AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The door rumbled up.
She clamped her hands on her waist. “What’s going on? I thought the battery was dead. Could the storm have interfered with it?”
“Unlikely.”
He set the opener on the hood and walked back to the branch. Dropped to his haunches and began examining the break.
Vague suspicions began to niggle at her, and as she joined him, they coalesced into a disturbing conclusion. “You think I was set up? That this was deliberate?”
He continued to examine the bottom of the limb. “That thought did cross my mind. This happening so close on the heels of the tire incident is suspect.”
“Or a run of bad luck.”
He pulled out his phone. “I’d like to think that’s all it is, but my gut is telling me there’s more to it.”
Her own phone began to vibrate, and she pulled it out.
Jack.
“If that’s a call, go ahead and answer. I want to take a few photos.” He got up close and personal with the bottom of the branch and began snapping away.
Bri retreated a few paces and greeted her brother. “Sorry for the early call.”
“No worries. I was in the shower and just noticed your text message and voicemail. What’s up?”
She briefed him on her latest catastrophe. “I was hoping you could stop by and help me extricate my car, but I rounded up another pair of hands. On the bright side, the damage isn’t too bad.”
“Why did you leave your car out last night, anyway?”
She transferred her weight from one foot to the other.
This could get tricky.
If her brother ran true to form, he’d be as suspicious about the circumstances as Marc was. But she couldn’t lie about what had happened.
After she answered his question and shared the news that the battery wasn’t dead after all, she could almost hear the gears grinding in his brain in the silence that followed.
“I don’t like this, Bri.” A thread of worry wove through his terse comment. “First the tires, now this. Plus an unexplained battery malfunction. That’s too much bad luck too close together to be coincidence.”
Yep. He was running true to form.
But she couldn’t argue with his conclusion.
“I admit it’s suspicious. That’s why Marc is—”
Whoops.
She clamped her lips shut, but the damage had been done.
“Marc who?”
She edged away from the man in question and lowered her volume. “When I couldn’t reach you, I called the ATF agent I’ve been working with on the Kavanaugh case. I, uh, needed to talk to him anyway.” Sort of true. “He wasn’t far from here and came over. He helped me get the branch off the car.”
“What’s his last name again?”
“I never shared it—but nice try, Mr. Over-Protective Brother. Besides, like I told you on Sunday, he’s a professional colleague. We’re not in a dating relationship.”
“Maybe not, but any guy who shows up at a woman’s house at the crack of dawn to deal with a downed tree would like to be.”
