Page 34 of Beneath the Dawn

Suddenly, the front door opened, and he walked in. “I need to shower before we talk, Marti. Will you make me a cup of coffee?”

He only drank coffee in the mornings. This quiet change in their routine scared her even more than she already was. “Yes.”

Both his features and the tone of his voice held no expression. Because he had come back, she doubted he had made it to the diner. “Do you want anything with your coffee?” she asked.

“Yes. I think I have some leftover banana-nut muffins from dinner at Tangiers yesterday. Let’s have those. And we’ll sit in the kitchen instead of on the screened patio.

“Alright.”

Before heading for the stairs, he asked. “Do you know that guy?”

She shook her head. “No. I’ve never seen him before.”

He nodded. “Do you know why he wanted to kill you?”

His question landed like a hard blow. After a sharp gasp, she nervously bit her lip before saying. “I have an idea.”

He didn’t say anything for a minute and then turned and went upstairs.

CHAPTER 13

Marti was sitting at the table staring out at the ocean when Dante entered the kitchen twenty minutes later. She looked up. “That man who tried to kill me. Where is he?”

Dante met her gaze. “For now, I’ve got him tied up in my shed out back.”

“Why aren’t we calling the police?”

“There are questions I need you to answer first.”

She nodded. “Alright.”

He went to sit across from her. His coffee was hot, and the muffins were warm. She had timed his arrival just right. After taking a sip of coffee, he decided to get right to it. “Who wants you dead, Marti?”

She released a deep sigh. “I believe it’s Malcolm Edwards.”

“Who is Malcolm Edwards?”

“He’s the guy I told you about. I fell in love with him when I was twenty-four.”

Dante frowned. “That was thirteen years ago. Why would he want to harm you?”

She didn’t say anything for a minute. Then she shook her head and said, “I need to start from the beginning.”

“Okay.”

“After I finished college at Harvard, I--”

“You went to Harvard?” he interrupted to ask.

“Yes, I got my law degree from there.”

He hadn’t known that. “Another thing we have in common,” he said. “I also attended Harvard Law School.”

“You told me you went to Harvard, but I figured you went there for business because of your profession,” she responded.

He nodded. That it was a justifiable assumption to make. “Did you ever practice law?” he asked.

She nodded. “For a few years I worked at a law firm in Charlotte before realizing I didn’t like being in the courtroom. What about you?”