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When he drove off after following her to the shop, Mikayla stared at his back with a frown for long seconds. He'd drawn away that morning. He'd already showered and had coffee when she got up, his gaze as frosty as ever as she fixed her own. Perhaps frostier, she told herself as she stepped into the shop and greeted Deirdre before heading to her office.
There were phone calls to make. Nik was searching for Eddie's killer, but that didn't mean she couldn't help him in other ways.
110
She hated being on the sidelines where her own protection was concerned. Mikayla didn't hide from the realities of life. This was her life, and she was the one who had now become a killer's target.
But why?
It took a while, but she finally managed to reach a friend of Eddie Foreman's who had been elusive for so many weeks.
"Look, Mikayla." Robert Cronin sighed after realizing who she was trying to get hold of him. "Let the police investigate this one."
"Robert, they're not investigating anyone," she informed him wearily. She had known Robert for years. Before his divorce, his wife had often come to her for dress alterations. As Robert was another construction forema
n, though now no longer with Maddix Nelson, there was information as well as gossip that he had to be privy to.
"Why did you leave Maddix Nelson's company?" she asked. "Just give me information, Robert. Help me."
"Son of a bitch, you're gonna end up dead," he said and she could almost imagine the grimace on his craggy face. "Maddix Nelson ain't no killer. If his granddaddy was alive, then I'd say be looking at him. That man was a pure black-hearted son of Satan if you ask me."
She didn't want a dissection of the family tree. Just information, she thought in frustration.
"Maybe Maddix is just better at hiding it," she suggested. Robert was quiet, though the distant sound of machinery in the background could be heard.
"There's some talk," he finally said. "Maddix has been seen in places that he shouldn't be seen, maybe talkin' to people he shouldn't be talking to. The illegal sort. Eddie was at a party a few months ago; he used to get pretty drunk, ya know?" Robert cleared his throat. "Anyway, he said he had something on Maddix. Didn't say what, but said it would bring him down."
Mikayla bit at her lip. "Do you have any idea what it was?"
"He didn't say, Mikayla," Robert growled. "Whatever it was, though, Eddie was sure he could hurt Maddix with it. If Eddie told anyone what it was, then it would have been Steve Gainard. He's the only one Eddie would confide in, if he was going to confide in anyone."
And Steve had been out of town for months. Mikayla had left several messages with his service as well as on his cell phone.
"I can't believe Maddix did this." Robert sighed again. "But I can't believe you lied about it, either. That puts a lot of us between a rock and a hard place, Mikayla. Like I said, his granddaddy was a real bastard. I wouldn't have put anything past him before his death. That old bastard went so far as to threaten to disinherit Maddix's father if he dared decide to have another child. He didn't want Maddix's daddy, Lowell, to have a large family. Felt it would take away from the company they were building."
"But as you said, he's dead," Mikayla pointed out. "And it wasn't Maddix's grandfather I saw, Robert. It was Maddix."
"Yeah, I hear ya." Confusion filled his voice then. "I wish I had answers for ya, girl. I don't like nobody takin' potshots at ya. Drop this, before you get killed." 111
She couldn't drop it. The injustice of it, as well as the knowledge that dropping it would only convince everyone she was lying. She couldn't do that. She wasn't a liar. She knew what she had seen.
"Thank you for your time, Robert." She ended the call with a sense of falling further into the rabbit hole her life had become.
"Anytime, Mikayla," Robert promised her. "Tell your daddy I said hi. I'll be prayin' for ya."
She ended the call and stared at the phone for long moments before calling Nik. She gave him the information quickly and didn't have to wait long for his reaction.
"You were to stay out of this," he growled, anger surging in his voice.
"Look, I'm texting you Robert's cell-phone number. He's willing to talk to you as well."
"I told you to stay out of it," he snapped again.
"And I told you, this is my life," she retorted. "You don't know the people to talk to, Nik; I do. I may not be able to get all the answers, but this is something we didn't have before."
"Text me the damned number," he snarled. "Then get off that fucking phone and keep your ass out of trouble until I get back. Do you understand me?" She almost grinned.
He sounded protective rather than angry.
