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“Yeah, probably—”
“Forget I asked that.” His finger taps against the receiver, like he’s thinking. “Imagine she made the same mistake as you. On the Bunton case. Do you think she’d deserve to be happy at some point in the future? Or would you want her depriving herself of everything good to try and make up for a human error?”
“Of course I wouldn’t want that,” I rasp, loathing the idea of her unhappy.
“I’m sure she doesn’t want that fate for you, either.”
“Yeah.” I tip my head back and notice a crack in the ceiling. It runs straight through the crown molding. Making me think of the peepholes in Oscar Stanley’s house.
There’s a loud gurgle in my stomach. I sit up straighter, my skin turning clammy.
The mayor couldn’t have fit in that crawl space, either.
Didn’t we decide that based on there being two holes, eye distance apart and angled downward, that someone must have actively been peeping at some point? Oscar couldn’t have fit in the crawl space, neither could Rhonda Robinson. It would make sense that the mayor would want to keep tabs on Oscar, since he was threatening to expose her duplicity, but…
But she wouldn’t have done it herself.
And this morning during the rally, when Taylor was hit in the head with the book, no way could Robinson have slipped away unnoticed in that crowd. But I know who could have.
Small, non-descript. Loyal.
“The assistant. The fucking assistant.”
“What?”
The contents of my stomach lurch upward. “I have to go. I…”
Taylor is out there. Vulnerable.
I left her without protection.
I don’t remember hanging up the phone on my brother. I’m already dialing Taylor. Holding the phone to my ear while ripping my keys out of my pocket, running at full speed into the parking lot. No answer. Of course not. The sound of her musical voice on the outgoing voicemail recording almost buckles my knees. Christ, oh Christ. I could lose her. Permanently. No. No, I can’t breathe. “Taylor, the peepholes,” I ramble, voice threadbare. “It had to be Rhonda’s assistant.” I’m barely able to think straight with her in potential danger. We might have arrested a guilty party. There are two of them, though. One is out there—and he’s violent. “Get somewhere safe. Now, sweetheart. Please. You and Jude. And wait for me. I’m coming.”
Chapter 21
Taylor
Weird how I’ll cry over an Allstate commercial or two senior citizens holding hands, but right now, when my heart hurts worse with every pound, I can’t eke out a tear.
I’m sitting on the beach in a sweatshirt and bare feet, arms wrapped around my raised knees. We came down here after letting the men in to replace the broken window in the back bedroom and simply never left. Now there is a magnificent sunset painting the sky with pinks and grays and I want to enjoy the beauty, but I’m too numb. It helps to have Jude sitting beside me, not talking, just occasionally rubbing a circle on my back or showing me a pretty shell. I want to ask him what happened with Dante, who was gone by the time I returned home, but if I open my mouth, I think I’ll just start shouting about pigheaded men and never stop.
“It hurts now. Feels like it’ll never stop,” Jude says quietly. “But it’ll get easier to ignore. One day you’ll be able to convince yourself it never happened.”
It sounds like he’s speaking from experience, but I don’t have the heart to point that out. So I just nod.
Stupid bounty hunter with his secret soft center and tortured past. I fell for it. Leave it to the teacher to fall for the textbook temptation to fix a man. To incorrectly believe, somewhere deep down in my heart, that he wouldn’t be able to walk away. That was nothing but a bad assumption. I’m just a Bond Girl in a long line of Bond Girls. He’ll look back on me in fifteen years, squint his eyes and say, oh yeah, the one who liked grandma ice cream.
And I’ll probably have a family and be settled down.
“Settled down,” I murmur. “But I’m not going to settle.”
Jude raises an eyebrow at me. “Huh?”
“Well.” I wet my lips, grateful to be talking and thinking about something other than Myles. “You know I’ve been dating men who have a serious eye toward marriage. But I don’t think I’m going to do that anymore. I think maybe…I just want to live and see what happens.” Saying that out loud loosens a little bit of the pressure in my chest. “I don’t have to be practical and play it safe, just because I’ve always been told that’s who I am. I’m who I decide to be, you know? I can play it safe in some aspects of my life, but in others, maybe I just want to help catch a murderer or have a fling with a bounty hunter. I’m more than one thing. I decide my own course. Nobody else.”
