Her jaw almost dropped at his admission.
"However, I am inclined to think it is much more than that. I need to know if there is more to all of this and that means finding out if anyone else is involved. I want to see where they go, who they talk to. I could have more people working against me than I know."
He reached over and placed his hand over hers and gave a gentle squeeze. She felt herself flush at his touch.
"Don't worry. You'll get an opportunity to use that gun of yours. We'll need to end them soon enough, but first I need to see how many loose ends there really are."
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
"I don't want to give the impression that we were perfect. Paige and I had arguments like any other couple. The funny thing was often our arguments were about here. Newport, I mean. There were times she would talk about the great times she had at college. She always talked about it with such fondness. It sounded so important to her. So every now and then I would suggest that we should take a trip down here. After all, we weren't that far away. Those conversations would never end well. She would find the craziest excuses to get out of the trips."
"S...she would seem nervous about the idea?"
Nathan turned away from the window and looked at her. She was still clinging to the pillow.
"You were nervous about coming here too, weren't you?"
She nodded but said nothing.
"Yeah I guess nervousness sounds about right. It would turn to anger if I pushed the idea."
"So she never agreed to go?"
"No, she did. We discussed it for over a week. A little each day. I didn't push, we just talked it out. My thought was that she couldn't get passed the idea of the fire. Her last memory here had been that damn fire and it had shaken her more than she let on."
Paige listened intently, her eyes unfocused and Nathan was certain she was thinking about the fire as well.
"But like I said, we discussed it over an extended period and finally decided to just run down for a day trip. We were going to come on a Friday and if we got here and she wasn't having fun then we'd head back, but if she was enjoying herself then we'd find a place to spend the weekend."
Nathan turned and looked back out the window, his shoulders slumping a little.
"I actually thought she was getting excited about the trip. Still nervous, but excited as well. She had talked to Tanya a few times that week. She said that Tanya thought it was a wonderful idea and wished she could get away to join us. We never got the chance to make the trip."
He leaned is head against the window, the cool glass on his forehead. He opened his mouth a few times, but nothing came out. The memories still seemed so fresh. He took a step back and sat on the edge of the bed, keeping his back to Paige.
"It was Thursday night. She said she was going to run out for a few last minute items. It was a day trip, what last minute items? I never asked her. Honestly never gave it any thought until much later. I had asked her if she wanted me to go with her, but she had said no. In fact, she was quite adamant that she didn't want me to go with her. It was just before eight that she left. I started to get a bit worried around nine. By ten I was crawling the walls. I must have dialed her cell phone every three minutes."
He stood back up at the window again.
"It was after eleven when the police arrived at the house. They in...informed me that my car had been in a serious accident. The driver had died, but because of the physical trauma and th..the fire damage, visual identification would be impossible."
Paige had stood up and walked behind him. She began to reach out but pulled back, unsure what she should do. Unsure what she could do to comfort him.
"Dental records confirmed it was Paige. The examination of the accident scene was extensive. Investigators reported that eye witnesses said that she had swerved into oncoming traffic and slammed head on into an eighteen-wheeler. The car had crumpled and exploded almost at the instant of impact. She hadn't worn her seatbelt and they said the airbags had been disabled. I was in such a daze at the time, I couldn't believe such a thing. They searched her computer and found several searches on how to disable airbags. I couldn't believe that Paige had done that and neither had one of the investigators. He'd thought that I might have done it, that I...I had planned the thing somehow."
Paige placed her hands on his shoulders, tears ran down her face.
"I remember flying into a rage at the suggestion. If it hadn't been for Toby, I might have tried to beat the hell out of that guy. Toby knew what she had meant to me and was able to convince them there was no way I would even dream of such a thing. Of course, they had to investigate every possibility. Their tech guy was able to recover some deleted items, one of which was a suicide note. It seemed to convince them, but not me. No, there was no way she would ever have done such a thing. She was so happy. We were so happy. After everything she'd dealt with...she just respected life too much to do that. They said there was no signs that she had even attempted to apply the brakes."