LITMIR.BIZ

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Did that black stripe have anything to do with this surprise visit?

      “More ‘Get me!’” Benjamin pushed against Melissa’s chest, saving her from the compassionate impulse to ask about that black stripe and the length of his day.

      “Not now, sweetie. It’s getting late.” She stroked his silky black hair and hugged him a little tighter, to settle her own nerves as much as his. But she kept her eyes on their guest. She needed a safer topic. “What’s it been? A year?”

      “Not quite. I haven’t seen you since last July.”

      Not so safe.

      Last July she’d been in the hospital, broken and unconscious. Even now, the events that had put her in that ICU bed were hazy. But she remembered his last visit. Though she couldn’t recall his words, she remembered being just as frightened as she’d been pleased to see him. He’d asked for something from her, something she couldn’t—wouldn’t—give to a man again.

      Her affection? Her trust? Permission to give those things to her? Was that why he was here tonight? Did he think enough time had passed—could ever pass—for her to give a new relationship a chance?

      “So what are you doing here?” she asked again.

      He reached for a dark blue uniform jacket draped over the back of a chair, and picked up a holstered gun he’d set high up on the mantel of her fake fireplace. He’d come here armed? With another officer sitting outside? This visit wasn’t personal, after all.

      “Can we talk? Someplace private?”

      Even if that grin had stayed in place, she would have suspected his motives for showing up at her home unannounced.

      After a slight hesitation, she nodded. Giving him a wide berth as she circled around him, Melissa handed Ben off to her mother, trading a reassuring hug with the older woman and giving her son a kiss. “Benjamin needs to be getting to bed. Do you mind starting his bath?”

      “Of course not. Thanks for the company, Mr. Kincaid.”

      “I appreciate the coffee, ma’am.”

      Benjamin stretched out both arms toward his new playmate and curled his fingers into a wave. “Bye, ’tective.”

      “See ya, Big Ben.”

      Her mother reached out and squeezed her hand. “Honey, Mr. Kincaid isn’t the enemy.” Melissa weathered a sad, maybe even apologetic, frown, then turned away as Fritzi carried her grandson down the hallway toward the bathroom at the back of the house.

      “We can talk in the kitchen, Tom.”

      He followed her across the hallway to the room where she could turn on the brightest lights and put a solid piece of furniture, namely the width of her kitchen table, between them. “Thomas is my first name, but I go by Sawyer in real life.”

      Real life. Ha. She’d been crazy to worry for even one moment about him seeing the changes in her appearance after a shattered face and reconstructive surgeries. Her reality didn’t include old friends stopping by for let’s-get-reacquainted visits. Her reality included living paycheck to paycheck, working when she wasn’t going to school, updating restraining orders and looking over her shoulder.

      She flipped on the overhead light switch beside the door and crossed to the sink to turn on the light there, too. But the bright lights and distance between them did little to diminish his overpowering presence. The smells of earthy dampness clinging to their clothes and skin intensified in the smaller room, giving the atmosphere an intimate electricity she shouldn’t be feeling.

      Attraction of any kind—emotional attachments beyond her mother and son—weren’t an option for her. She needed to be on guard. Always. The last six years of her life had taught her that.

      She unfastened the top two buttons of her raincoat and straightened her collar before crossing her arms in front of her and bracing herself for whatever he had to say. “Okay—Sawyer—does this have something to do with the Wolfes’ illegal activities at the casino? When I gave my deposition at the hospital, the D.A. said he didn’t think I’d have to testify in person.”

      “As far as I know, you won’t.” Watching him unhook his belt and strap his gun and holster back into place wasn’t exactly reassuring. “To my knowledge, the case against Theodore Wolfe is still tight. Once the state of Missouri is done with him, he’ll be taken back to London to face international charges.”

      “Then what’s wrong? Why are you here?”

      “It’s your husband. Ace Longbow.”

      “My ex-husband,” she corrected. The handsome man who’d first beaten her the night he’d accused her of getting pregnant to trap him into marriage. The flowers and apologies and diamond ring he’d brought her the next day had fooled her. Ace Longbow, the exciting, slightly dangerous man, who—as a nineteen-year-old barely out of high school—she’d naively thought she could tame.

      She’d mistaken passion for love. Control for caring.

      She’d thought a divorce would end the torture.

      But the man who, to this day, claimed to love her in the letters that went straight to her attorney, had accused her of betraying his loyalty to the Wolfe crime family and had dragged her down to the river to kill her.

      Melissa self-consciously touched the scar on her cheek, then quickly turned away to busy her hands with pouring herself a cup of coffee. The bones had mended. And the surgeons had done a good job of rebuilding her shattered face. But the scar they’d left behind was functional, not pretty. And until she could get ahead on her bills, a plastic surgeon was out of the question.

      It wasn’t vanity so much as the violence it represented that made her sensitive about the long, curving mark. Every time she washed her face or brushed her hair in the mirror, she saw the brand of her shameful marriage stamped there. “What about Ace? Has something happened to him?”

      “I’m sorry. I guess you haven’t seen the news this evening.”

      News? Sawyer’s shadow fell over her, consuming her breathing space. The coffeepot rattled against her cup. He rescued the objects from her shaking grasp and set them safely on the counter. But the surprising gentleness of even that impersonal touch chilled her to the bone.

      This couldn’t be good.

      Melissa curled her fingers into her palms and scooted some distance between them, steeling herself for the worst. With Richard “Ace” Longbow, there was always a worst. “Sorry about what?”

      “He escaped with two other inmates from a courthouse in Jefferson City this afternoon. Authorities there believe he was shot. The getaway car they were in ran off the bridge and plunged into the Missouri River.”

      The words swam inside her head. She gripped the edge of the counter to stop the dizzying sensation. “Are you telling me Ace is dead?”

      Sawyer’s silence lasted a beat too long. Her world instantly righted itself with cold, numbing clarity. She angled her gaze up to Sawyer’s eyes. “You don’t know if he’s alive or dead. You don’t know where he is.”

      His big shoulders lifted, absorbing the weight of the accusation. “Since none of the bodies have turned up, we’re assuming all three fugitives are still alive. But they’ve gone underground and disappeared. We don’t know where Ace is or what his plans might entail. But we’re doing everything we can to find him.”

      Melissa didn’t bother asking where Sawyer and the prison authorities thought Ace might be headed. If Ace wasn’t dead, there was only one answer.

      Here.

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