Page 27 of No Headlines Please

"Good." He smiled. "Because you still owe me coffee. My treat."

I had to laugh. "But that makes no sense. If I owe you, I should be the one treating."

"Nah. What you owe me is that story of yours. And I'm still gonna collect. So, tomorrow, what's your schedule?"

Tomorrow was Sunday, and I had nowhere to be. "Actually, I'm not sure."

"So no plans?"

"Not really," I admitted. "Well…not unless my sister shows up, in which case, I'll want to spend some time with her…assuming she wants to." And then, at his puzzled expression, I explained, "It's been forever since I've seen her. She might be surprised to find me here."

And this was putting it mildly.

11

Witness, No Protection

Delaney

For a whole year, I'd been avoiding not only Tessa, but my entire family – plus my best friend, who I missed so much, it hurt.

Ironically, none of this had started with my family at all.

It had started with a job I'd held for barely two years. Specifically, it had started with Lenny Vickers, a lawyer whose advertisements somehow managed to appear both aggressively friendly and vaguely illegal.

His biggest billboard was located directly across from the yacht club – and for a good reason, too.

Our little lakeshore city attracted enough wealthy tourists and second-home owners to keep Lenny surprisingly busy, especially in the summer when the town filled with wealthy vacationers from Chicago, Milwaukee, and beyond.

In my mind, I could still see Lenny's yacht club billboard, complete with that toothy grin and favorite slogan. In trouble? Call the Vick!

It all sounded ridiculous until you spent enough time around Lenny to realize that most of his clients had secrets that no sane person would ever believe. Sometimes, he even worked with big-city firms on high-dollar scandals expensive enough to require multiple lawyers.

I knew this firsthand, because I'd been Lenny's employee – a team of one who handled the grunt work while Lenny bounced between courtrooms, clients, and whatever questionable networking event had free cocktails.

I answered his phone, handled intake forms, scheduled appointments, and learned far too much about other people's terrible decisions – especially wealthy men with bad judgment.

From what I could tell, they were Lenny's specialty, probably because his own judgment was just a little iffy, judging by the number of women who thought they were dating him exclusively.

Sure, the job had very little to do with my creative writing degree, but the pay hadn't been half bad. And besides, whenever Lenny had gone out, the office got surprisingly quiet – which meant I had time to work on my writing.

A win-win.

Or so I thought.

Looking back, I could pinpoint the exact moment everything changed.

The craziest thing was, the trouble had started after I'd already walked away – not because I couldn't handle the heat, but because my writing had finally started paying off.

One of my novels – not that Mom would ever call it that – had achieved some modest success. That success had generated interest in my other self-published titles, which, until then, had been languishing on the vine.

Long story short, I was finally able to pursue writing full-time.

It was my dream come true, and I'd been living it for less than a month when I received that fateful knock on my apartment door.

At first, I almost didn't answer it.

It was nearly eight o'clock, and I wasn't expecting company. At the time, I'd been sprawled across my sofa in a T-shirt and leggings, lost in my laptop as I tried to salvage a chapter that had gone completely off the rails.