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Kim’s heart jerked. No one in this end of town drove a car like that unless they were dealing drugs.
She tightened her grip on the steering wheel and pulled to a stop. How had she thought she could do this?
She dropped her forehead to her hands and gave in to the shakes that had dogged her all day. Maybe Ethan was right. Maybe she should’ve called the police.
His troubled voice whispered through her mind. What are you afraid of, Kim?
She sucked in a breath. She wasn’t afraid. Not of anything Blake might do to her. Not really. She was well trained in self-defense. Not that she’d need to use it. She was here to talk.
Nothing more.
So why was she still trembling?
She pictured Dad lying in his hospital bed. She couldn’t fail him. She wouldn’t. Clasping her hands, she prayed the words she’d heard her father pray time and again. Lord, please let Blake see Your love in me.
Strengthened by the prayer, Kim stepped out of the car and limped toward Blake’s house.
The ping of a stone drew her around. But no one was there. Not on the sidewalk. Not in the minuscule weed-infested yards. Not in …
She tried to peer through the windshields of the pickups parked along the street, and through the windows of the houses, but the reflections made seeing anything impossible.
Despite temperatures that could fry an egg, a shiver fingered the back of her neck. She told herself she was being paranoid.
Even so, she clawed her keys between the fingers of her right hand and palmed her cell phone in her left.
Shouting cut into her thoughts.
Her pulse quickened. The voice sounded like Darryl’s.
She traced the sound to an open window at the side of Blake’s house, well back from the street. She should’ve known Darryl intended to confront Blake himself when he agreed so easily not to involve the police.
She edged closer, staying out of sight of the window.
Blake said something she couldn’t make out, and Darryl exploded into a rage. “If I see you within a mile of my sister, you’ll be looking at the inside of a jail cell so fast your head’ll spin.”
Blake laughed. A scoffing, ugly sound. “I go down, you go down. You hear what I’m saying?”
Shock trapped Kim’s breath in her throat. What did Blake mean?
He couldn’t possibly have anything on her brother. Darryl might have his faults—like being overprotective—but he was as honest as they came.
Darryl never should’ve told Blake they were related. They always operated on a first-name basis with residents, precisely to avoid these kinds of threats. How many times had Dad drilled that into them?
She slumped against the wall, sending an empty beer can toppling from the window ledge to the cement slab below. She froze.
“What was that noise?” Blake demanded. Chair legs abruptly scraped the floor.
Kim sprang to her feet and sprinted toward the street. Her ankle screamed, but instinct propelled her. Never mind that Darryl would never let Blake hurt her.
The keys dug into her clenched fist. Her heart pounded in her ears. She heard a sound behind her. But she didn’t dare glance back.
She cleared the hedge bordering the yard and skidded to a stop.
Two grungy-looking punks were circling her car. Slowly. Deliberately. Peering in windows. Trying the doors. One of them—a pockmarked teen with jeans sagging to his knees—slapped a baseball bat against his palm, looking ready to take a swing at her windshield.
Icy fear shot through her veins. She backed up a step.
The second kid crouched next to her tires and pulled a knife from his pocket.
Behind her a door slammed. Darryl?
She opened her mouth to yell for help, but the word died in her throat. So far those punks hadn’t seen her. Better to keep it that way.
A truck roared to life.
“There she is,” the kid with the knife yelled.
Baseball Bat shot her a poisonous glare.
For an instant she froze, stunned by the seething hatred in his eyes. How did they know her? What did they want?
Too late she turned and cried out. Her brother was speeding away.
The punks chewed the distance between them.
She ducked behind the hedge and scrabbled down Blake’s side yard. Her ankle throbbed. Shallow breaths from her throat. She should have listened to Ethan.
Footfalls pounded behind her. Louder. Closer. Matching the frantic beat of her heart.
The instant she passed the house, Blake’s rear screen door slapped open. “Hey, what’s going on?”
Kim cut across a neighboring yard to the next street. Sweat dripped into her eyes, burning them. She couldn’t run much longer. Her gaze darted from side to side, desperately seeking a hiding place. The candy factory’s near-empty parking lot swam in her vision. “Help!” she screamed.
Fifty yards ahead of her a dark figure exploded from the bushes.
No. No. No! She veered left and raced across the deserted street. Her ankle turned on a pothole. Searing pain cut off her breath, hauling her to a stop.
A gunshot cracked the air.
Expecting to feel the sting of a bullet, she dove for the dirt. Her phone flew out of her grip, skidded across the scalding blacktop.
A merciless hand closed around her arm and yanked her to her feet.
Desperate to break free, she flailed her arms and drew breath to scream.
Her assailant slapped his palm over her mouth, pulled her head against his rock-hard chest. “Quiet,” he growled. He clamped his other arm around her middle, pinning her arms to her side, and dragged her into the overgrown bushes bordering the candy factory.
She fought for air, struggling all the harder against his iron grip.
Branches clawed at her hair. Thorny twigs scratched her face.
Suddenly, she remembered the keys spiked through her fingers, and speared them into his thigh.
He roared, but his grip didn’t slacken.
FOUR
Ethan bit back a curse as Kim’s foot glanced off his shin. He tightened his hold on her and peered through the trees. The gunshots had stopped. No sign of anyone looking for them. The chaotic pounding in his chest slowed a fraction.
“Kim, it’s Ethan. I won’t hurt you.” He turned her sideways, keeping his hold firm so she couldn’t bolt into the shooter’s sights.
The instant she saw his face the panic in her eyes flashed to relief, then white-hot anger. She lashed her arms free of his grip. “What are you doing here?”
He lifted his hands, palms out, to assure he meant no harm. “I live down the street, heard you scream.” Her cry had ripped through his chest like buckshot. He expected her to be falling apart, not taking a strip out of him. “When I saw you go down, my only thought was to get you to cover.”
Her gaze rested a moment on his bandaged left hand. Her rapid breathing began to slow. “You live in this neighborhood?” she said, her voice a mixture of surprise and repugnance.
Her tone, so similar to his ex-girlfriend’s after he’d told her about his stint in detention, made the back of his neck prickle. “What are you doing here?” he demanded, his anger at her for putting herself in danger making the question sound harsher than he’d intended.
He’d driven by her house and found it empty. A neighbor said she was probably at the hospital with her dad. But deep down, he’d feared that whoever came after her this morning would try again.
“I caught a couple of kids vandalizing my car. What kind of stupid thrill is it to slash someone’s tires and smash their windshield? They won’t think it’s so fun when they wind up in jail. Let me tell you.”
He scraped a hand through his hair. Two attacks in one day couldn’t be a coincidence. Someone wanted her out. And he didn’t have a clue who. “What were you doing here in the first place?”
She averted her gaze the same way she had when she’d hedged his questions this morning.
How was he supposed to protect her if she didn’t tell him what was really going on?
“I came to visit a … friend.”
“Then why didn’t you run to her house?”
“They came at me so fast. I didn’t have time to think. I just ran.”
“Usually when kids are caught vandalizing property they scram. You didn’t recognize them?”
“No, but they seemed—” she hesitated, and at the raw fear in her eyes, his irritation over her secretiveness evaporated “—to know me. Or at least, that I owned the car.”
“They probably watched you park.” Not that it explained why they’d chase her, let alone shoot at her. What kind of “friend” was she here to visit?
Her face was white, her lips pinched tight, and from the way she shifted all her weight to her uninjured ankle she looked as though she was in serious pain.
He pointed to a rusty, overturned barrel behind her. “Sit for a minute.”
In the distance, sirens blared.
“Someone must’ve called in the gunshot.” He cocked his head. “Sounds like police and ambulance. Did you see who had the gun?”
“No. I didn’t see any gun. They were carrying a bat and knife.”
He looked around at the tattered houses with their boarded-up windows and curling shingles. Crushed beer cans littered dirt-patched yards. “Maybe the shot had nothing to do with you, then.” He hoped. Graffiti—sick slurs and even sicker images—defaced the factory wall. “This neighborhood attracts more than its share of crime.”
“You mean someone out there is taking potshots at people?”
He shrugged. “It happens.” He offered her a hand. “Come on.”
She hesitated a moment, and when she finally slipped her hand in his it felt oddly dainty. Dainty, yes, but when she leaned into his support and rose he could also feel the thread of steely determination that ran through her. The connection of their joined hands gave him a feeling of … rightness.
He ignored the irrational thought as she tested her injured ankle, resisting the urge to wrap his arm around her waist and carry her. “We’ll check over your car and give the police a description of the vandals,” he said brusquely. “Then you need to go home and rest.”
From the cover of the trees, Ethan scanned the vicinity for signs of the punks and squinted at every window for evidence of a sniper. Red-and-blue emergency lights from the next street strobed across the dead space between the houses. “If those punks have a brain in their heads, they’ll be long gone by now,” he said, sweeping the branches out of Kim’s way. “Can you manage with that foot?”
“Yeah, I’ll be okay.” She took a step, barely concealing a wince. She tugged her bottom lip between her teeth.
“You stay put and I’ll bring your car here. Where are you parked?”
“On the next street, but—” Her gaze darted from the factory to the row of run-down houses and back to him. She looked scared.
“Or we can cut through those yards.”
“That would be better.”
Supporting her weight as much as she’d allow, he forced himself to focus on helping her to her car, instead of the feel of her body leaning against his.
They crossed the street and shuffled down the alley between two houses. As they reached the backyards, Kim’s hand suddenly clenched. Her face went white.
Paramedics were loading a man onto a gurney. White gauze, stained red at the man’s temple, circled his head. A spent casing, flagged by police, lay in the dirt ten feet away.
“Looks like we’ve found the gunshot victim,” Ethan said. “At least this means the shot wasn’t intended for you.”
Kim made a choking sound. But something in her eyes said her shock wasn’t just over seeing a random shooting victim.
“You know that guy?” Ethan asked, a sick feeling settling in the pit of his stomach. “Was he the friend you came to visit?”
She stared at the medics pushing the gurney alongside the house to the street. “His name is Blake Owens. He used to be a resident at Hope Manor.”
“Do you know why someone might want him dead?”
Her head turned slowly from side to side, and then came to an abrupt stop.
“Kim?”
“No. I don’t know.” She swallowed. Hard. As if she was trying to dislodge the boulder-size lie.
He’d been a cop long enough to spot them. But this wasn’t the place to press her.
A police officer, winding crime-scene tape around the perimeter, glanced in their direction.
Ethan urged Kim to keep moving. He needed to find out what she was hiding before the police got ahold of her. They cut across the adjoining yard and slipped between the houses to the street. Police cruisers blocked both ends. Gawkers stood along the sidewalk. In the distance, thunder rumbled.
When Kim spotted the clutch of police officers questioning bystanders, she began to tremble.
But it was the sports car parked in front of the victim’s house that caught Ethan’s attention. Seeing no reason to sugarcoat the obvious, he said, “Blake was the friend you came to see. Wasn’t he?”
She stopped next to a silver Ford Escort with flat tires he presumed was hers. “That’s crazy.”
“Is it? So the treads of that white Camaro up there won’t match the tracks outside Hope Manor? Because in case you missed it, the back taillight is smashed.”
Kim sucked in a breath. “Okay, yes, I recognized Blake’s car this morning.”
“So why not report him?”
“Because he used to be a resident. Something like that would’ve lost him his parole. I thought I’d talk to him instead. But then those vandals came along before I got the chance.”
“You were going to talk to a guy who ran you down in broad daylight, and you’re calling me crazy? What were you thinking?”
Her expression hardened. “I was thinking about the damage that rumors of a hit-and-run by a former resident would do to the manor. I don’t expect you to understand. You’ve only been here a day. You couldn’t possibly care about the manor’s survival the way I do.”
He felt like dog meat. The woman was as loyal and compassionate as they came. How could he have suspected her of trying to protect a drug dealer?
He edged her out of view of the cops. The ambulance wailed to life, a glaring reminder of the danger she was in. He had a bad feeling that someone didn’t want Blake to talk to her. And with a bullet in his head, the kid wasn’t going to give Ethan an explanation anytime soon.
“I’m sorry, Kim. I was out of line. Believe me, I want to help you.” More importantly, he wanted to get her out of here before the police connected her—or him—to the shooting.
“Come on.” He nudged her toward the house that backed onto his. “I’ll drive you home.”
“What about the vandals? The police will want their description.”
Ethan held her in place. The last thing he needed was a cop unraveling his cover. So far, other than the officer on the perimeter tape, no one had paid them any attention. “Since you’re parked nearby, the police will record your license plate, and stop by your house in due course.”
“But if I leave without talking to them, won’t that make them suspicious?”
“Not once they see the condition of your ankle.”
In the meantime, he needed descriptions of the punks, because chances were good one of them shot Blake, or saw who did. And Ethan needed to talk to them before the wrong cop got to them. Or to Kim.
Witnesses in this case had a bad habit of showing up dead.
A news truck squealed around the corner and stopped at the end of the street.
Great, just what she’d hoped to avoid by not reporting Blake in the first place.
Ethan tilted his head, and waited for her to meet his gaze. “Let me drive you home?”
The compassion in his eyes tugged at her heart. Twice in one day he’d come to her rescue. Why not make it three?
“Okay.”
He deftly skirted her around the officers canvassing the neighborhood and the reporter charging toward the scene, and led her back the way they’d come.
What would the police think if they found out she’d fled?
Then again, if she admitted why she was in the area, some ambitious reporter was bound to find a nosy neighbor who’d identify Darryl’s truck as being here, too. He’d squealed away minutes before the shot was fired. But people’s memories had a bad habit of getting those kinds of important details confused. Or they’d theorize he snuck back. She could see the headline now—Former Hope Manor Resident Shot By Founder’s Son.
Everyone who knew Darryl knew how protective he’d become of her since Nate had stomped all over her heart.
She misstepped, turning her ankle on the uneven pavement.
Ethan’s strong arm circled her waist, unleashing a flurry of butterflies that made her feel as if she’d tumbled into the middle of a Jane Austen romance novel. She allowed herself to lean on him, borrow the strength and protection he offered. Just for a little while.
He was so different from Nate. Ethan took immediate, confident action, where Nate was indecisive and slow to respond.
A pang of guilt squeezed her chest. She wasn’t being completely honest with Ethan.
He steered her between two houses, practically carrying her to spare her from putting too much weight on her ankle, and her guilt increased. Ethan had shown her nothing but kindness.
“The dark green Chev is mine,” he said.
“How soon do you think the police will come by my house?”
“Hard to say. Sometime tonight. Tomorrow at the latest, unless they get a solid lead.”
She shivered. If anyone had overheard Darryl threatening Blake, the police or reporters or both would dig up whatever incriminating information they could find on him—like that he’d been a regular at the gun club with his friend Frank. His friend who was now serving twenty years in a federal prison for manslaughter.
Oh, Lord, Darryl wouldn’t shoot a kid just because he drove a little recklessly. He wouldn’t. Please let Blake be okay. And please let the police track down the shooter quickly.
Ethan helped her into his car. The air inside was stifling. He cranked up the air-conditioning, and then glanced at the line of cars idling at the end of the street—employees from the candy factory, likely. “The police must be checking cars. Prop your injured foot on the dash. Let me do the talking.”
Was it just her guilty conscience that made Ethan sound as though they were fugitives?
A few minutes later, a police officer wearing those mirrored sunglasses, whose chief purpose had to be to intimidate the person staring into them, stepped up to their window. “License and registration, please.”
Ethan reached into the glove box, handed over his registration and then pulled his license from his wallet. “We heard a gunshot. Someone get hurt?”
The officer responded without emotion. “The victim’s in critical condition.”
Kim smothered a gasp.
Ethan shot her a silencing glare.
She buried her hands under her legs so the officer wouldn’t catch her wringing them. If the police connected her to the car near Blake’s house she’d look as suspicious as her brother. Maybe she should call Ginny and talk to her husband, Rick, about what happened. Reporting in, so to speak, before they came looking for her had to look better in the end. “My phone,” she blurted, remembering that she’d dropped it when the shot rang out.
Ethan’s silencing glare swept over her a second time.
“Why are you in the neighborhood?” the officer asked as he recorded the license information.
Ethan motioned to the row of duplexes. “I moved into 103, second floor apartment, on Saturday. Haven’t had time to change my license yet.”
“And the woman?”
“Kim Corbett.”
“Relationship?”
“A friend,” Ethan said, with a lilt that implied something more.
Kim’s heart gave a funny kick.
“She hurt her ankle,” Ethan explained. “I’m taking her to have it checked.”
The officer wrote down everything Ethan said, and then looked at her. “Address?”
“Two-thirteen Maple Crescent.”
His attention zeroed in on Ethan again. “Do you have any weapons in the vehicle?”
“No, sir.”
The officer opened Ethan’s door. “Could you step out of the car, please?”
Ethan turned off the ignition, his expression pained. “It’s okay,” he said to her before climbing out, but suddenly every warning her brother had ever voiced about her being too trusting screamed through her head.
She’d known this man less than twelve hours—twelve hours in which she’d been threatened twice. He lived in a seedy neighborhood and maybe carried a gun. And she’d just let him convince her to leave the scene of a crime!
If he was really an ex-cop like he said, why didn’t he tell this guy? Play up the professional courtesy card?
Or was that why he was playing it by the book, not making waves?
Too trusting! The voice in her head screamed.
The officer patted Ethan down, glanced at the interior of the car and then said, “Do you mind if I look in your trunk?”
“Not at all. I’ve got nothing to hide,” Ethan said easily, although Kim thought she glimpsed the muscle in his jaw flinch.
The officer riffled through the trunk, and then handed Ethan back his license and registration. “Thank you, sir. Have a good day.”
Kim closed her eyes and let the air seep from her chest. He didn’t have a gun. That was good, at least.
Ethan climbed in the car. “What were you saying about your phone?”
“I dropped it in the street.” She lowered her voice. “When I heard the shot.”
“Okay, we’ll go back and find it.” He rolled down the window again. “Officer, my friend dropped her phone. I need to turn around for a minute and see if we can find it.”
“Go ahead.” The officer backed up a few steps so Ethan had room to turn on the narrow street.
Kim pointed to a pothole a few yards past the factory’s entrance. “I stumbled up there.”
Ethan parked, then scouted the area in ever-widening sweeps. After what felt like hours, he returned, frowning. “I’m sorry. There’s no sign of it.”
Her throat went dry. She felt like gagging, and it wasn’t from the sickly scent of gumdrops. “If those punks picked it up, they’ll know my friends’ numbers, my home number. With reverse lookup, they’ll figure out my address.” If they were brazen enough to chase her in broad daylight, who knew what they’d try under the cover of darkness?
Ethan slanted her a sideways look as he slid into the car beside her. “Why are you worried they’d come after you again?”
Her heart skipped as she realized that from his perspective there was no logical reason why they would. Why would they risk getting caught after they’d already gotten away?
She tried for a self-deprecating smile that felt weak even to her. “I guess because Dad drilled into our heads the importance of keeping our private information private. Residents will use anything as leverage to manipulate us.”
He regarded her steadily, intelligence shining out of his chocolate-colored eyes, and she shifted on her seat. “Is that the only reason?”
Blake’s ultimatum to her brother—I go down, you go down—flashed through her mind. She needed to talk to Darryl, find out why he thought Blake had targeted her. Find out if he’d snuck back and shot him.
No, she couldn’t ask him that. He’d be horrified that she’d think him capable. And she sure couldn’t confide in Ethan that particular fear.
His fingers brushed past her cheek and gently pulled a leaf from her hair. “Kim, I want to help you. But unless you level with me, I may not be able to protect you.”
She straightened. “I’m quite capable of taking care of myself.”
Ethan arched his eyebrow.
“Okay, today was an exception. But nothing like this has ever happened to me before.”
He started the car and nodded at the officer as they passed. “Skulk around in neighborhoods like this one and you’re asking for trouble.”
“That from a man who lives here,” she said wryly.