Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 112762 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 564(@200wpm)___ 451(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112762 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 564(@200wpm)___ 451(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
“Oh my God.” My heart raced. “Okay, I’ll be right there. Thanks for letting me know.”
“Of course. We haven’t called the police, but we can if you’d—”
“No, no police.” I could feel Walker glancing at me constantly. “I’ll be five minutes.”
We hung up, and before Walker could bark orders at me, I relayed, “Flora said the cottage has been broken into.”
“Fuck,” Walker muttered under his breath and put his foot down.
We arrived at the cottage five minutes later, skidding to a stop outside it to see Mrs. Fairley, a neighbor, and Gordon, a retired villager who owned a bunch of property here, standing guard.
Walker asked them what they’d seen, and they answered him as if he were the police. All the while I stood there, afraid to peer inside.
Unfortunately, they hadn’t seen the actual break-in.
“We should call the police,” Gordon insisted.
“No police. This is a private matter.” Walker stared him down, and Gordon, a large man not easily cowed, nodded carefully.
It was my fault. I knew Walker wanted the police involved, but I couldn’t subject Callie to that.
“Thanks for watching over, but we’ve got this.” Walker not so subtly suggested that they leave. Mrs. Fairley frowned at me in worry, but nodded as Gordon led her down the street to her own cottage.
My hands shook as Walker turned to me. “Wait here.”
It seemed like an age that I stood on the sidewalk waiting for Walker to reappear. Eventually, he did.
“There’s no one here.” His face was hard with checked anger. “But prepare yourself.”
I knew as soon as I stepped in what I was supposed to prepare myself against.
It wasn’t the ripped cushions and couches that had been shredded. It wasn’t the broken picture frames of me and Callie and the Adairs and Juanita. Nor the trashed kitchen or the cakes that had been smashed against the walls.
Later, I’d know it wasn’t even because of the dead rat that had been left in my bed.
I was supposed to prepare myself against the threat spray-painted across the living room.
YOU CAN RUN BUT YOU CAN’T HIDE
Nausea rolled up my stomach. Nothing could distract me from the evidence of fury in the cottage. Pure and utter rage had been set off like a bomb in our home.
I hurried outside and threw up my lunch on the sidewalk.
Twenty
SLOANE
When Brodan walked through the door of the cottage a little while later, my immediate feeling was guilt. He and Monroe had just had a son. They didn’t need to deal with my crazy life. However, Walker had insisted on calling him after he called Thane to ask him to keep Callie with them until we’d dealt with this.
Honestly, thank God for Walker, because I think I was in shock.
Until this point, even with Hoffman’s assault and the attempted kidnapping in Inverness, I think my mind had diminished the danger in order to cope with it. Yet, seeing the fury that had devastated our beautiful little cottage finally drove it home that my daughter and I were in trouble.
“Jesus fuck,” Brodan said a few minutes later as he came downstairs from touring the upstairs. I hadn’t gone up, but Walker told me about the rat on my bed and that someone trashed both our bedrooms. “We need to deal with this bloke now.”
“We need to call the police,” Walker insisted, his expression stern. “This has gone too far without reporting it.”
My racing heart pounded. “I have a deal with the Howards. If we call the police, then we have to explain why Nathan is coming after me.”
“No, you don’t.” Walker shook his head, leaning against the damaged sideboard. “All you need to tell them is that he’s an abusive ex. We need them to dust the cottage for prints because Andros will be in the US system, and we can crossmatch them to rule him in or out.”
“Walker …”
“Run it past the Howards first, but you have to protect you and Callie, too, Sloane. The Howards have enough money and manpower to protect themselves.”
Knowing he was right, I waved my hand toward the door. “My cell is in your car.”
He nodded and left to retrieve it.
“How are you doing?” Brodan asked.
“I feel bad for dragging you into this.”
“You’re not dragging me into anything. Sloane, you’re our friend. You and Callie have become like family. We take care of our family.”
Tears burned my eyes. It had been such a long time since anyone had wanted to take care of us. “Thank you.”
“I don’t know what to tell Monroe.” Brodan stared grimly around the cottage. “She’ll be worried sick if I tell her the truth.”
“Then don’t. I don’t want her stressing about this.”
He grimaced. “As much as I’d love to protect her, she’d be angry if I didn’t tell her the truth. Roe can handle it.”
That was true. The woman had been through more than most in her life. “She should concentrate on her new son and husband, not her best friend’s crazy-ass life.”