Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 107352 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 537(@200wpm)___ 429(@250wpm)___ 358(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107352 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 537(@200wpm)___ 429(@250wpm)___ 358(@300wpm)
He grunted. “It must be nice to look at the world through rose-colored glasses.”
“Better than ones that magnify every little problem you see.”
We were quiet for the rest of the surprisingly short drive. Even going from one side of town to the other did not take more than ten minutes.
“We’re here. Where do you want me to park?”
I scanned the lot, saw the car with the license plate I was after, and had him back up close to where we’d come in. “Okay, you stay here and—”
“Absolutely not,” he snapped. “I won’t talk, but what if he’s got a gun or—”
“Are you listening to yourself? Why do you think you’re not going in with me?”
He shook his head. “This is a nonstarter. You go only if I go.”
“I never agreed to that.”
“I don’t care,” he argued, passing me a pink Hello Kitty umbrella from the console between our seats.
“The hell is this?”
His smile was instant and huge. “That’s yours.” He then reached behind his seat and retrieved a large black one. “This is mine.”
“I would rather drown,” I said dramatically, getting out of the car and starting across the lot toward the rooms.
I heard the chirp of the car alarm behind me, and then he was there, hand on the back of my jacket, shielding me from the rain with his golf umbrella.
“You’re an ass,” I grumbled as his hand moved to my shoulder.
“Well, guess what,” he teased, “you bring it out of me.”
“Well, that’s terrible,” I said, darting forward to stand under the motel overhang.
“It’s not terrible,” he replied when he reached me, closing the umbrella and slipping behind me. “I haven’t been myself since Caitlyn left. I’ve been polite and quiet and distant, but today, I was barking orders and was, from what everyone said, a real prick.”
I looked over my shoulder at him. “You don’t get how that’s not great?”
His flashing grin made my stomach flip over, which was not good at all. “But see, that’s where you’re wrong. It was amazing, and all my guys were smiling like I haven’t seen them do in a long time. It’s like the sun finally came out.”
I rolled my eyes before facing forward.
“You don’t get it because you have no idea what I was like, what my kids were like, before you showed up. But things feel normal again. I feel like me.”
“That has to do with you and the kids, you get that, right?”
“I know exactly what it has to do with,” he said ominously.
I would have asked questions and then described how fixers cleared the road, that he was the one who would have to drive it even if it got bumpy again after I left, but at that moment, a door opened and Richard Conti stepped out.
When he saw me, there was not a sliver of concern in the man’s expression, but when Luke leaned around me, he jolted and ducked back inside his room.
“Interesting,” I said, bolting forward, reaching the door quickly and putting my shoulder into it. The fact that it gave so easily was terrible. “This is why I have long screws in all the deadbolts at home,” I explained to Luke.
“I appreciate these teachable moments,” he teased before trying to go around me into the room.
I wasn’t letting that happen and stepped in front of him, making certain he couldn’t get by even as I faced an empty room.
Moving fast, I took up position to the right of the bathroom door. “Mr. Conti, I need you to come out and speak to me.”
When Luke moved right in front of the door, I shoved him sideways to the left, to safety.
“What’re you doing?” he barked at me.
“Did it occur to you that he could have a gun, and if he does and shoots at the door…”
It didn’t even take him a second. “Oh,” he muttered, staying where he was.
“I’m not coming out to be killed.”
That was dramatic.
Luke looked at me and whispered, “Killed?”
“I have no idea,” I told him.
“I’m calling the police,” Conti called out.
“Well, that 911 call will have to be routed to the police department in Newcastle, because at the moment there’s no law enforcement here in Eena.”
Groan from the other side of the door.
“Neither of us will hurt you, Mr. Conti.”
“He will. Catie’s ex-husband will. He killed my brother.”
I huffed out a breath. “He didn’t kill anyone.”
“My brother is gone!” he cried from the other side of the door, sounding sad and broken, and my heart went out to him.
“Mr. Conti,” I began gently, pulling my ID and my conceal and carry, and sliding them both under the bathroom door, “my name is Nash Miller, and I was hired by Abel Roarke, Caitlyn Duchesne’s brother, to protect his ex-brother-in-law, as well as their three children, from the men she’s testifying against. We don’t know that they will try and pressure her that way, but I’m here as a preventive measure.”