LITMIR.BIZ

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in town, and my fiancée, Vanessa. She’ll force you to look at wedding stuff and she’ll go on and on about her dress and the food and how much she loves me but just humor her, okay?”

      Chloe liked the preacher. She smiled and nodded. “Okay. I don’t mind looking at wedding stuff or hearing how in love your fiancée is with you. I think that’s sweet.”

      He grinned over at her. “It’s a girl thing, right?”

      “Right.”

      Rory said a prayer with her and then gave her a preacherly hug and a pledge to pray for her. “Call if you need anything.”

      She waved bye to him and took some clothes and toiletries out of her suitcase, but Chloe couldn’t relax. She felt as if she’d been relegated to a nice prison. Rubbing her hands down her arms, she tried to stay calm, but her skin crawled with fear and anger and dread while her pulse pounded against her temple like a warning bell that wouldn’t stop. She needed all the prayers people were promising.

      What if they didn’t find those men?

      What if something bad happened to Hunter or one of his friends? When would they be able to sit down and really get to the bottom of this? What if Hunter left her here and took off on his own?

      What if...

      She finally sat down on the bed and had a good cry. Followed by serious prayers. She missed her sister, Laura, so much. Laura had been completely solid in her faith, so sure that the world still had some good in it. Chloe had doubted. Her faith was more lukewarm and shaky. But she had to admit, when she’d seen Hunter’s name scrawled in Laura’s notes, she’d considered it a sure sign from God.

      So why couldn’t she tell him everything? Why couldn’t she tell him that he might be more involved in this than he realized?

      Hunter would have been the last person she’d think of in a time such as thing. But Laura had obviously thought of him.

      “Laura, help me to find the answers,” she whispered. Then she asked God to guide her. “And...please, Lord, protect Hunter.”

      Chloe squared her shoulders and sank down in the chair across from the bed. She thought she’d smoothed things over with her father before she left by telling him she needed to get away for a few days, but her father had a way of discovering the truth. He didn’t know she’d come here to find Hunter Lawson. She’d told him she was coming to Florida for a getaway trip, since she’d been working overtime for the last few months. Had her father really tracked her here and tried to have her killed?

      No. Wayne Conrad was a hard, stubborn, powerful man, but he’d never kill one of his own children. He’d been mourning the loss of his only son for years now and then Laura had died, too. Her horrible death had been hard on all of them.

      Lately, her father had lost focus on the vast empire he’d created. Tray had been a mean alcoholic drug abuser who’d beaten his wife and controlled every aspect of her short life. But her father had never given up hope that Tray would get clean and have a good life one day.

      Hunter’s older sister, Beth, had loved Tray in spite of all of that. She’d never managed to break away from the hold Tray had over her.

      But Hunter had avenged her death and put Tray in prison.

      Wayne Conrad hated Hunter Lawson.

      Chloe sat up and put her hand over her mouth. Laura had written Hunter’s name down in her notes. Had there been more to that than just wanting him to help her? She’d have to come clean with Hunter one day but not right now. It was too dangerous to even mention the theory she had developed when she couldn’t sleep at night.

      “Daddy, did you send those men after me? Or did you send them to kill Hunter?”

      When she heard a knock on the door, Chloe’s pulse spiked into overdrive.

      “Who is it?” she asked before opening the door.

      “Hunter.”

      Chloe grabbed the doorknob and let him in, her hands shaking, her heart skipping and jumping. “Did you find them? Did you find the people who’re trying to kill us?”

      “No, but I will find them. All of them.”

      Hunter held his hands on Chloe’s arms while he tried to reassure her. She felt tiny and fragile, but there was muscle underneath her slender frame. He saw that shard of steel in her eyes and that caused him to worry about her even more. He did not want to worry about her. Or this mess.

      But he couldn’t walk away now. This was getting serious. Too serious. They’re tried to get to Chloe by every means possible, and now they’d upped things a notch.

      They’d contacted him with a warning.

      A dangerous warning.

      He didn’t tell her about the cryptic phone call he’d received once he left her with Rory. Plenty of time for that later. She needed to rest and stay calm right now.

      “Tell Chloe Conrad to go back to Oklahoma before she loses everyone she loves.”

      Just that and then nothing. But Hunter had heard what sounded like a boat’s motor revving in the background and the sound of the water taxi horn blowing to indicate it was leaving the public docks. Those docks were a few blocks from here.

      The first clue.

      “Hunter, what’s going on?”

      “Nothing. We haven’t found anything. No prints, no weapons, no humans.” He sat her down in the chair and then he sank back on the end of the bed, exhaustion weighing him down. “But we found your laptop in a ditch. Someone had shot holes in it.”

      Chloe gripped the wooden arms of her chair, her expression full of regret and fear. “I should have stayed there and done this on my own. I shouldn’t have brought you into this.”

      Hunter wished she hadn’t come to him, either, but his reasons had nothing to do with someone trying to off him. Now in spite of his feelings regarding her, he wasn’t about to let her out of his sight. “Well, you’re here now and I’m in it with you. And that means I’m with you twenty-four-seven for the next few days.”

      “But we need to get back to Oklahoma and see what we can find.”

      “We’ll do that, but for now we build a case that shows your sister could possibly have been murdered. We’ll need to set up a time frame of the days before her death and try to find anyone she might have spoken with.”

      She stood up, her gaze downcast. “I need something to focus on. I’ll use the computers here sparingly, but wish I had my laptop.”

      “Trust me, that machine is stone-cold dead. Blain took it as evidence, but it’s fried.” Hunter motioned to the door. “Let’s go to the break room and get some coffee and a snack,” he suggested.

      This little room was too closed-in and tight for him. It put him too close to her. He needed some air.

      “Okay.” She got up, worry shadowing her face. “Hunter, I had a thought while you were gone.”

      “Yeah, and what was that?”

      She held her hands twisted together in front of her. “If these people tracked me all the way here, they could easily have taken me the minute the plane landed or right after I got the rental car, but they didn’t.”

      He nodded. “That did cross my mind. They’ve had several opportunities to either kidnap you or kill you and they could have come after you back in Oklahoma. But they didn’t.”

      “And yet they waited until I was that restaurant, hoping to find you.”

      “Somebody is definitely stirred up,” he said. “Maybe they were waiting for the perfect opportunity.”

      “Or maybe they were waiting for something else,” she replied. “Someone else.”

      Hunter

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