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“That wasn’t my intention.” She tried to placate the man. It wasn’t exactly a lie. If Wilson hadn’t been guilty as hell, she would have left him alone. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Owen coming nearer. She gave a slight gesture with her hand to stop him. She might be able to learn something useful from Wilson’s buddy here, especially with alcohol impairing his judgment and possibly loosening his tongue.
Suddenly, the man reached out and gripped her arm, yanking her toward him. She had flashbacks of her previous encounter with him, and instinct kicked in. She open-palm slapped him across the face.
Before anything else could happen, Owen was between them, his hand firmly planted on the man’s chest, shoving him back. “Keep your hands to yourself, dumbass.”
“Me? She’s the one who slapped me,” he yelled, attracting the attention of other players on the course. Heads turned in their direction.
“We’re leaving,” Owen said to Sophie.
She agreed—this guy was too belligerent to offer anything useful. But she wasn’t thrilled about the way Owen was giving her no choice. He had her hand and was pulling her toward the parking lot. They’d almost reached his truck when a sound exploded around them. The trunk of a nearby tree splintered, sending chunks of wood into the air.
The next thing Sophie knew she was on the ground with Owen’s body covering her. “Was that…” she gasped out.
“A shot,” he finished. “Stay down.”
He was up in an instant, moving quickly and using nearby vehicles for cover. His attention was focused on the direction the shot had come from. A minute later he came back to her, pulled her to her feet, and half-carried her to his truck. They were inside and moving in no time, and the torrent of questions she’d been holding back started to come tumbling out.
“Did you see anything? Who was it?” The shot had hit the tree close to Owen and at head height. A few inches over, and he’d have been killed. She shoved her hands between her knees to stop them from shaking.
“Couldn’t see the shooter,” he said, his attention flicking around them, “but I caught a glimpse of a silver sports car moving fast in the direction of the city.”
“Like the one that the woman posing as Helen’s sister drove?” she managed to get out as she struggled to get her terror in check.
“Yeah. It matches.” He made a turn that had them heading toward the highway and back to the retreat.
“Don’t you want to chase the woman down?” she asked. They were going in the wrong direction for that.
“Not now.”
“Well, when? This might be our opportunity to confirm that she’s connected to Wilson.” Sophie’s adrenaline was wearing off and her brain kicking in.
“I’m not putting you as risk,” he replied, looking so implacable that it was obvious arguing wouldn’t do any good.
“But if you’d been alone, you’d have gone after the shooter?” she demanded and got a shrug for a response. That was enough to tell her that he would have. She wanted to discuss that, but she could see then wasn’t the time, so she stayed silent—a difficult task for her.
Mentally, she started to unpack the day. They’d waited for hours for the drug deal on the green and nothing had happened. Perhaps, they needed to backtrack a bit and re-think what they knew about the supposed location. As soon as they reached the retreat, she got out her laptop and searched “the green.” Area golf courses popped up first, but that wasn’t all. A high-end nightclub called The Green came up. She clicked on the link and watched video of twenty-somethings dancing and drinking at the club. A little more digging led her to stories on social media about The Green being a place to buy designer drugs.
Was one o’clock, the time Luke had given them for the drug deal, meant to be one in the morning at the club rather than one in the afternoon on the golf course? Was the deal going down that night?
“What are you looking at?” Owen returned to the cabin after doing his security sweep and was standing by her.
“There’s a club called The Green on Atlantic Avenue.” She showed him her screen. “I think that might have been the place.”
His face froze for a second before turning red. “Dammit. I’m sorry, Sophie. I was so sure that the country club was mixed up in this that I didn’t consider different locations.”
“It’s all right,” she said. She’d followed plenty of false leads herself and all wasn’t lost with this one. “We can go tonight and check it out. We might get lucky and see something.”
“No.” His stance and tone were decisive and unyielding. “You’re not going anywhere.”
“What do you mean? This could be it.” She pointed at the screen.
He shook his head. “Look at that place—it’s a mob scene. Huge crowds, flashing lights, tons of noise. It would be way too easy for an attacker to separate us. And today has shown that even when we’re together, you can still be targeted. You’re staying at the retreat where it’s safe from now on. I’ve allowed you to take enough risks, and I can’t anymore. If we have a solid lead, Ethan or I will investigate it.”
Allowed her? She wanted to argue with him and declare that he was being ridiculous. Which he was. But she could see he was in no mood for that—not after their close call with the shooter. She got the sense that it would ultimately cause him to lock her down more if she argued while he was still so worked up. Better to let it sit for a while and try to reason with him later.
“Maybe we can talk about it tomorrow. Today was tough.”
She rose from her chair to stand in front of him, leaving only an inch between them. Her hands went to his tense shoulders. She began to knead the muscles there. For a few seconds he relaxed, his eyes dropping shut. She was leaning in to kiss him, to give him comfort and maybe get some in return, but he shook her off and stepped away.
