LITMIR.BIZ

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they finished their dinner just as Maggie returned to help clean up. The way she and the detective moved in tandem without even realizing they were doing it was refreshing to see. The only relationships Henry had been around in the last few years had been dangerous, toxic and unpredictable. Ones that were filled with uncertainty and almost always sank his world into trouble.

      Which was why he’d come to Riker County in the first place.

      He wasn’t looking for redemption and he sure as hell wasn’t looking for a second chance at his old life. He didn’t want to make things better. That was another bridge that had already burned.

      All Henry wanted now was a big heap of nothing.

      He wanted a clean slate.

      But could he do it? Could he start over? Or had his last job rubbed off on him too much?

      Henry sat heavily in the driver’s seat of his car after saying ’bye to the couple. He waved at Matt, who retreated into his house, Maggie at his side.

      What about Cassie?

      And her unborn son?

      * * *

      THE HEAT WAS THICK. Heavy. Unforgiving.

      He didn’t care.

      “What was that?” His voice wasn’t low. He was yelling. Again, he didn’t care. “You all had one job. One job!”

      With a flourish he swept his arm over the desk. Everything on its top flew off and crashed to the floor. The man across from him winced. The woman holding his hand did not.

      “We saw an opportunity and snapped at it,” she hissed, all venom.

      “You could have ruined everything,” he yelled back. The keyboard that clung to the desktop by its cord didn’t last long. He put more feeling into his swing and it, too, crashed to the floor. This time the computer went with it.

      The man across from him flinched again like he’d been the one struck. His woman didn’t bend.

      “We have been waiting for you to put your plan into action for months,” she retorted, fire in her words. In a detached sort of way he noticed the tension that had tightened her muscles. He’d bet she was doing everything in her power not to throw her entire body into her anger. Her rage. Under different circumstances he might have been impressed.

      At the moment he was not.

      “What we’re doing, what I’m doing, isn’t planning some stroll through the park or setting up some simple con,” he said, pulling some of his own frustration back into himself. With Darrel’s death he’d already lost one of his players. He wasn’t willing to lose any more. Not yet. Not when they were so close. He straightened his tie and ran a hand over his hair to smooth it down. “It isn’t a plan at all, really. It’s a vision. One that will only work if we don’t do whatever the hell we want to.”

      His calm shattered in an instant. He grabbed the lip of his desk and pulled up. If it had been his home office desk, it wouldn’t have budged, but this one was cheap. The desk flipped over without much resistance.

      Paula was quick. She was up and out of her chair in a flash, long legs graceful in their movement. Her poor excuse for a boyfriend, Jason, wasn’t as fast. The weight of the desk pinned the top of his foot. He yelled out in pain.

      Again, if it had been his personal desk, Jason’s foot would have been broken by the weight.

      “Things are about to get crazy,” he continued, voice lost to the strain of trying to figure out if he should keep his tantrum going. “And that chaos is the goal, the end game.” He fixed Paula with a look that kept whatever she was about to say behind her lips. “No more acting out of line in the name of revenge. No more taking shots because you have the opportunity. You’re here for more than something so insignificant.”

      Paula crossed her arms over her chest. She made no move to help Jason free himself. It was as if she’d already forgotten him.

      Which was even better.

      “What’s more significant than revenge?” she asked, cool and calm. “What’s better than making the people who wronged us and ours suffer?”

      He was quick to answer. “The power to prolong both.”

      For the first time since he’d summoned them both into his makeshift office, Paula’s expression went blank. Then, slowly, she smiled. “Then let’s go make some chaos.”

       Chapter Four

      The night ended without any more fuss. Cassie went home, showered and then took comfort in the arms of her padded duvet. But only after dropping the air-conditioning down a few degrees. She’d had a good pregnancy so far when it came to morning sickness, but she never stopped being amazed at how hot she got.

      Her sister Kristen called her a walking furnace.

      Cassie lived up to the name the next morning. She woke up sweating. It wasn’t until she made it to the kitchen for a glass of water that she fought through the haze of sleep and remembered everything that had happened the day before.

      She downed half the glass and went in search of her cell phone. It had also spent the night tangled in the bedsheets. Which meant her battery hadn’t been charged. A notification showed it was less than 15 percent. The one below it listed two new text messages. Cassie perched on the side of the bed. She didn’t give herself time to worry about what each message said before opening and reading both.

      The first was from Denise, the Caller ID reading Mrs. Beadle. Several hearts were on either side of the name. Cassie smiled. Her eldest sister and sibling was just as maternal as their mother. She’d actually been the first person Cassie had called after getting to the hospital to make sure everything was okay with the baby.

      Which hadn’t made Kristen happy, since she was local and Denise lived in Colorado. However, it was a force of habit to call the eldest Gates sibling and had been since she’d moved out of the house when they were younger. Denise had a gift for worrying about a person with all of her being while simultaneously helping comfort that same person with all of her being. And that was what Cassie had desperately wanted. Comfort, released of the fear and uncertainty that had just crashed back into her life. Both sisters said in their own ways to call them when she was up and moving around.

      Cassie sighed.

      It was only a matter of time before word got out to the rest of the Gates clan. Then her brothers would be the ones filling her inbox.

      It came with the territory of being the youngest of six siblings. The baby. Which, by default, meant she received the full weight of their worry and less and less of their confidence. Never mind Cassie was twenty-nine, had a mortgage and was a few months shy of becoming a full-fledged mother.

      She placed a hand on her swollen belly.

      A love she didn’t think was possible consumed her entire heart and soul at the touch. Relief cascaded down until she felt like crying.

      The sound of gunfire shot across her thoughts.

      If anything had happened to her son at the diner...

      Cassie fisted the sheets in her hands, suddenly as angry as a kicked hornet’s nest.

      Then she was picturing gray eyes and feeling the warmth of a body protecting hers.

      Henry. Henry Ward.

      The rage at the most horrific what-if about her son lessened into a different kind of anger. One that, if she was being honest, was backed up by insecurity.

      After a night of connection so deep with the man that it had surprised her, he had promised to call when he got back home.

      Yet he never had.

      No call. No text. No anything.

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