A wave of guilt hit me as I remembered all the messages Tori had left me. The ones I’d ignored.
“Information? What did you hear?” I asked Kain. My voice had gone up an octave. If there were a reason the George family wanted to take me out, I needed to know.
“You should have gotten in touch with Tori. I was hoping to avoid this mess.” Kain grumbled as he wiped the counters.
“Avoid what mess? I tried to move on with my life. You did the same. At least, I hope you did. Tori wouldn’t tell me where you were or what had happened to you.”
“I can see why she wouldn’t,” Kain mumbled.
“Well, I can’t see why. I’m missing all kinds of things.” The urge to throw a pancake at him almost overwhelmed me.
“All right, Avery. I get it. We left you out of the loop. I can see why you’re upset.”
“Can you? You shot my psychiatrist through the window of my dad’s living room. That brings up all kinds of questions, like why in the world was he after me to begin with?”
“Okay, I hear you. Take a deep breath.” He leaned across the counter, his chiseled physique taut.
“I’m breathing,” I grumbled. The prickly heat of hives crept across my skin. It was all too much.
“The thing you’re missing never hit the papers. I can’t blame you for not knowing. You shouldn't blame yourself.”
“All right. What is it?”
The wrinkles in Kain’s forehead deepened. “Caroline George is missing.”
“Caroline George? I don’t understand. What has that got to do with me? They should report it. I’m sure there’ll be an investigation.”
“That’s just it, Avery: they don’t trust the police. After all the public groaning and complaining about how the police had set them up to ruin Frederick’s Senate bid, there’s no need to wonder why.”
“Like it or not, kidnapping is a crime. They should know that.”
“I’m sure they do.” Ryan looked down at the faint scar running across each wrist, a souvenir from being bound for days by the family’s thugs the year before.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.” I wanted to tell him everything.
“No, I understand. You have every right to be upset, Avery. The George family thinks you took Caroline for revenge.”
“Revenge? I want them to forget I ever existed. I don’t want to do anything to draw their attention.”
“Sure, but you have their full attention right now.”
“Just me?”
“Yes, just you. I’m harmless in my current condition.”
“You mean as a fugitive?”
“No, I mean while I’m committed.”
“You don’t look committed.”
Kain laughed. “No, to you I must look like an uninvited guest.” His eyes twinkled, and I felt a familiar, momentary spark of attraction. No way. Not this time. I would not go down that road with him.
“Something like that,” I smirked. “So, why are you here? I mean, if the George family hired Dr. Smith here, in town, they must know where I live. If they think I have Caroline, they’d know to look here.”
“Exactly.” Kain nodded.
I took the remains of my breakfast to the trash can. Kain’s meaning hit me out of nowhere. “You were waiting for them, not for me.”
“Well, I can’t say I didn’t miss your company, but I was trying not to send you down the rabbit hole again, so to speak.”
“I appreciate the thought. I’d rather not go there, but it seems like I can’t stay away from it.”
“That’s no surprise. It runs in families.”
I snorted. “Families? My dad’s a retired lawyer. He wasn’t even a trial lawyer.”
Kain looked out the window for a long moment. “The key here is to anticipate their next move. I was sure they’d turn up here.”
“I hope they found Caroline, and I’m no longer their concern.”
“That’s unlikely,” Kain said.
“No? I’m sure they could pay a ransom if there was one. Why would they think I have her? I’m not a criminal mastermind; I’m a detective. Or, at least, I was a detective.”
“Did they offer you a job in Los Olivos?” Kain asked.
“Yes. Chief David Morris offered me a job. I told him I’d let him know in two weeks.”
“I’m not surprised. You’re good at what you do.”
“Right, and that’s not kidnapping.”
“Or murder,” Kain said.
“No, I don’t take people out unless it’s in the line of duty.”
“That’s good to know.” Kain plopped on the sofa. “We both know that the George family isn’t going to just give up. Whatever made them think you had taken Caroline was enough for them to pay for a hit. What did you tell that shrink of yours, anyway?”
“Too much. He was trying to get into my head the whole time. I thought he was trying to help me, but he was trying to get information out of me.”
“They wanted to know if you had her.”
“Well, I sure didn’t tell him that. I don’t know what happened to her. I didn’t even know she was missing.”
“No, you were busy.” There was a tone in Kain’s voice I hadn’t heard before. I wondered if I’d hurt him.
“Ryan, I didn’t forget about you. A year went by, and I never heard from you.”
“Stop. I understand what you’re saying, but there’s no need. Jesse is no surprise to me. I’ve been keeping an eye on you for longer than you realize. I had to.”
A strange knot formed in my throat. “Oh, I guess that makes sense.” I spent an entire year trying to put Ryan Kain behind me, and here he was, trying to keep me safe. “So, what should we do?”
Ryan’s eyes widened. “About us?”
I felt the blood rush to my face. “No, about the George family.”
“One of their hired assassins is dead; the other is in police custody. That means they have to move fast to avoid being connected to the hits before they catch up to you.”
“So, you think I’m the bait.”
“Well, I wouldn’t put it that way, but they’ll come after you.”
“And they think you’re still, well, unavailable. There’s another problem we haven’t talked about.”
“And that is?” Kain’s eyes twinkled as he awaited my response. For a second, I wondered if he needed the psychiatric care he had escaped.
“You’re a fugitive.”
Kain laughed. “I’m not even a suspect.”
“No, but you’ve confessed.”
“Are you going to turn me in for protecting you from a man who would have killed you? He was there to kill you, and I doubt he would have left your father or your ‘friend’ alive after the fact. They were witnesses. Collateral damage.”
I took a deep breath and tried to block out the memory of that helpless moment when Jesse had been unconscious, and my dad was tied up. Ryan was right: Dr. Stevens would have had to kill them to walk away. He’d tied my father up as leverage against me, but he could never have left any witnesses behind. “All right. I see what you’re saying. But know that they’re investigating it as a murder. You set everything up to take him down. It wasn’t as though you happened upon the crime.”
“I was almost too late,” Ryan said.
“True.”
“It’s too early for this. I’m going to take a shower, and then you and I need to come up with a plan.”
“A shower sounds nice.”
“You can take a shower later.”
“I already had one before you woke up.”
“Oh. Well, I’ll be back.” I grabbed my coffee and headed off to the bathroom, locking the door before I let the emotions that had been building overwhelm me. Nobody would see my tears in the shower.
Read No Stone Unturned
The Avery Rich Mysteries
Also by Sara Gauldin
The Corporeal Pull Trilogy
, Dressed to Kill
Dressed to Kill Page 21