AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He shrugged. “I heard about it a few months ago, because Peter Anton and I were dating the same woman.” Chris winked at her. “She liked me better.”
“Congratulations. And since we’re being honest here…”
He took a drink and raised his eyebrows for her to continue.
“Do you have any idea who’s been trying to intimidate me into selling?”
With a wet cough, he set the water down. “Intimidateyou? How?”
Lori raised her broken hand.
“Good God, are you kidding me? Somebody did that to you?”
Shrugging in response, she let him believe the worst in the hopes that he would reveal something. But Chris shook his head hard.
“No way. I don’t know anyone who’d be involved in that sort of thing. I mean, some of these guys are hard-asses, but there are always other deals to be made. Your land isn’t worth that kind of trouble.”
“Yeah,” she muttered. “I guess not. Thanks, Chris.”
“You should talk to the cops,” he called as she walked out.
And he was absolutely right. Time to turn this over to Ben completely. The more she found out, the less she could see how any of this had to do with her father’s attack. First, there was only achancethat the vandalism had anything to do with the pass. And even if it did, the idea that the same proposal had been floated ten years before and inspired someone to hurt her father was even more far-fetched.
The truth was that her father’s attack had probably been random. Dark night, cheap bar…not much of a mystery. And her vandal? Hell, it could be any one of the half-dozen people who had outstanding bills with the garage. It could be bored teenagers. It could be that shitty mechanic, James Webster.
For a few days there it had seemed almost a relief that she would be able to lay all her troubles at the feet of some nefarious stranger. Her father’s years of suffering, his death, her stagnant, stunted life, even her financial problems. But life was complicated. People were rarely felled by one grand blow of fate, rather they bled out slowly from hundreds of small, careless cuts. Just as she was bleeding now. It was slow and painless enough that you could ignore it for just the amount of time it took to become fatal.
“Bastards,” she muttered to no one. She switched off the radio and drove back to Tumble Creek in silence.
* * *
“SHE’S HERE,” Ben said, relieving the burning worry that had taken over Quinn’s body.
“Where?” Quinn barked into the phone.
“She just pulled up to the police station. She’s coming in now and looks fine.”
“I’ll be right there.” He snapped his phone shut and walked out the door.
Quinn had spent a full hour going mad. After the night spent talking with Ben, finally getting the truth about what was going on, he’d tossed and turned all night. The little surprise he’d found on the kitchen table hadn’t helped his stress. The Anton/Bliss file from his home. And now that he knew about the riverfront land, he understood her strange interest in his business associates. Maybe even her interest in him altogether. After all, this affair hadn’t started until after Ben had begun the investigation.
It seemed there was a very good chance that Lori had been using him for more than just sex. For some reason, though it had felt fine to be used for his body, the idea of being used for information hurt like hell.
So he’d had a long night and had been running on very little sleep when he’d awoken to find Lori missing. Well…not “missing” according to Ben and his idiotically strict standards. Ben had maintained that Lori had simply gotten into her truck and gone somewhere, but Quinn hadn’t liked that at all.
What if she was investigating dangerous people? What if she was disoriented from the blow to her head and driving aimlessly on back roads? What if she’d taken too many painkillers and driven into the river?
Quinn had wanted Ben to at least have his men on the lookout for her as he refused to mount a full-on search. They’d argued about it, but it hardly mattered now. Quinn was jogging across Main Street, headed right past the back of Lori’s purple truck.
She was safe. She was alive.
He was going to kill her.
Ben was speaking when Quinn pushed through the door. “You should not have done that,” he told Lori in a stern voice.
Quinn reached her just as she was shrugging. “What did you do?” he demanded as he wrapped his arms around her. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine!” she protested.
