AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Ashley leaned in. “You didn’t tell me Adam was getting the Medal of Valor.”
Adam shook his head. “It’s not official yet.”
“I didn’t know, myself,” Kelly said with a raised eyebrow.
Ashley put a hand on Kelly’s arm. “That’s a really big deal. You should be enormously proud of him.”
Kelly wrapped an arm around her fiancé. “I would be. But he hasn’t told me anything.” She elbowed him lightly.
Serena joined us. “What’s the big deal?”
“Nothing,” Adam said quickly.
Serena gave him a stern look, but Adam didn’t relent. Modest, that one was.
His phone rang, and he answered—“Yeah, Rylie, what’s up?”—as he moved to the other room to take it.
Ashley nodded toward Adam. “I mean it. They don’t give those out easily.”
Slowly, I was getting the drift. Adam had been hiding the importance of this award from everybody, including Kelly. So not only did the family have two FBI agents, but one of them was a certified hero. I’d only just met Adam, but already I thought Kelly was very lucky to have found a man like him.
I glanced around and caught Josh looking my way. As his gaze locked with mine, I knew Kelly wasn’t the only lucky one in the room.
A moment later, Adam was back with a concerned look on his face. “Ashley,” he said forcefully. “You and I need a moment with Lloyd. We have a problem.”
Adam hadn’t said the wordproblemlike they had run out of champagne,more like a plane had crashed. He pulled Josh’s father away from Vincent and Duke, and the group disappeared around the corner.
A shiver ran down my spine. Something was terribly wrong.
Chapter 36
Josh
My stupid olderbrother still hadn’t made it to the house and was making us all look bad by not facing Adam like a man. Adam was marrying into the family, for Christ’s sake. Dennis couldn’t avoid him forever.
Nicole was talking with Ashley, Adam, and Serena when Adam got a call.
I started toward them. If that was my chickenshit brother saying he couldn’t make it, I was going to wring his neck.
Adam hung up and disappeared around the corner with Ashley and Dad.
A moment later, Dad reappeared and gestured for me to join them.
The group looked conspiratorial as I walked up.
Dad put his hand on my shoulder. “I need to tell you something about your cousin Debbie.”
I nodded. As soon as he said her name, I knew where this was going. “I already know she was spotted,” I told him. “Dennis told me and Serena.”
Although we’d always thought Debbie had died years ago after her kidnapper was shot, she’d actually survived. That was the good news. The bad news was that we only knew this because her DNA had shown up at a bank robbery in the DC area. The worse news was that a teller had been shot, which as far as the FBI was concerned, turned Debbie from a kidnapping victim to a robbery and attempted murder suspect.
Dad shook his head with a huff. “Can’t any of you keep a secret around here?”
“I just got a call,” Adam said. “Debbie called the tip line. She wants to talk to Josh.”
I backed up. “Me?” It didn’t make any sense. Why me?
Adam nodded. “She’s going to call back tomorrow afternoon, and all I know is she’ll only talk to you.”
