“Sorry, miss. My name is…Tom, and I work for”—shit. I couldn’t lie and say I was a police officer, but I quickly remembered what Olivia had told me the day before about having to do all the legwork because their investigator was tied up on other cases—“a law firm actually.” And I gave them Olivia’s firm’s name.
I crossed my fingers that if anyone called her work, she would answer since it was a weekend and vouch for me.
“Let me see what I can do. Hold, please.”
“Thank you.”
40
Olivia
I looked up from my computer to see Tommy walk into my office. I checked the clock on the corner of my screen. “You’re early.”
“I need you to see something.” His demeanor was serious, so I knew something was up.
“Okay,” I said, pulling my laptop closed.
“Leave that open.”
I lifted the lid back up.
“Do you mind if I sit?”
“Give me a second.” I closed down anything that had privileged information on it. “What’s going on?” I asked as I stood.
He slipped into my chair, which was pretty impressive for someone his size. He’d told me that I was graceful, but I thought he was. Although I would never use that word to describe him to his face.
“You’ll see in a second.” He plugged his phone into my computer. He pressed a few folders and opened a video.
It was black and white and taken at night.
I leaned forward. “Is that my house?”
“Yes.”
I watched a car pull up and someone get out. They grabbed a plastic garbage bag from the trunk. “Is the dead cat in there?” I asked. “How did you get this?”
“Your neighbor. He was very nice and let me scan through his security footage.” He pointed to the screen. “Do you recognize the person? Or the car?”
I studied the video, but the person, who did appear to be female, was covered in black from head to toe, except for their face. But she never lifted her head enough to be fully caught on the camera. “It looks like a white woman, but that’s all I’ve got.”
“Same here,” he said.
As for the car, it was a dark four-door sedan. “I don’t know about the vehicle either. I’m really bad at identifying cars.”
“It’s a Mercedes.”
“I’m sorry, but that’s not much help.”
One of my partners drove a Mercedes, but I really didn’t think he was the one threatening me. Especially since he was a man and this appeared to be a woman on the screen.
Tommy ended the video and pulled up another one. This one was from a different location.
“Where’s this?”
“It’s the street in front of the bank by your house. I figured since it was the direction the woman drove away, there was a chance she was caught on other cameras, too.”
“But it’s Sunday.”
He grinned at me. “I called them, told them I was an investigator for your firm, and they were happy to help.”
My jaw dropped. “You’re a genius.”
He laughed.
“I’m serious. That was very smart of you.”
“Thanks. Now, focus on the windshield.”
I watched as the car drove past the bank. “It’s too fast.”
“Let me slow it down for you.”
Tommy played the video in slow-motion. While the bank had better cameras than my neighbor, it was hard to see.
“Once more, please.”
“You got it.”
I leaned back and then into the screen again. “It almost looks like…”
“Who?”
“This is going to sound crazy.”
“Just tell me.”
“It looks like Miranda Scott, Annabelle’s mom, but…”
“But what?”
I had to think of how to put it into words. “She’s…so high-class. Like, the times I’ve seen her outside court, she never drives. She always has a driver. She won’t even touch the door handle to let herself in. But she picked up roadkill off the side of the highway? It just doesn’t fit.”
“Desperate people do desperate things when they feel like they’re backed into a corner.”
I shook my head. “But she doesn’t even acknowledge my existence. Her husband has made it clear he hates me. Miranda Scott acts like I don’t even exist.”
“It doesn’t mean she doesn’t know about you.”
I supposed he was right, but…
“I can’t say for certain that it’s her when I’m not positive. That would make me no better than the Scotts—accusing someone of a crime without evidence.”
Tommy put his arm around my waist, pulling me close to him, and smiled.
“Why do you look so happy?”
“I have a license plate number.”
I gasped. I had been looking so closely at the driver that I didn’t think to look at the plate. “Why didn’t you just say that?”
“I wanted to know what you thought first. Besides, who knows when the police will question her? If there was a chance you knew the person, I thought it was best to keep an eye out.”
I lifted a shoulder. “I guess.”
“What do you need to do to finish up here? Because I was thinking we’d take a little trip to the police station.”
41
Tommy
It had been two days since Olivia and I had taken my findings to the police. They hadn’t been impressed with the two of us showing up at first, but after I’d explained what I had found, their mood had changed.
Now, if I could just get them to call us back with an update so I knew Olivia was safe, I could relax a little. I could tell she was getting antsy, too.
She’d practically begged me to let her drive herself to work that morning. The only reason I had said yes was because someone needed to be in the house when the security company showed up to install her cameras.
I’d made her promise to call me when she arrived at the office and again when she was leaving work. She had actually complied with both calls.
I looked at my watch.
Her last call had been forty-five minutes ago, and she wasn’t home yet. She lived less than thirty minutes from work. And when I’d called her a minute ago, she hadn’t answered the phone.
I began to pace back and forth.
The installation guy turned around to look at me.
I held up my hands. “Sorry. I’m just a little anxious.”
“I’m almost finished here, and then hopefully, you won’t have to be anxious anymore.”
“Yeah.” Right.
I was always going to worry about Olivia.
Always? Wow. I hadn’t seen that one coming.
My phone rang, and I answered it without even looking at the caller ID. “Where are you?” I demanded.
“Sitting on my deck, drinking a beer. Is there a crime in that?”
“Maddox.” I ran my hand down my face and stepped outside, so I could pace out there. “No. I thought you were Olivia. She left work almost fifty minutes ago. She’s not home yet, and she didn’t answer when I called her.”
“Still nothing back from the police?”
“No. They’re worthless.” I cringed. “I’m sorry, Mad Dog. I didn’t mean that. I’m just…”
“Scared about the woman you love.”
I stopped walking and replayed Maddox’s sentence in my head. “What?”
He laughed. “Come on, dude. Don’t act like you didn’t know.”
“No, I…I don’t—”
Maddox’s laughter died. “Oh, you didn’t know. I thought it was obvious that you’d developed feelings for her.”
“Developed feelings, yes. But that doesn’t mean I’m in love.”
“Think about it. You spent a whole week with her. She slept in your bed every night. She called you for advice about a possibly dangerous situation, and you split so fast that you left a dust cloud behind you. Now, you’re probably wearing a ho
le in the carpet because you can’t sit still from worrying. And she’s not even a half hour late.”
I swallowed. “I don’t necessarily know that that’s love.”
“Would you worry about me if I were twenty minutes later than expected?”
“No, because you can take care of yourself.”
“And Olivia can’t? Sure, she’s a female, which makes her smaller, but she’s pretty feisty. And didn’t you tell me you’d armed her with pepper spray and a self-defense key chain?”
“Yeah, but—”
“Yeah, but nothing. How would you feel right now if something happened to her?”
A sense of doom settled over me at the thought of her being hurt—or worse, killed. I didn’t want to think about a world without Olivia Mayer in it.
As if a lightbulb went off over my head, I realized the enormity of my thoughts.
I sighed. “Fuck me.”
Maddox burst out laughing. “Man, I wish I could see your face right now.”
“I’m sure it looks like I’m in deep shit.”
“Hey, you’ll figure it out.”
“Yeah, you say that. But Olivia has never once expressed wanting anything more. Not even an official date.”
“Have you?”
“No. I don’t want to scare her away.”
“Look at it this way. If you don’t tell her, you lose her. If you do tell her and she’s not down for it, you still lose her. But if you tell her and she feels the same, you might get everything you want. So, you’re really no worse off by speaking up.”
He’d made a really great point.
“You are so different from when I first met you.”
“Things change, my friend.” I felt like he was referring to us both leaving the Teams. “Sometimes, for the better.”
“You might be right.”
“No might be about it, fucker.”
I laughed.
“Oh, by the way, Addison’s on the phone with Olivia. She stopped and picked you up dinner. That’s why she didn’t answer her phone.”
I growled, “You could have told me that right away, asshole.”
“And let you get away with ignoring your feelings? Dream on.”
“When I see you again, I’m going to—”
“Thank me. I know. And you’re welcome. Gotta go. Bye.”
I looked at my phone. Maddox had hung up on me.
He had it all wrong. I wasn’t going to thank him. I was going to kick his ass because I knew he was right, smug bastard.
And as I watched Olivia pull into the driveway, I had no idea how I was going to tell her that I loved her.
42
Olivia
I leaned back in my chair and looked up at my office ceiling.
Something was up with Tommy.
He had acted weird all night. Not quite standoffish. It was almost as if he was afraid of me. But when we had gone to bed and turned out the light, he’d made love to me like he didn’t want to let go.
I laughed. I didn’t know when my thoughts had changed from fucking Tommy to making love to him. Probably around the time when he’d made me feel protected but not smothered.
He was doing a number on my heart.
And that scared the crap out of me.
I didn’t know what to do about it. I would love it if he moved to Iowa. After all, he’d told me that Virginia didn’t hold much for him anymore. But he’d also told me he could never live in Brook Creek. If he wasn’t going to move to be close to his good friend, then he probably wasn’t going to move.
My cell phone rang at that moment, pulling me from my thoughts.
“Hello?”
It was one of the officers assigned to my case. “We thought you should know that the license plate matched those of Gary Scott. When we went to speak to him and his wife, she broke down and confessed to harassing you.”
“Oh. Wow.”
“She also confessed to killing her daughter.”
I sat up so fast that the back of my chair sprang forward with a loud thump.
“She said she was fighting with Annabelle about her boyfriend. In a fit of rage, she picked up one of the gardener’s tools and threw it at Annabelle as she walked away. It hit her in the head. Mrs. Scott claimed it was an accident. She had just wanted to stop her daughter from leaving. We haven’t confirmed it yet, but we believe the tool transferred the gardener’s DNA onto the daughter. Mrs. Scott’s DNA was on her daughter, too, but since they lived together, it was dismissed. Mrs. Scott had fired the gardener later that day, which is why the DNA didn’t match any of the employees.”
And why it hadn’t matched my client’s. But the officer and I both already known that.
“Thank you for letting me know.” I hung up the phone and sat, stunned.
“Derek,” I called over my intercom, “get in here.”
He came sprinting in. “What?”
“You’ll never guess what I just found out.”
When I finished relaying the conversation to Derek, he said, “I never saw that coming.”
“You and me both.”
The phone on Derek’s desk rang. “I’d better get that.” Ten seconds later, he was back. “You’ll never guess who’s on the phone for you.”
“Who?”
“The Scotts’ lawyer.”
“Put him through.”
“I was calling to let you know we’re dropping the lawsuit,” the Scotts’ lawyer said.
No shit. “It should have never been filed in the first place.”
“We’re just going to have to agree to disagree on that.”
“I suppose so. But you might want to warn your clients that we still might be seeing each other again soon.”
“How so?”
“In light of the information I received this morning, Tate Garrett has a very strong case for defamation.”
He cleared his throat. “Let me talk to my clients and get back to you. We might be able to work something out.”
“You do that. I’ll be waiting to hear back from you.”
I hung up the phone, feeling very good for my client.
Yet a sudden sadness came over me. With Miranda Scott in custody, there was no reason for Tommy to stay with me anymore.
I picked up the phone and dialed Tate to tell him the unbelievable news.
I’d worry about my feelings for Tommy later.
When Tommy walked into my office at five thirty on the dot, my stomach was in knots. I had surrounded myself with research on new cases, so I wouldn’t have to think about him leaving.
“Hey, Liv,” he said, coming over and kissing me.
He seemed on high alert, almost like he was nervous.
Oh no. He didn’t know how to tell me he was going back to Brook Creek.
Earlier, I had called Tommy after finishing up with Tate. When I told him the news from the police, he had so much relief in his voice that it almost hurt. I’d thought he had liked spending time with me.
But maybe he was like every other guy I’d dated and couldn’t get past how bad I was in bed.
I hadn’t thought about that in a long time because I felt more open while having sex with Tommy than anyone else from my past.
But maybe I was doomed to “never truly satisfy a guy,” as one ex had told me.
I quickly looked down at my desk, frantically trying to focus on something other than the feeling of wanting to cry.
“Are you ready to get out of here?” he asked me. “There’s something I need to talk to you about, especially now that the threats have stopped for good. I thought maybe we could go to dinner somewhere and—”
“I’m sorry. Since the story broke on the news, I’ve been flooded with new client requests. I can’t go to dinner tonight.”
Yes, I was lying. My name hadn’t come up on the news. But Tommy didn’t need to know that.
“I understand you probably need to get back to Brook Creek. You don’t have to wait around for me if you want to head back tonig
ht. I can call an Uber or get a ride from someone in the office.” My voice started to wobble toward the end, and I knew there was no way I was going to be able to hold back my tears.
I lifted my leg, and my knee rammed against the top of my desk. “Ow. Damn it. That hurt.” I had done it to give me an excuse to cry, except I had actually managed to hurt myself.
The floodgates opened, and there was no holding back my emotions now.
Tommy came around to my side of the desk and swung me around to face him. He got down on his haunches. “Where did you hurt yourself?”
I pointed to my left knee.
He lifted my skirt and kissed it.
It only made me cry harder.
“Hey, I think you’ll be okay.” He felt all around my lower thigh and knee. “It looks like it’s just going to be a bruise.”
“I’ll take some painkillers. I’ll be fine.” If only the painkillers could reach my heart. I pushed against his shoulders. “But I really should get back to work.” Maybe if I buried myself deeply enough in cases, it wouldn’t hurt so much.
Tommy stood and rounded my desk once more, so we were on opposite sides. He stood there with his hands on his hips for a minute and then nodded. “We’ll talk later then.”
No, I wanted to scream. We don’t need to talk. You don’t have to explain anything to me. You can just leave. I don’t need excuses.
But he was already out the door.
I took several deep breaths, grabbed a tissue to wipe my face and blow my nose, and went back to work.
It took me about fifteen minutes to put all my concentration into my work, but I did it. The endorphin release from crying had actually helped because I was feeling a lot calmer now and like the world wouldn’t end with Tommy leaving.
I would get through it, and life would go on.
I picked up a slip of paper with a client’s name, and underneath, it said, Possible civil rights case.
Interesting.
I wasn’t a civil rights lawyer, but a couple of our associates were. I could always be second chair if the case warranted it.
I turned to my computer and pulled up Google. It was always the first place I did research because there was usually a plethora of information out there.
Take Me in the Dark (Take Me #2) Page 17
