Free Hidden Things by Doyce Testerman Page A

just work.”
    He studied her in morning light coming in through the front window. His expression was carefully neutral. “Well, he wasn’t totally wrong, then, if you were working on something with Joshua.”
    â€œI—” Calliope felt her eyes go wide as she turned and focused on him. “Oh. God. I didn’t—”
    â€œDidn’t wh—”
    â€œJosh is—”
    dead
    â€œmissing.” She heard her voice shake. “The police are still trying to figure out what happened.”
    Tom frowned, pushing away from the wall and moving a few steps toward her. “He called you—”
    She nodded. “Last n—” She shook her head. “Two nights ago.”
    â€œThree,” he murmured. At her look, his brow creased. He extended his index finger. “Last night, you were at the club.” A second finger. “Night before, you didn’t come home.” A third finger. “Joshua called in the middle of the night.” He turned his hand toward her, palm out, fingers still extended, and waggled them.
    Calliope looked past the fingers at him. “I was at the office.”
    His eyes slid away from hers. “I didn’t ask.”
    Heat bloomed in her face. “I was trying to help the cops with Josh—I was digging through files.” She scowled in annoyance. “And how do you know I wasn’t here?” Her voice sounded loud in her own ears.
    â€œYou told me to come by and pick up my stuff.” Tom’s voice was calm and quiet. For Calliope, that was one of the most annoying things about arguing with him. “I waited about an hour past when you’d normally get home, then I took off.” He stuck his hands in his back pockets. “I drove by after the show, but your Jeep was still gone. I went back to Sean’s.” His eyelids dropped, concealing his expression. “I wasn’t stalking—just following orders.”
    Tom wasn’t the easiest person to read, but that small signal was at least something Calliope understood. She sighed. “I’m really sorry I said that, okay? It was just a joke. A bad joke.”
    â€œIt’s okay.” His mouth moved in an unexpected smirk. “It is a little stalkery when you list it off all at once, especially when you throw in the Cullenesque sleep-watching.” He crossed his arms and faked a shudder. “Now I feel dirty.”
    Calliope laughed—a genuine, cleansing thing that felt like washing her face with cold water. Tom spread his arms, head tilted and eyebrows raised. Calliope nodded, took two steps to close the gap, and wrapped herself in him.
    Above her, Tom murmured something unintelligible. “What?” she asked.
    He lifted his head. “Did your all-nighter at the office help?”
    â€œMaybe.” She told him about the answering machine message and its impossible time stamp.
    â€œJesus, they think he’s dead?” He squeezed her harder. “What kind of jobs are you two working on?”
    She shook her head, her face still against his chest. “I don’t know what this thing was—I never had anything to do with it.”
    â€œGood.” Calliope tensed in his arms, and he could clearly feel it. “Sorry, I just mean it’s kind of crazy, you know? Even if he’s okay, the idea that he could be on a job that dangerous—”
    â€œIt’s just work.” She heard the defensiveness creep into her voice and hated it more than a little.
    â€œYou’re not saving the world, Calli, you’re tracking down skip traces.” He gave her another hug, hard enough to squeeze the latent tension out of her. “There’s a point where you have stop and say ‘This is not worth my life.’ ”
    â€œI know,” she murmured.
    â€œDoes Joshua?” She pulled her head back and looked up at him, expression carefully neutral. “He’s kind of a paladin, is