Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 72765 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72765 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Beth places her hand on my arm. “I’m so sorry. I do that. I get way ahead of myself. I hope I’m not making you uncomfortable. I just … we don’t get to spend much time with Bennett these days, and it’d be nice to have an excuse to catch up.”
Errol leans closer to his wife.
“Let it go.” His eyes drag the length of me, his stare pointed and judge-y. “For all we know, they’re just … casual.”
I can read between the lines.
He thinks I’m Bennett’s booty call.
“I’m sorry. I should get going.” I clear my throat and step toward them, so close they have no other choice but to move out of the way, and I waste no time finding the next available checkout lane.
There’s something strange about those two.
Five minutes later, I’m loading two sacks of groceries into my backseat, checking over my shoulder to ensure they’re not about to corner me in the parking lot, but they’re nowhere to be seen.
Exhaling, I slide into my car, lock the doors, and head to Bennett’s, checking my rearview far too many times along the way.
* * *
“You’ll never guess who I just ran into.” I unload the groceries, lining up the produce next to Bennett’s sink.
He lifts a brow and shrugs. “Who?”
“Your brother and his wife.”
Bennett frowns. “Where?”
“At the grocery store … they cornered me by the heirloom tomatoes. It was the weirdest thing. Errol introduced them and then Beth started in about the four of us doing some double date and then your brother told her to let it go and then looked at me like I’m some side piece of yours and—”
“Please tell me you told them no.”
I rinse a tomato and pat it dry with a nearby towel. “Of course. Just odd that I’d run into him a second time in a week, you know? What are the odds.”
He’s quiet for a beat. “I know they just moved back to Worthington Heights, but yeah. It’s definitely strange.”
“Is he … following me?” I rinse a green pepper next. “You talk about him like he’s this villainous monster … and the way he looks at me …”
Bennett makes his way around the marble island, coming up behind me and slipping his arms around my stomach. Pressing his mouth against the side of my neck, he kisses me. And then he says, “I’ll deal with him.”
While his promise is reassuring, it’s also disconcerting that he didn’t exactly deny that his brother could be following me.
“I’d like to know, though,” I say. “Is he dangerous?”
“I told you, Astaire.” He kisses my neck once more. “I’ll deal with him.”
A moment later, he unpacks the second bag of groceries, and I retrieve a paring knife from the cutlery drawer. Honor comes this weekend, and we’ve only a few more nights like this … alone … and I want to enjoy every last minute of them.
I’m going to miss our solo time together, but I’m certain if we focus on the positive, all the excitement and goodness happening in our midst, things can only get better from here.
How could they not?
34
Bennett
I’m halfway out the door Tuesday when I get a text from my investigator: CHECK YOUR EMAIL. ASAP.
A quick glance at my watch tells me I’m on the verge of running late. Astaire asked me to meet her at this old theatre she volunteers at. She wanted to give me a private tour because it’s one of her favorite places in the world—her sanctuary, as she called it.
She told me not to get my hopes up, that it isn’t anything fancy, but what it lacked in showmanship, it more than made up for with its rich history.
I tap my email icon on the elevator ride to the lobby and wait for my inbox to refresh. A minute later, I’m sliding into the backseat of my SUV as George heads for Astaire’s part of town.
I manage to locate his email sandwiched between a company-wide email announcing donuts in the conference room and a few spam items my filter didn’t catch.
There are more attachments than I can count, so I start with the first.
Text message transcripts.
Pages upon pages.
All of them sent between Larissa and Errol, all of them going back years—to the moment I gave her this phone, in fact. She was twenty then, which means she would have been about a year away from becoming pregnant with Errol’s child. The years prior to that are unaccounted for, but judging by what I’m reading here, whatever the hell this is … was nothing new.
Tension sears through my shoulders and my jaw clenches as I scan random messages.
LARISSA: HEY!! I’M IN TOWN!! CAN I SEE YOU?
ERROL: ONLY IF YOU DO THAT THING WITH YOUR TONGUE AGAIN …
Further down the page …
ERROL: BETH’S OUT OF TOWN THIS WEEKEND. YOU UP FOR ANOTHER MARATHON? BET WE CAN BREAK THE LAST RECORD.