AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“How fast will they know?”
“They’re rapid fire. Like I said, we’ll know more soon.”
He’s going big on this. He’s afraid. I’m afraid and I have reason to be. “This is why I kept trying to push you away. Kenneth was trouble. I knew he’d try to hurt you. I just—I’m so sorry that I pulled you into this.”
“I’m not sorry, Abbie. This would have happened no matter my involvement with you or not. Now, you’re not alone. Not now. Not ever again, unless you choose to be. And I won’t let you make that choice until this is over.” He strokes my cheek. “You’re stuck with me, baby. Get used to it.”
I don’t argue. He won’t let me and at this point, it probably really is too late for him to turn away. As Reid said. We’re connected now, all of us, for the good, the bad, and the ugly, and I have a feeling this is going to getreallyugly. “What now?”
“We leave. We meet with Reese. We let him guide us. Walker has a car waiting for us.” He laces the fingers of one hand with mine and guides me toward the door, leading me to a meeting that he thinks will offer me some relief but he’s wrong. I just keep thinking about that call I made. I did this. Now I have to decide what to admit.
Chapter fifty
Gabe
Reid is waiting on us just outside my door, the dodgeball game with the staff to get out of the office is unavoidable, but finally, we step onto the elevator with Abbie on one side of me and Reid on the other. I pull Abbie close by my side, under my arm, hating the fear this has created in her. I knew that could happen. I knew that if I went after her ex, she might feel some temporary pain, but not this. This was not the plan. I’m not a fool who dives into trouble and screams “look at me.”
Reid punches the button for the lobby and we share a look: we need to talk. The two-minute-long conversation we’d managed before Abbie showed up in my office wasn’t enough. But he damn sure came through for me. He’s why we have an early heads up. He’s the one who called Reese without me asking him to make the call. We have each other’s backs and in our case with our father, that’s our way of survival.
“Do I need to have my mother come back from the Hamptons?” Abbie says, obviously spending the ride down fretting. “Or is she safer there, out of the spotlight?”
“She needs to be here to talk to Reese and get any interviews over with,” I say.
“We can have a chopper fly her back,” Reid offers. “I’ll make a call and arrange it before you contact her.”
“Where’s Carrie?” I ask, catching a flash of his new wedding ring. “Did your new wife actually let you come back to the states alone?”
“Not a chance in hell Carrie would let that happen,” Reid replies. “She’s at Cat’s place picking up the furry family.”
“And now I’ve ruined his honeymoon,” Abbie says. “I’m starting things out with the family fabulously.”
“My honeymoon wasn’t ruined,” Reid rebuts. “We had one hell of a time, but we were both ready to be back. This is nothing, Abbie. A blip on the radar, gone in a few days.”
“A blip,” I agree. “We’re going to meet with Reese, offer up an alibi by way of the security footage from both my apartment and the house in the Hamptons, and then we’ll go enjoy lunch somewhere.”
“Or go to the police station because they haul us both in,” she murmurs, the elevator dinging our arrival to the lobby.
I wrap my arm around her, and we follow Reid out of the car. “Just lunch,” I promise. “Italian sounds good, don’t you think?”
She doesn’t reply and I leave it alone. I get it. Nothing I say is going to comfort her right now and why would it? A man she was married to is dead. Reese is the man to make her feel better this time. Not me.
For now, I concentrate on getting us there to make that happen. Once we’re outside, I pause at the rear door of a hired SUV, my arm around Abbie beneath her coat, holding onto her the way I plan to keep holding onto her. “Let me talk to Reid for a few moments.”
“About me. About what I got you into.”
“You know what, baby? Tonight I’m going to punish you in all kinds of naughty ways for every time you tried to make yourself my enemy today.” I kiss her. “We are not enemies. I just need a word with Reid. Okay?”
“Yes,” she breathes out. “Yes. Sorry. I’m a bit paranoid right now.”
“Understandable. I’ll only be a moment.”
“Should I call my mother?”
“Not yet. Let me find out if Walker has an update for us, and her, first.” I soften my voice. “Kenneth is gone. That doesn’t benefit you. Jean Claude still wants what he wants and that means your property. You had nothing to win by killing Kenneth and everything to lose.”
“To lose? What did I have to lose besides a stalker?”
That stalker situation is a potential problem and motive, which is exactly why I leave it alone for now. “The police could assume that Kenneth might have had a soft spot in negotiations with you, even helped you out.”
