller knows about where it belongs.” I paused. “I’ll feel better if it’s with me.”

Alex looked at the notebook.

At me.

“I invited you on a vacation,” he said. “Not on another investigation”

“I know,” I said. “I’ll try not to work.”

He held my gaze.

“Maya…”

1/4

Chapter 206

+15 Bonus

“I’ll try very hard not to work,” I said.

He watched me place the notebook carefully into the bag… Then the key into the front pocket of the same bag, where I could reach it without unpacking anything else.

He shook his head.

The contained amusement. The corner of his mouth.

“You’re bringing an investigation on our vacation,” he said.

“I’m bringing a notebook and a key,” I said. “Those are objects. Objects can go on vacation.”

“The notebook is an active investigation tool”

“The notebook is a personal item that belonged to my father,” I said. “It happens to also be an active investigation tool.”

He looked at me.

“You’re not going to look at it,” he said.

“Probably not,” I said.

“Maya….”

“There’s a reasonable chance I won’t look at it,” I said.

He crossed the room.

Put his hands on my face….

“This trip is about us,” he said. “I missed two months of your pregnancy. I missed you talking to our child, and describing restaurants, and telling me about investigations I was processing from somewhere I couldn’t respond from.” He paused. “I’m not wasting another day thinking about anything except you and our baby.” He held my gaze. “Four days. The notebook stays in the bag.

“In the bag is with us,” I said.

“In the bag, unopened,” he said.

I looked at him.

“Unless something significant comes through from Reeves.”

He waited.

“And unless the unknown caller reaches out about the key.”

He kept waiting….

“And unless Carter’s team has something that needs a decision.”

“Or,” he said, “those things can wait seventy-two hours, because Reeves is a professional and Carter’s team is competent and the investigation has been running for nine years and can sustain four days without your direct involvement.”

I pressed my lips together

2/4

Chapter 206

+15 Bonus

“Possibly,” I said.

He kissed my forehead.

Gently.

“Possibly is enough,” he said.

I rested my head against his chest.

“I already missed so much,” he said, quietly, against my hair. “I’m not letting anything else take the next four days.”

“The notebook is coming,” I said.

“The notebook is coming,” he agreed. “Unopened.”

“We’ll see,” I said.

“Maya….”

“Probably unopened,” I said.

He made a sound.

I smiled.

Against his chest.

The first real one of the morning.

We zipped the suitcases at nine-forty-five.

The notebook in my bag. The key in the front pocket.

Alex carried both bags to the door because he was still doing the things he shouldn’t be doing and I had stopped arguing about it because arguing about it was achieving nothing and he was smiling when he did it.

The house looked like a house that two people were leaving for four days.

Ordinary…

The gate, the garden, the front steps.

The street beyond it….

On the opposite side of the street, in a parked car that had been there since seven, a person sat with a phone.

The photograph had been taken again at seven-twelve.

The balcony. The morning light. Two people with coffee.

Additional photographs had been taken since…. the front of the house at intervals…

When the front door opened and Alex came out with two suitcases, the phone came up again.

The photograph taken.

Alex loading the car.

3/4

Chapter 206

Maya appearing in the doorway….. an image of two people leaving a house for somewhere else.

The phone lowered.

“Álex did you that?”

“someone from the harbour shots of us….” he replied casually

“Does that not bother you?”

P

Comments

Support

Share

+15 Bohus

4/4