***
Lindsey finally moved in with me, her rental professionally cleaned and a realtor’s sign in the front yard, and I settled into living in sin bliss. She worked in her new office while I went on job interviews, and the neighbors fumed at our contented happiness. I often caught several, including Shirley Gibbons, giving me the stink eye as I drove down the street.
“Piss off,” I muttered, grinning as I flashed them my middle finger. “Nothing’s happened for a month. And nothing will. So get a life already.”
I grew complacent. Austin hadn’t shown his face, caused any damage, threatened us, nor had he indicated in any way that he still craved vengeance. And his money. I began to believe he’d left town, set up shop somewhere else, and that Lindsey was right – he’d left with his life and was grateful for it.
Frowning as she climbed the stairs from the basement, Lindsey asked, “Can you call my cell? I can’t find it.”
“Sure.”
Taking my phone from my pocket, I called it. From the master bedroom came Lindsey’s distinctive ringtone. Swearing under her breath, she fetched it, then returned to the front room where I sat.
“Shit,” she muttered, looking at it. “I missed two client calls.”
“Hey, let’s put that Find My Friend app on our phones,” I suggested. “That way, we can find our phones if we lose them.”
Lindsey shrugged. “Okay. Though I’ll only lose mine in this house.”
“So say you now.”
***
Elated, I all but bounced from my truck and into the house, whistling under my breath. “Lindsey?” I called. “Guess what?”
Silence greeted me.
Unconcerned, as the basement shielded a great deal of noise, I thumped my way down the stairs. “Baby, I got a job. And it pays better than what –”
Lindsey didn’t turn to smile at me, rise to hug and kiss me in congratulations. Her chair sat empty. Her desk also sat empty. Her laptop was open, the screen blank. Asleep. Her notes, her papers, all sat in organized piles. The way she always kept them.
I woke her computer. It opened to her writing project, the cursor blinking, ready for the next words.She wouldn’t have just walked away.I gulped, my gut sinking. Sweat, despite the cool interior, popped from my pores.
“Lindsey.”
Rivers.
I ran back upstairs, frantic, in a panic, searching for anything that would tell me what had happened to Lindsey.She’s a dragon. He can’t hold a dragon, even he isn’t that stupid. She’ll rip him a new asshole.
In the kitchen, I found all quiet, serene, scrupulously clean.
And a note on the fridge that hadn’t been there before. I plucked it from under its magnet and read.
Brody. I have your girl. Bring me my two point five million in cash to a place and time I’ll designate. You do this, you both go free.
You try to cheat me again, Lindsey’s dead.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Lindsey
My body burned as though I’d been set ablaze. My head pounded like a snare drum. I tasted blood in my mouth. Woozy, I lifted my chin from my chest and tried to look around. Shrubbery and tree trunks met my gaze. A squirrel, its tail flicking, stared at me from a limb just above me.A Taser. I’d been Tasered again. Fuck.
I tried to make some sense out of the fog drifting through my hazy brain. I remembered turning my cell off. Too many texts and calls from clients kept me from working. I vaguely remembered shoving it into my back pocket, but I wasn’t sure if I truly had or if I had tossed it onto my desk.
I went upstairs for a glass of tea. I stepped into the kitchen, my mind on the project. Stepping toward the fridge, I was hit. Terrible pain, then nothing until now.
“I’ve wrapped you up in about ten pounds of C-4.”
