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“You need something to eat.” Rylan went to the fridge.
Bree flopped into a seat at the table. “I don’t know if I could.” She looked around. “Where’s Jekyll?”
“I didn’t know how long we’d be at the hospital, so I called Dinah and asked her to take him.” He looked up from his inspection of the shelves. “How about a tuna melt sandwich?”
“I could be tempted by that.” Bree studied the screen of her cell phone. “I should call my parents.”
Rylan nodded. “You should, but you don’t have to give them all the details. Not unless you want to. Right now, all they need to know is that you are okay, and that Trey is on the trail of the person who has been threatening you. Tell them as much, or as little, about what happened today as you choose.”
Her posture relaxed slightly. “I’ll just...” She pointed toward the den, and he nodded. After about a minute, he heard the murmur of her voice, and saw her pacing back and forth as she talked.
By the time she returned, he’d made the sandwiches and poured coffee. He scanned her face. She looked tired, but less tense.
“How did that go?”
She returned to sit at the table. “They were worried, naturally, but reassured after we spoke. I decided to tell them that Kasey had been injured, in case the press picked up on it. Particularly with the Colton connection.” She bit into her sandwich. “This is seriously good. I didn’t even know I was hungry.”
“What about you?” Rylan asked. “How are you?”
She ate in silence for a few moments. “Is it okay to say I don’t know? Because I just feel numb.”
“Or shocked, maybe?”
“Maybe.” The golden hue of her eyes seemed brighter than ever as she looked toward the window. “The thought that they are still out there—”
Rylan frowned. “They?”
“David talked about someone else.” Bree’s brow furrowed in an effort to remember. “He was talking about my family, about how the Coltons trample on the little people. I asked him where that impression had come from. He said it was from someone who knew everything. We’re going to stop you. That was what he said. The plan was to start with me and the gallery. To scare me and drive me out of town. But then he said...” She drew in a breath. “He said he couldn’t stop thinking about me.”
Rylan’s lips tightened into a hard line. “And that was when scaring you out of town changed, and became about his sordid fantasies of you?”
“But when David talked about it, he seemed to be angry. It was as if he’d let someone down by going off track. He said he had to straighten things out by getting rid of the problem.” She shivered. “I was the problem, but he didn’t want to kill me straight away...”
Rylan reached for her hand. “I think Trey needs to hear about the possibility of an accomplice.”
“It sounded more like the other person was the mastermind,” Bree said. “David appeared nervous that he’d annoyed him.”
Rylan called Trey and quickly updated him on the information Bree had just given him. “David told Bree the plan was to start with the gallery. That means your informant might have been correct when he told you there could be future attacks on The Lodge and The Chateau.”
“Yeah.” Rylan could hear the disbelief and weariness in Trey’s voice. “Another nightmare to add to the list. Let me speak to my sister.”
Rylan finished his snack while Bree chatted with Trey for a few minutes. His mind was processing what she had told him. The situation had just gotten a whole lot more sinister. Because if there was another person in the background, directing David’s actions, that person had to have deliberately sought the security guard out. David’s motive against Bree was clear, but what about this shadowy figure? Was his grudge directed toward Bree or, which seemed more likely, toward the whole Colton family?
Bree ended the call. She sipped her coffee but pushed the half-eaten sandwich aside. “I’m sorry. I just can’t manage any more.” She raised her eyes to Rylan’s face. “I’m starting to realize that I’d be dead by now if it weren’t for you.”
