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“And money is the name of the game.”
That brought that laugh, sudden and deep, a rich sound that felt as if it was slipping around her. “You got it,” he said as the traffic inched down the street.
She had never met anyone who could laugh and make her feel like laughing, too. She looked away from him again, and out at the city streets. “So, you’re in it for the long haul?”
“Zane is, but I’m just here until everything’s in place.”
“Then what?” she asked.
“Another challenge,” he said. “There are millions of them out there, it’s just a matter of finding them. But first, I need to get past this, and that means I’ve got a night of work ahead of me, if we ever get out of here.”
“Do you want to park and walk?” she asked.
He laughed again, soft and sensual. She stared very hard up the street, concentrating on the way the Christmas lights danced on the polished finishes of the cars ahead. “Just lock the car and walk away?”
“Why not? It’s like a parking lot out here.”
He motioned ahead. “Once we get past the bus stop, it should move better.”
She glanced up farther and saw the bus stop with a single bench and an overhead protection roof decorated with Christmas garlands. Two people were on the wooden bench, and as they got a bit closer, she recognized one of them as the boy who had come to her rescue in the center. “That’s him,” she said, sitting forward to get a better look at the boy, slouched down on the bench, staring at the ground, his hat on backwards.
“That’s who?”
“The boy from tonight,” she said pointing to him.
The woman sitting by him was thin and dark, with a deep scowl on her face as she spoke to the boy. “I guess that’s his mother with him.” Not a loving mother, that was for sure.
“Poor woman,” Matt muttered.
As they passed by, Brittany was shocked to see the woman slap the boy on his shoulder, and he moved to get away from the blow. He looked at her, his face twisted with anger, but he didn’t move again. “She hit him,” Brittany said. “Stop the car!”
“Stay out of it,” he said as he kept going. She reached for the door handle, but Matt caught her other arm. “No. Don’t do it. You don’t know what’s going on.” He looked back over his shoulder. “And he’s okay. He probably did something that got her crazy.”
They were past him now, and she sank back in the seat, jerking her arm away from Matt’s touch. “How could you just let her do that?”
He slowed the car, pulled out of traffic and stopped. He turned to her, one hand on the steering wheel and one resting on the console. “Okay, what do you suggest we do to stop her?”
She sank back in the seat, resting one arm on the door frame and pressing her other hand to her eyes. “I don’t know. Call the police.”
“And they’d come, take a report, then send them home together where she could really do some damage. She’d be angry and embarrassed and take it out on him.”
She lowered her hand and looked at Matt and hated him for his perfect logic. “Do you think so?”
“I know so. I grew up around that kind of stuff, and you wouldn’t help him if you stepped in right now.”
He moved a bit closer to her as people rushed by outside, carrying bright Christmas parcels and going to their homes. “B.J., the kid is in a situation you can’t change. No one can change it. Leave it alone.”
She swallowed hard. “Just like that?”
He moved slightly, his hand lifting, and this time he touched her cheek, the contact of his fingers lighter than a feather’s kiss, but riveting. “Just like that,” he said in a low voice. “Walk away. You’ll never see him again.”
“You can do that?” she asked.
“I’ve done it all my life, and I’ve survived.” He smiled slightly, a shadow at his lips, and it made her heart lurch. “I’d like you to survive, B. J. Smythe not Smith.”
She’d known him an hour tops, and as he repeated her lie back to her with that smile, she felt her heart sink. It was no secret that he’d like to do away with Brittany Lewis.
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