Tam sat on the edge of the hotel bed, staring at the maroon curtains draped across the window, insulating them from the outside world.

"We shouldn't have let him go." Jasper stood leaning against the half wall separating the bedroom from the rest of the suite. "He didn't deserve it."

He was right, but she didn't have the energy to argue. What Aiden deserved or didn't deserve was beside the point. They'd had no choice but to return dockside, watching Aiden's crew join him on his ship before returning to the hotel in a cloud of defeat.

"Do you believe him?" She kept her gaze towards the window, afraid of what she'd see if she looked in Jasper's direction. "I wouldn't blame you if you did."

"Tam..."

Her peripheral vision picked up a flash, Jasper moving towards her, not away like she'd expected. She'd tried and failed to read his silence all the way back to the hotel. Anger rose off him like steam from a dewy field. He could have been mad about Aiden, or their lack of progress in solving Goldie's murder, or about Tam and her supposed involvement in a criminal underworld she hadn't even known existed until Aiden told them about it.

Barges carried tons of products around the world every year. Some of those products were glittery and highly sought after to people like Goldie and her fans. Makeup could be packaged in so many creative ways. And that's where Aiden's people came in. Things could be hidden in crates of rouge and tubs of foundation—things that ruined lives. Things that gave people insatiable desires. Goldie traded in insatiable desires for beauty and luxury. It wasn't outlandish for Aiden's bosses to believe she could be repackaged and used to traffic both legitimate and illegitimate vices.

Tam shifted as Jasper's weight tilted her in his direction. She used her last bit of courage to face him. The anger she expected seemed vacant from his expression, but something else almost as bad was there. Anguish. "They set me up, Jasper."

"I'm aware."

"Are you?"

"Think about it this way. Aiden and whoever the fuck he works for, did they really have to tell Goldie at all that they were going to use her cosmetics line to smuggle massive amounts of fentanyl and God knows what else into the country? They could have kept her in the dark."

"According to Aiden, she had no knowledge of what they were smuggling. He told her they were going to move counterfeit products along with her line. He claims I'm the only one who knew what they were really doing."

"Which we already know is bullshit."

"That's what I don't get." She said. "You believed I was a liar from day one. What if I'm lying to you about this now?"

"I called you a liar. I didn't say you were good at it. Besides, I also knew from day one that you were being sucked into Goldie's world for unscrupulous reasons. I tried to warn you, but you never listened."

"It's hard to listen to someone who hates you."

"I didn't... I never hated you, Tam. You made me feel frustrated and conflicted and all sorts of things, but never hate. I wanted you to quit. Get away from there. But I couldn't convince you. I did a shit job of it and I failed. I couldn't save her, and I couldn't save you."

"I'm still alive. I haven't died or been arrested."

"In the last few days, you've been interrogated, assaulted, and had a gun held to your head."

"You saved me in two out of three of those examples. Can you not be so fucking hard on yourself?"

"I don't know any other way to be."

"Yes, you do." It was instinct, what happened next. Tam's urge to comfort this sad man meant she could press back against the doom threatening to strangle her. She could survive if the whole world turned on her if he would stand by her and not break apart. She raised her hands and placed them on the sides of his face, holding him in her gaze. "I misjudged you."

His breath hitched, his eyes flickering between despair and awe. "I wasn't exactly straightforward with you. I was trying to protect you and Goldie at the same time."

"It was never your job to protect me." Warmth spread up her thigh where it was pressed against him. She leaned her forehead in until it touched his. "But I can't... I can't do this without you. You're the only one in the world who believes me."

Jasper let out a long sigh, as though the breath he'd been holding in was a demon that needed to be exorcised. He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her close. "I've wanted this for months, but every time I tried to tell you, it came out wrong and you ended up angry with me."

"Every time you tried to tell me what?"

"Everything. All of it. What I suspected. What I felt."

"What did you feel?"

She didn't wait for him to answer, instead, she closed the narrow gap separating her lips from his. Her body lit with electric currents as the kiss deepened. What she'd thought would be a momentary and fleeting exchange stretched on as though they'd both cease to exist if they stopped. It was a kiss marked with shared misery, and it made way for so much more, two people who no longer had anything to lose but each other.

#

Hours passed but for Tam, time had taken a vacation. It could have been day or night or the murky period in between. She kept grounded with the rise and fall of Jasper's chest as she lay with her cheek pressed to it, but outside of that, she willed away everything. If she could have kept them there, suspended outside of reality forever, she would have.

It was Jasper who removed her from time, and it was Jasper who brought her back. She'd assumed he'd fallen asleep when his voice brought her out of her blissful void. "If we can trust anything Aiden told us, he had a few meetings with Goldie, but it doesn't explain what you told me, that she was romantically involved with someone. Someone that wasn't him."

She attempted to break from him so she could prop herself up on an elbow, but he pulled her in close. "Don't go." He kissed the top of her head. "Sorry, I won't talk about it."

"No, we need to. We can't stay in this hotel room forever, Jasper. We need to figure out what happened to Goldie before they find me and arrest me."

He ran his hand through her hair. "Who would she have been seeing? Someone from Lucre? Besides Aiden I mean."

"Honestly, Jasper, I wish I knew. It could be anyone."

He brought his hand to rest at the base of her neck. "No, not anyone. This wasn't a fling, right? You said you believed she was in love."

"She hinted at it, yes."

Silence filled the darkened room. She waited for him to respond.

"A fan."

"What?" That seemed out of character for Goldie. It would mean blurring her public persona with the ultra-private one that she hid away. "You really imagine she fell in love with a fan?"

"No. Maybe." He twisted a lock of her hair around his fingers. "The day after Goldie's death, I came home to one of her fans getting comfortable on my front porch."

Tam's muscles tensed. "A fan was at your house?"

"Yeah. And there was something off about her. At first, she seemed obsessed the typical way a lot of Goldie's stans were obsessed. She'd copied Goldie's hair, her makeup. She'd figured out where I lived even though I kept my private residence completely out of EpiGolds."

"That's creepy."

"Not as creepy as what I'm about to tell you." He shifted her in his arms so that she could face him. "She left me a box. Called it a care package."

"A care package? Like, with cheese and fruit and chocolate?"

"Like with blackmail material."

Tam frowned. "She was trying to blackmail you?"

"No. Not me." He gripped her close. "You."

_____

I don't know about you, but I've been waiting for this chapter for a while! Our two embattled gumshoes have finally turned to each other for comfort. I hope you enjoyed this development. I, for one, am happy they had this moment, but we are still in the middle of a big mystery, and their situation remains precarious...

What do you think Tam will want to do now that she knows about Shay's "care package?" And what did Jasper mean when he said it contains materials that could be used to blackmail Tam?

Thanks for sticking with the story! You are all fabulous! Xoxoxo