LITMIR.BIZ

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only pray that he wasn’t telling Cash. Anyone but Cash, because if Cash heard New York…

      “Is this about Ava?” Cash demanded. Justin heard Rev grumbling in the background, no doubt because Cash mowed him down to get to the phone and dammit, Cash was supposed to be spending time with his girlfriend.

      Cash was Justin’s best friend on the team—the one Justin confided in the most. The one who Justin had watched fall in love hard last year with a documentary filmmaker named Rina. And although Hunt and Rev both knew about his past with Ava, Cash was the only one who knew exactly how many regrets Justin still had.

      “I thought Rina was in town,” he said, mentioning Cash’s girlfriend as if this was a normal, everyday conversation and he was not having to admit to being minutes away from facing his past.

      “Her flight from Botswana got canceled. Engine trouble. She’s coming in tomorrow night. And don’t try and change the subject.”

      “Turk called me. Ava’s in trouble. Big trouble,” he said finally.

      “Yeah. Always is. And now, I’m sure you are, too.”

      “Just put Rev back on the phone,” Justin said, without telling his friend that this particular brand of Ava trouble had the potential to be bigger and badder than ever. Cash did so, but Justin could still hear him cursing a blue streak. In Swahili.

      “What’s going on?” Rev asked.

      “Can you go to my house and make sure it’s tight?” he asked, because Rev was the security master of the group.

      Rev was silent for a minute. “CG?” he asked, and yes, that was the code—code green—they’d developed for when something really bad was going down and they couldn’t say much about it.

      “Yeah. I’m not sure when I’ll be back. Probably by tomorrow night—late.”

      “Consider it done,” Rev said. “Once I figure out why my car won’t start.”

      Justin groaned and hung up, because, even though he knew Rev would take care of what he needed to, it wouldn’t come without a certain amount of high drama and last-minute tension Rev seemed to have a penchant for.

      Justin turned the corner slowly, parked a few houses down from Ava’s. It was nearly one in the morning. He’d been able to catch a military flight that got him here inside of an hour. But first he’d do a quick sweep to make sure everything was all right before ringing her doorbell and making contact… when Ava, still driving that same Mustang convertible Turk and her father had rebuilt for her ages ago, pulled into the driveway.

      Within seconds she was striding toward the front door of her house, dressed in a pair of well-worn but still formfitting jeans, a white, V-neck T-shirt and a pair of high-heeled black boots that were part sex kitten, part Harley mama and every man’s fantasy. Including his.

      She’d been hot enough at seventeen to make him crazy. Apparently nothing had changed if the way his pulse was racing was any indication.

      Spending any decent amount of time with her had always made him feel as if he should be hoisting the white flag of surrender, although he was never quite sure what he was surrendering to.

      He could run fifteen miles in one shot without a problem. Uphill, in the rain and carrying a pack that weighed eighty pounds or with one of his teammates slung over his shoulder. Swim in oceans so rough that drowning sometimes seemed the easier option. Been shot at more often than he cared to remember and still, seeing her could take him down at the knees every single time.

      He’d spent the better part of his eighteenth year bailing her out of various scrapes—and honky-tonks, telling himself he was doing it for Turk and Ava’s father the entire time. Gotten into more than a few old-fashioned, chair-throwing, window-breaking bar fights with guys who’d wanted to take her home. And done more than his share of locking her in her room so she could study and wouldn’t fail her classes.

      He’d only made the mistake of locking her in and standing outside her door once. He’d been so proud of her two hours of straight study, without complaint, until he’d gotten a call from the police about a woman caught speeding. On his hog.

      When he’d gone to collect her from the precinct, she’d been unapologetic. Just smiled and batted those eyelashes and he’d wanted to kill her. And kiss her, too. And she’d known it. Always had.

      He was never sure if that made things better or worse.

      Ava, with her fierce loyalty and strong sense of justice, even then, she probably could’ve helped him, but at the time…

      At the time, he couldn’t face her. He’d called her from a pay phone outside the motel where he was staying and explained why he wasn’t at her graduation when, the night before, they’d rolled together on the floor of her room. When he’d nearly taken her for the first time—her first time. A night when he’d had to tell her he was marrying someone else.

      He’d told himself that he called because he hadn’t wanted her to see the bruises on his face, to ask too many questions.

      He called because he couldn’t stand seeing the look on her face, the one of disappointment that he’d never wanted to put there. The one he’d seen when she recalled her mother leaving, and then firsthand when her father died and again when Turk announced he was transferring to an out-of-state college on a scholarship.

      He’d called because he’d been leaving her, too.

      Now, from the safety of the car, he watched the sway of her hips, wondered if her hair still smelled like that flowery shampoo she used to use. Wondered if she still hated him as much as she had that night.

      He’d find out soon enough.

      AVA WAS DEEP in thought as she approached her front door. It took three tries to get the key into the lock because her mind was racing due to Sammy’s news. And, if she was honest with herself, because her hands were shaking slightly. The O’Rourkes were getting too close—to Susie…to everything.

      She’d have to let the detectives know about this development, could, in fact, since it wasn’t attorney-client privilege. And lie, the way she’d been doing for the past months when women like Susie Mercer disappeared off the face of the earth…

      Susie planned to come back into town to give her grand jury statement and what evidence she could against her husband—and now presumably the O’Rourkes, too—in less than two weeks. She had evidence of the domestic abuse she’d suffered as well as the corrupt business dealings of her husband, and she was ready and willing to testify about both matters. She’d told both Ava and Callie not to worry about getting her back into New York, that she just needed their help in getting out. Susie refused to trust the police, the FBI and the federal marshals. She told Ava and Callie that if she was putting her life on the line, she was going to do it her way.

      When Ava finally got the door open, she pushed in and noticed something by her feet.

      A plain white envelope had been slipped through the mail slot in her door. She stared at it for a moment because there was no name or address on the front. And then she slid a finger under the sealed edge and ripped it open impatiently.

      Photographs slid out. Polaroids of her in various places over the course of the last couple of days. Entering her office. Sitting with Susie. Going to dinner.

      Meeting with Sammy tonight at the bar.

      She fought the revulsion curling in her stomach and stuffed the pictures back into the envelope. No fear. Don’t let the bastards get to you.

      God, she’d been outside—right in the open…

      She moved fully into the foyer and slammed and locked the door behind her. Instinctively, she pulled the .38 special she’d started carrying, at Leo’s insistence, from her bag and held it at the ready while she turned on all the lights on the first floor. And then wondered if that was such a good idea.

      She forced herself

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