Page 74 of My Beautiful Sin

Devlin moves to her side and gently cups her shoulder. “What else did he say?”

“Nothing. Just that we ought to grab a bite.” She makes a scoffing noise. “As if. I told him that I’d left everything about The Wolf’s compound behind when I walked away, and that it wasn’t personal, but that I was going to decline his invitation.”

Devlin steps back, obviously studying her, as if looking for cracks in a porcelain doll. “And that was it?”

“That was it.” She shrugs. “It’s not—I mean, he didn’t have any reason to track me down…”

“Tell our team to keep an eye on him,” Devlin says. “Maybe it really was coincidence. Maybe he wants to get close to you to see if he can skim even more intelligence about our operations.” He glances my way, and though it’s probably my imagination, I get the feeling he wishes I weren’t in the room right then. “And maybe he really does know more than we think he does.”

“About you?” Anna shakes her head. “Nobody knows. Nobody could.”

“Of course they could,” Devlin says. “Nobody’s ever really safe. You grew up the same way I did, Anna. You know that’s the truth as well as I do.”

“This is fun,” Tracy says as we window-shop our way along Pacific Avenue. “Thanks for asking me.” I’d bumped into her in the lobby as I was leaving, and we’d decided to make the walk to Brewski together, then do some window shopping.

“No problem.” I check my watch. “I can offer you dinner, too, if you want. I’m aces at ordering pizza, and I’m not too bad at uncorking wine, either.”

She laughs. “Truly, you have an amazing skill set.”

“Well, I don’t like to brag,” I tease. “Seriously, though. Do you want to walk with me back to Brandy’s? We can rent a movie or something? I can only offer my company. Apparently Brandy’s got a hot date.”

She wrinkles her nose apologetically.

“Right,” I say. “That makes me the dateless one.” I frown, then remember that I have a date with my computer, anyway. I want to put all my notes about Peter in order tonight. Because tomorrow I’m hoping to have a PC that I can use to open the creepy, anonymous URL, and then—assuming there’s really a lead on the site—shift gears to the Myers story.

I shrug. “Well, maybe I’ll get lucky and wrangle a little phone sex.”

Tracy almost spits her coffee, and too late, it occurs to me that I’m talking about having phone sex with her boss. Not my finest hour.

Her lips narrow and her eyes bulge a bit as she tries not to spew the sip she’d just taken.

“Sorry. I’m so sorry.”

She finally manages to swallow, then wipes her mouth, her eyes sparkling with tears of laughter. “Please, please, do not tell Mr. Saint you said that in front of me. I’d really like to be able to continue looking him in the eye.”

“You got it,” I say. “If you reciprocate and promise to share absolutely no details about your date tonight. Lamar is a very good friend. There are certain images I don’t need in my head.”

We shake on the deal, then chat for another block before she makes a right turn to cut diagonally back toward PCH and her condo. I continue straight toward the winding road that leads up into the canyons and to Brandy’s house.

Pacific Avenue dead-ends at Sunset Parkway, and I pause long enough to make sure I have the walk sign. Then I step off the curb—right as a black Range Rover blows through the light and careens around the corner.

And it’s coming straight at me.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Time stops as my brain processes the danger—because even though I’m already stumbling backwards, my footing isn’t solid, and there is no way in hell it’s going to miss me.

I don’t see my life flash before my eyes. Instead, all I see is Devlin, and all I feel is the tight pinch of loss and terror. I let my body go limp, trying to go down in a roll so that maybe, maybe, it’ll miss me. But I can’t, because there’s suddenly a tight pressure on my shoulder and my neck, and I realize that someone’s grabbed the collar of my zipped-up jacket, and I’m hurtling backward toward them, the force of the jacket pressing against my throat enough to make me gag.

I sprawl backwards, landing hard on the concrete, then whimper as I realize that tears of relief are streaming down my cheeks. I cough as I suck in air, then breathe in the pungent scent of burnt rubber from the squeal of the Range Rover’s tires as it peels off, racing the hell away from the scene.

Everything’s moving in slow motion now, and I realize that I’d looked for a license plate, but the SUV didn’t have one. The windows were tinted, too.

“Ellie, are you okay? Can you get up?” The voice is familiar. But there’s too much for my head to process, and so I just sit still for a moment, not able to do anything but assess the new reality that is racing through my mind. That was on purpose. Someone tried to run me down on purpose.

“Ellie.”

I hear it now—Lamar’s voice, and I look up to find him kneeling beside me. “You’re here,” I say stupidly. “Why are you here?”