RAVEN
By the time I finish my drive back to McBride Mountain, I’m shaking so badly that only clinging to the wheel in a death grip seems to keep me from completely losing it.
When I was finally forced to stop to get gas on the way home, I had to sit in my car for a few minutes before I got out because I didn’t trust my legs to hold me up.
Everything Barry told me during our meeting today rattles around my brain. Even after listening to the audio recording of our conversation over and over again during the drive, I still can’t fully wrap my head around what I heard.
Probably because it sounds more like a plot of a movie than anything that actually happened in real life. It was so much more than I ever expected or could have hoped for going into that meeting. More information. More evidence. More of exactly what I need to complete my story.
But it didn’t come easily.
It took a lot to get Barry to talk.
Placations…
Imploring him to protect other innocent people from getting hurt…
Downright begging…
And making a lot of promises I probably shouldn’t have made.
Like that he would be safe…
I’ve always known that if I went ahead with this story, I would be putting myself in the crosshairs of some very dangerous people, and I’m dragging other people, like Barry, with me. But he knew who he worked for and the consequences of it. That’s why he’s been hiding from them for so long.
But nothing stays hidden forever.
Bringing everything into the light is necessary to protect the greater good.
The story is already writing itself in my head—sentences and paragraphs flowing endlessly—and as soon as I get home, the first thing I’m going to do is get it all out.
Every thought I have about our conversation, every new question that it raises, every detail I can now prove.
All of it.
I almost blow through the stop sign coming back into town, and by the time I pull in behind the bakery and throw my car into park, releasing a shaky breath, my heart is thundering so loudly that blood is rushing in my ears.
The sun has already started to set, and I climb out into the dusky evening and grab my computer bag and the voice recorder from the center console to continue listening to the replay of our interview again as I make my way toward the front of the building and the entrance of my apartment.
“I have boxes and boxes of files…the Lorells trusted me…”
Barry’s voice fills my head as I hustle around the corner of the building and slam into a brick wall…of solid muscle. Strong hands wrap around my upper arms, keeping me from toppling over, but the voice recorder tumbles from my hand and falls to the sidewalk, little pieces of it flying everywhere.
“Fuck! No!” I glance up to see who I ran into, and my blood immediately runs cold as Connor McBride stares down at me, his eyes as dark as onyx. “You asshole! Look what you did!”
I jerk out of his hold and drop to my knees, scrambling to gather the metallic pieces of the voice recorder.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
The internal drive better not be damaged because if I can’t salvage the audio, all I have left are my hand-jotted notes and memory of the interview—and that might not be enough.
Connor towers over me, crossing his arms over his huge chest. “You were the one who wasn’t watching where you were going.”
I glance up long enough to scowl at him. “Well, I wasn’t expecting there to be a grumpy, growly mountain man looming around the corner of the building!”
Looking back down, I gather the final pieces of plastic and shove them in my jeans pocket, hoping he won’t notice, but his eyes follow the movement intently.
“What was that you dropped?”
