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Reed shook his head determinedly. "No, you're not going to get in trouble with the cops. I'll make sure of that. They won't do anything unless there's concrete evidence, and right now, it's all a smoke show. They can't implicate you just by word of mouth. Trust me."
I had to admit to feeling a little surprised. I knew Reed was an investigative journalist, but I hadn't thought he'd be powerful enough to make the police stay away from me. I opened my mouth, a question on the verge of my lips.
The front door opened at the same time I asked my question.
"Reed, how the hell will you get the police to stay away from me? Isn't that too much, even for an investigative journalist?"
"Is that what he's told you he does?"
I turned around. Leia stood at the door. She was back from school early, and she looked like she'd had a very tough day. I immediately felt the urge to walk up to her and ask her to talk to me.
"Leia, honey—"
"They're lying to you."
"Leia," Reed said, and his tone was rife with the sound of a warning. What the hell was going on here?
"Don't do it," Asher interjected, his face suddenly pale.
"Psh." Leia snorted.
"They've been lying to you. The three of them are ex-SEALs. Of course, they know all about the police. It's in their blood, unlike loving their kids and families."
34
Juniper
Four days later
I satbeside a window in a tiny cafe, my face contorted into a perplexed expression as my eyebrows furrowed together and my forehead creased.
The corners of my mouth turned downward, failing my best attempts to maintain a stoic sense of calm.
Harper sat beside me, her expression the polar opposite of the confusion on mine.
She looked like she was a woman on a mission, like one of those perfect examples of hitmen who "haven't failed a single assignment".
It wasn't that I didn't believe in her capabilities or that my internal bitterness about the man who'd brought me to her clouded my judgment. It was just... her methods were unusual.
"You can't bait Hunter Montgomery with words or pleas, Juniper. Some men can only be tricked and lured."
I still wasn't used to hearing him being called HunterMontgomery.In fact, the last three days had been a disoriented, disgusting haze that I hadn't gotten out of.
Every new piece of information shoved at me hurt—but nothing hurt more than finding out the men I'd chosen to trust had lied to, spied on, and played me.
It didn't matter if their ends were noble. What they did was despicable. After Leia told me what she did, I stayed around only long enough to hear them answer the singular question I had for them. "Why?"
Turned out Hunter wasn't all that unfamiliar, after all. I hadn't pegged him down to be Harold's son, though. No wonder he'd left me those messages.
Give up your claims on Harold's property, slut.
If you don't step back, I'm gonna tell the police what you did. You won't look too pretty once they know about all the stuff hidden in your home.
It didn't matter that Reed had shown up at my home on all three days, looking like he hadn't slept or eaten.
My heart ached to run out to him when I heard him call my name, his horse voice muffled by the closed windows.
My mind knew better.
