High Desert Hideaway. Jenna Night

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СКАЧАТЬ Cooper had taken her statement. She’d told him everything, from overhearing bits and pieces of a conversation between strangers to being chased here to the Starlight Mart and held at gunpoint. She’d explained to him that she hadn’t even heard enough to understand what the men were talking about, and she’d given him the name and location of her new employer, though she didn’t have her phone with her and couldn’t remember the phone number. Finally, the deputy handed her his card and told her he’d follow up with her tomorrow morning.

      Now she had her car pulled up to the gas pumps outside the Starlight Mart. She worked three part-time jobs and typically got her lunch at a fast-food drive-thru window. Sometimes she dropped her change on the floor or tossed it onto the passenger seat when she was in a hurry. Maybe there was enough to buy the gasoline she needed to get her home. If not, she’d have to walk back into the Starlight Mart and try to borrow the money from somebody.

      Home. That’s all she wanted to think about right now. The comfortable old house she’d grown up in. The dogs. And most of all, her mom. Mom would help her hold herself together.

      She didn’t want to think about what had just happened to her in the Starlight Mart, or what might have happened if that biker hadn’t shown up. She absolutely didn’t want to dwell on the terrifying possibility that the gunman and his accomplice might track her down tomorrow or the next day. The second time they found her they’d probably drag her out into an isolated expanse of scrub brush and finish the job without witnesses or anyone getting in their way.

      She would let herself process what had happened to her after she got home. Right now she would swallow her fear because that’s what you did with fear. Lily had learned that at a young age. When trouble comes—and it always does—you choke back your fear and you take care of the job at hand. You do your crying later.

      That’s what Lily’s mom, Kate, did all those years ago when Lily’s father died. She’d pulled herself together. And she kept doing that in the years that followed because money was tight and trouble was never very far away.

      Lily only found a couple of dimes in the space beside the seat, so she sat up and opened the glove box. She shoved aside her car registration, a few aged ketchup packets and a collection of plastic forks from fast-food restaurants, and finally found a few more coins. Altogether they totaled less than three dollars. Not nearly enough to get her where she wanted to go.

      One of the terrified sobs Lily had choked back while that gun bit into her skin rose up in her throat and escaped as a cross between a hiccup and a gasp. Tears burned her eyes. Her body began to tremble.

      No, she commanded herself. You will not do this. Not now.

      “Where do you think you’re going?”

      The sound of the biker’s voice startled her and she dropped her coins. They rolled under the seat. Fear turned into fury in an instant. She’d been terrorized and pushed around more than enough today.

      She got out of her car and slammed the door shut, then turned and glared up at the biker. He was definitely big. He’d taken off his dark glasses and she could see his eyes. Cold, unemotional steel-gray. Why was he even talking to her? She didn’t want to know him. And he certainly wasn’t going to keep her from going home. Not after all she’d been through tonight. It didn’t matter how big he was.

      She held his gaze for several seconds and then felt her anger drain away just a little. The man had saved her life, after all. She should probably thank him for what he’d done. Unfortunately for him, she wasn’t in a particularly generous mood at the moment. “What do you want?” she snapped, just barely managing to sound civil.

      He crossed his arms over his chest and tilted his head slightly. “You look like you’re trying to leave. Sheriff Wolfsinger arrived a few minutes ago. You need to stay and talk to him.”

      “I already gave my statement.”

      “If you talk to him maybe you’ll remember some new details.”

      Lily scoffed. “What are you, a cop?”

      “As a matter of fact, I am.”

      He couldn’t be serious.

      Apparently he was.

      He took out an ID from his back pocket, complete with an Oso County sheriff’s department badge, and showed it to her.

      “‘Nathan Bedford,’” she read aloud from his ID. “That name sounds familiar.” She turned back to him. His eyes narrowed, as if he didn’t believe her. She didn’t care if he did or not. But his cynical expression goaded her. And then she remembered how she knew him. “Cottonwood High School. You hung out with Joseph Suh.”

      His hardened expression gave way just a little. “I was friends with him for a long time,” he said. “You look familiar. What’s your name?”

      “Lily Doyle. And I wasn’t exactly friends with him. I tutored him in English composition.” She’d hung around with a totally different crowd than Nate and Joseph when they were all in high school. And every day after school, she’d had a job stocking shelves in a grocery store. If she wasn’t in class or at work, she was either studying or sleeping. She hadn’t had much time for friends.

      “Pip-squeak,” he said after a few seconds.

      “I beg your pardon?”

      “That’s the nickname Joseph gave you. Because you were a couple of years younger than us and kind of small.”

      “Oh.” Had Joseph really called her Pip-squeak behind her back? She’d had fond memories of working with Joseph. He’d told her she needed to lighten up and he was always trying to make her laugh. He came from a nice family. His mom made sure Lily had a snack whenever she came to their house to tutor him.

      “Joseph said you did a good job,” Nate added. “His mom made him sign up for peer tutoring and he was mad at first, but if it wasn’t for your help, he might not have graduated.”

      Lily felt a lump in her throat. For some reason, now that Nate was speaking to her a little more kindly, it was harder to keep her emotions in check.

      “I haven’t seen Joseph in a long time,” Lily finally said. “I know he enlisted in the army. I hope he’s doing okay.”

      “Deployed to the Middle East three times,” Nate said evenly. “Made it through two of them.”

      “Oh.”

      The barrier Lily had built around her emotions dissolved in an instant. Tears collected in her eyes and then ran down her cheeks. Her shoulders started to shake and her nose started to run. She wiped at her face with the back of her hand.

      Nate grabbed a paper towel from the dispenser attached to a pole between the gas pumps and handed it to her. The thick brown paper was meant for cleaning windshields and it was rough on her nose. She used it anyway.

      Leaning against her car, she let the tears fall because this time she knew she couldn’t stop them. Part of her choking emotion was simply the terror of the day catching up with her. But sharp sadness over the death of Joseph pushed her over the top. What a horrible reminder that terrible things happened to people all the time.

      Finally she calmed down a little, took a breath and sighed. She wadded up the СКАЧАТЬ