“I hope the fuck you don’t, because if you’re in league with the assholes who are trying to harm her, youwillfind your ass back in jail. I also wanted to give you a heads up that the police have been trying to reach you because your home in Woodland Hills has been broken into—as has Emily’s in Van Nuys, except hers also got the shit shot out of it by a pack of assault-rifle-wielding idiots in a black SUV who we believe are targeting her.”
What thefuck?
“So. If you know where she is, you damn well better do two things. You keep her safe, and you call me back.Now.”
Whatthefuck!
Someone wastargetingEmily...?
Mick broke into a run. He had to catch up with her, but shit the sidewalk was crowded. He dodged people as best he could, bumping and jostling and getting shouted at, but he didn’t slow down.
Emily was in danger, and she didn’t have her phone with her. Although even if she did, he knew she wouldn’t answer his call. God, he’d screwed everything up.
His head was spinning, but his first reaction—kneejerk but warranted—was that ithadto be Harper behind this. That motherfucker had been his father’s lawyer for as long as Mick could remember.
In fact, Harper had been at the meeting with Mick, his father, and that shitty defense attorney that Harper had recommended, in which all three adults solemnly advised him totake the plea deal. After he’d discovered the truth, Mick had always suspected that it was Harper who’d come up with the plan for his most valuable client to frame his own teenaged son to avoid going to prison.
It was obvious in hindsight that Harper, at the very least, had endorsed it.
And if Mick was right, it tracked that Harper would’ve hired his own team to try to find Emily first.
But to shoot at her house, in hopes of hitting her—and, Jesus Christ, killing her?
Well, yeah, that actually made sense. Because who’d inherit his old man’s fortune if Emily was dead?
Mick would.
And who would remain executor of the estate if he then went to jail for, oh, say, Emily’s murder? Which Mick absolutely would, because who else would want Emily dead but his father’s ex-convict felon of a son?
He was about to get his sorry ass framed all over again, but the thing that panicked him the most was that Harper was literally gunning forEmily. Not only that but he’d somehow found out where they both lived. Somehow...oh shit. Notsomehow. He knew how. Goddamnit.
Mick needed help.
So he hit return-call on that message from Sam Starrett even as he ran faster.
Studio City, California
Sam’s cell phone rang as Robin sat with him and Jules atJaney’s kitchen table, post barbeque feast complete with, yes, corn on the cob.
“It’s Mick,” Sam announced.
Since Jane and Cosmo had taken Billy upstairs for a bathtub de-buttering, Jules leaned forward to say, “Put him on speaker.”
As Robin watched, Sam obliged, answering with a curt, “Starrett,” then putting his phone down on the table, cranking up the speaker’s volume.
“It’s Mick,” a voice came gasping out of the phone. “O’Rourke. Milt. Devonshire. Junior.”
“I know who you are, Mick,” Sam shot back. “The question iswhereare you? And is Emily with you?”
“Palm Springs,” Mick responded. “And yes. Well, she was. But then she. Found out. Who I. Am and...”
“Are you running?” Jules leaned in to ask. “This is Jules Cassidy. We have you on speaker.”
“Yeah, I’m trying to catch up to her,” Mick panted. “Look, she doesn’t have her phone with her, but in case she makes it back to the room before I find her, I need you to call and leave a message. Tell her what Starrett told me—that you think she’s in danger.”
He gasped out the number, which Jules quickly wrote on a napkin and then dialed on his own phone, murmuring, “It’s the same number I got from her business card...”
Mick was still talking, “God damn it, where is she? I want to find her before she gets back to the hotel, because... oh, God, they know we’re here.”
