Out of Sight Out of Mind by Evonne Wareham Page B

know why she was feeling it. There was no one here, except the woman and the child. There never was any one. With a sigh she shouldered her bag and went to lend a hand with the boxes.
    She knew where she’d find Jay. Where she always found him at this time of the afternoon. In the small, exclusive gym provided in the basement for the use of the residents. Since he’d discovered that the gym manager was a trained physio, waiting for the chance to use his skills, he’d haunted the place – when he wasn’t in the lab. Madison’s mouth twisted. She was poking around in his mind, filling his body with unhealthy chemicals. When she wasn’t doing that he was down here, slogging to get himself in shape. Or walking. He did a lot of walking.
    She reached the door and stopped. Jay was sweating in the embrace of some machine, all pulleys and leavers and shiny chrome, the purpose of which she didn’t even
begin
to understand. The throb in her breasts, and further south, had her mouth twisting even further, with self-disgust. How big a cliché was that, getting a hum from watching a guy working out? It was so cheap.
Still gets you hot though, doesn’t it?
    Leaving her lust at the door – some hope – she strode over to the machine, dredging up scientist, not hormone-fuelled female, to appraise what she was seeing. Jay was still favouring the injured shoulder, but in the weeks that had passed since their encounter in the alley it was visibly healing and strengthening. You could tell, just by watching the way he moved. Another thought that she didn’t need to explore, with its hot trails of awareness.
Do not go there
.
    Seeing her, Jay let the machine come to rest. She handed him a towel and a bottle of water, watching approvingly as he drank. The column of his throat, head back, as the liquid went down.
Grrr
. The brief vest top and sweats clung to his body, gleaming and prime in the strong lights of the gym. He rolled out of the monster’s clutches. With a gigantic effort Madison hauled her mind back to the envelopes in her bag. It was just the blast of ice water in the face that she needed.
    ‘You have something?’ Jay had picked it up from her face – the way she stood – what?
    ‘The private investigator’s report, and the voice analyst’s.’
    ‘Ah.’ He exhaled. ‘Do we need pizza for this?’
    ‘It’s already ordered.’
    Madison tipped the delivery man and closed the door. Jay had the folders spread over the table. He looked up, face bleak.
    ‘Basically, nothing.’ He flipped the investigator’s report. ‘No missing person matching my description. No one saw or heard anything at Paddington. Or anywhere else. And the voice stuff, it’s inconclusive – maybe London, maybe the West Coast of America.’ He dropped the folder to put the heels of his hands into the sockets of his eyes and emerged blinking ‘This stuff is good, thorough. There’s just nothing there.’
    Madison pushed a pizza carton and a half-full glass of red wine towards him. He picked it up, then paused. ‘Should I be having this – the drugs?’
    ‘In the circumstances I reckon it’s allowed.’
    She knew how she’d felt in the investigator’s office when he’d gone through the report with her. She suppressed a small pang of guilt that she hadn’t included Jay in the visit. She’d had to know first what the report contained. Alone.
    She’d had time to come to terms with her disappointment. For Jay this had to be a thousand times worse. They’d both been hoping – more than either of them had admitted, she realised now. But for her, along with the disappointment, there had been something that had felt like relief. The investigator hadn’t turned up anything positive, but he hadn’t shown Jay up for a fraud or a liar. Which meant she could still continue to work with him. She didn’t want to give him up. Didn’t want him to walk out of her life.
    This whole thing was stirring up a complex mix of emotions she didn’t have