One Last Breath by Lisa Jackson (4)

Chapter 4

At the mention of the word “husband” he thought she flinched the tiniest of bits. “No one by any of those names works here.” Connie was shaking her head.

“But this woman.” Liam held up the screen on his phone. “Who is she?”

“I don’t give out the names of my staff or my customers to anyone.” Connie was quickly losing patience, a tic near the corner of her eye visible despite her glasses.

“You own this place?”

“That’s right. And there are privacy laws that I’m not going to break, so I think we’re done here.” She handed him his bill. “You can pay at the register.” Then she turned and marched off, heading toward the counter and the kitchen beyond. No doubt to contact her employee—the woman in the photo on his phone—and warn her off.

He would have to move fast.

He’d overplayed his hand.

No surprise there, he thought as he scraped back his chair, tossed enough cash on the table to cover his meal and a healthy tip, then made his way out of the cozy little diner with its dark secrets.

At his SUV, he took off his jacket and tossed it into the back seat, then climbed behind the wheel where the interior was warming as the sun had peeked through the clouds, summer appearing after a cool morning.

He wasn’t cut out for espionage, or chasing down women who had spurned him, even if he’d made the mistake of marrying this particular one.

Switching on the ignition, he heard the big engine of his Tahoe roar to life. For a split second he considered leaving this little town, driving back to the mainland and picking up the life he’d left to take off on this last-ditch effort to find his wife.

She was alive.

He knew it.

The picture didn’t lie.

And the coffee shop’s owner’s attitude only fueled his suspicions that he was zeroing in on Rory. She couldn’t be far. There wasn’t anywhere to run.

If her MO hadn’t changed over the years, and she found out from good old Connie that he was here, in Point Roberts, searching for her, Rory’s first instinct would be to run. If so, she’d have to take a boat, plane, bus, or car. And he was betting on the car. It would be the easiest and quickest way to bolt. A private vehicle would be able to take her somewhere even more remote than Point Roberts and wouldn’t require tickets or schedules.

Gravel crunched beneath his tires as he drove out of the lot, away from a wreck of a vehicle that seemed destined to die behind the kitchen of the Point Bob Buzz. One last look over his shoulder confirmed what he already suspected. He caught a glimpse through the window of Connie with a cell phone in her hand.

Would Rory return to pick up her final check?

Liam doubted it. If it turned out to be truly Rory in the picture, and she knew he was here, she’d run. He’d learned by experience: it was what she did.

Frustrated, he pulled into the parking lot of a minimart, yanked his cell phone from his pocket, and punched in the numbers of the private investigator who had brought him this far. Jacoby answered on the second ring and Liam, the engine of his Tahoe idling, said, “I need information on the employees of the Point Bob Buzz.”

“You struck out?”

“She wasn’t there.”

“Christ, Bastian. Don’t tell me you just bullied your way inside and she bolted.”

“Something like that.”

“What did I tell you? You need to dance the dance.”

“I just need the information. Fast.”

“Figured.” Was there a touch of a smirk in the heavyset man’s voice? “I figured you just might blow it. That’s the problem with you rich folks. Impatience. No finesse.”

“So, what have you got?” Liam asked curtly.

With a snort that could have meant anything, Jacoby got down to business. “Three women currently work in the Point Bob Buzz,” he said. “Connie Fellows, the owner.”

“We’ve met. Not her.”

“Joanna Travers, from Vancouver. But she’s not your girl. It’s the third one,” he said, obviously enjoying the suspense. “Heather Johnson. I just got a copy of her driver’s license. I’ll send it along. She’s the one.”

“You have an address for her?”

“On the license. Unless she’s moved: 107 Looking Glass Lane.”

Repeating the address, he was already plugging the information into his GPS, waiting for the route to appear on the map of Point Roberts that showed his position on its screen.

He felt a sizzle of adrenaline flowing through his blood at the thought that finally, after five years, he’d see her again. Then, maybe, he could get some answers and get the hell on with his life.

The route appeared and he rammed his truck into gear and checked his mirrors as Jacoby said, “There is one other thing.”

“Yeah?” He pulled into a side street and waited at a stop sign. “What’s that?”

“She doesn’t live alone.”

“No?”

A husband. Or boyfriend. Another complication. He should have figured.

“She’s got a kid, Liam. A daughter.”

* * *

“Slow down, slow down,” The Magician said from the other end of the wireless connection. “I can’t understand you. You’re talking too damned fast.”

“But I have to tell you—” Heather started to argue.

“I’m serious. Okay? Just take a deep breath and start over. From the beginning.” Uncle Kent was serious, and though Heather’s heart was still jackhammering in panic, she did as she was told, drawing deeply of the fresh air, forcing a wave of calmness to wash over her.

The Magician continued, “All I got out of it was that you think Liam’s in Point Roberts and you’re worried about Charlotte.”

Heather nodded, though he couldn’t see her. She watched a robin hop through the grass of the backyard, searching for worms, while her heart seemed to be exploding in her chest.

“I saw him. Liam. At the Buzz this morning,” she said after taking another prescribed deep breath. “I’m pretty sure of it and . . . yes, Charlotte isn’t herself.” She went on to describe the events of the morning, how she’d been certain Liam had found her, how she’d hidden out in the restroom before barreling to the preschool, gathering up her sick child, and landing back home.

“You’re certain that it was Liam?”

“Yes . . . yes . . .” she insisted, then bit at a fingernail, her temporary sense of equanimity oozing away. “Look, I’m not a hundred percent sure. But . . . it sure looked like him through the screen and it sounded like him and—”

“So you only saw him on a screen?”

“While I was taking his order, but it was him.”

There was hesitation.

She barreled on. “I know this is kind of crazy, y’know, after all this time and . . . but . . . wait.” She heard a ding indicating that a text was coming in. The message was from Connie. “Hold on a sec,” she said into the phone, then switched to the text screen. “Oh, no,” she whispered as she saw that Connie had sent two pictures. One was of a black SUV with Oregon plates, parked close to Connie’s uncle’s wreck of a truck, and another was of Liam, sitting at a table in the dining room of the Buzz.

Her worst fears had come true.

“Heather?” The Magician said when the silence had stretched.

“I-I’m here,” she said shakily, her brain on overdrive, her fears mounting. “The text. It was pictures. Of Liam.”

“What?”

“He’s here.” Oh, God, oh, God. “He’s here, Kent. In Point Roberts.” The panic that she’d tried to keep a rein on had burst free.

“You’re sure?”

Another ping of the phone and she clicked to read the message, again from Connie. As she scanned the quick note, she said, “It’s definitely Liam and he was at the Buzz. Asking about me. Look, Kent, I’ve got to get out of here.” Her mind was already scrambling, wondering how she would leave with the O’Briens still out of town, not due back for another day. She’d promised she would watch over the place and Mr. Bones, the black cat currently sliding through the leafy branches of the shrubbery planted near the fence line.

“Let me think,” he said. “Just because he’s at the Buzz doesn’t mean—”

“What’s to think about? Didn’t you hear what I said? He’s here. Looking for me. He already knows my place of work, so he probably knows my name and where I live and Charlotte . . . oh, Lord, what about Charlotte?”

Her baby. The reason she ran in the first place. Someone at that wedding had been out to kill her and Liam and the baby and... “I’m coming to Maude’s,” she said. “Are you there? I mean, not still on the connection, but are you at Maude’s house?” Maude Sutter was The Magician’s girlfriend and had been for as long as Heather could remember. She lived in Vancouver, a few miles north in Canada, and was the reason that Heather had ended up here in the first place. It was through Maude’s connections that Heather had found this home and her job at the Buzz.

“Yes, I’m here.”

“I’ll be there in . . . an hour or two, depending on how long it takes to close things up here, traffic and the border crossing.” She was already mentally sweeping these few rooms, making a mental list of everything she would need to get out of town and leave little indication that she, or at least Rory Bastian, had ever set foot here.

“Okay. We’ll strategize then.”

“We’d better do more than that,” she said and clicked off.

She fought down the welling panic that threatened to paralyze her. Liam probably knew her name? What about her address? That he had a daughter? Her heart squeezed. How had he found her? How? Had he been looking all this time? What about the police?

“Stop it!” she cried and sprang out of her chair, nearly toppling over the remains of her iced tea as she hit the table. Picking up the glass, she spun around to see Charlotte standing in the open doorway, her favorite blanket dangling from her fingers, her one-eyed stuffed bunny with the lopping ears tucked under her arm.

“What’s wrong, Mama?” she asked, four-year-old eyes worried, dark smudges beneath them.

“Uh. Nothing. I, er, I was talking to Uncle Kent. We’re going to visit him and Aunt Maude.”

“We are?”

“Yep. Right now. We just have to feed Mr. Bones and make sure he has plenty of water.”

“He drinks from the fountain.”

“I know. But we’ll fill his dish anyway.”

The O’Briens had one of those feeders that was a dish attached to a dispenser that could hold a week’s worth of food. The water dish was similar, so Mr. Bones would be good for at least a week and he did hang out at the fountain, mainly in hopes of pouncing on an unsuspecting bird.

“Come on,” Heather said briskly. “Let’s pack up. You can help.”

“After we feed Mr. Bones?”

“Exactly,” Heather said cheerily, though she was frantic. At least Charlotte was awake and, it seemed, not as listless as she had been.

“So, once we take care of the kitty, let’s pack up, okay?” Heather leaned down to be able to look her daughter in the eye. “It’s a game. The faster, the better. Grab all your favorite toys, and blanket. Ready?” Charlotte was staring at her intently with eyes so like her father’s that Heather’s heart twisted. “Okay. One, two, three . . . go!”

* * *

Liam parked across the street of the small house with its paned windows and flower boxes, a river-rock chimney beginning to crumble near the top of the smokestack, the door painted a bright red. The tidy little home was off the street, tucked between larger homes and a hedge, in this part of town that wasn’t far from the waterfront.

An older model car was parked near the front door.

He drew a breath. Couldn’t believe he was here. Couldn’t believe he might see Rory again. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Not really. And he wasn’t certain he wanted to examine his feelings too deeply, dig into his own psyche, pull out his emotions and lay them out on the ground to be trampled down.

He was mad at Rory. Seething and infuriated about what had happened at the wedding. Somehow she was involved. Not completely. He’d never believed that. But somehow . . . someway. Coincidences like her disappearance and the shoot-out at the wedding didn’t happen independently. He’d said as much to Derek, who’d shrugged and answered, “Hey, her family’s fucked up. A bunch of criminals.”

“Her stepfamily,” Liam had reminded him.

“Her mother’s as screwed up as the rest of them. Psychic ability, my ass. How come she didn’t see that attack if she’s so in tune with the universe?”

Darlene, Rory’s mother, had tearfully come to the hospital, clinging to Liam’s arm before and after surgery. Vivian had screamed at her, “Let go of my brother and get out.” Stella and Derek had been dealing with his father’s injuries and hadn’t paid too much attention to Darlene, who’d begun keening in some indistinguishable tongue at one point, which had at first infuriated Vivian and then had struck her as funny. She’d doubled over in fits of hilarity, choking in air, she was laughing so hard. Stella had come in and looked as if she was going to give her a hard slap to bring her back, but Liam had yelled at her to leave her alone.

The wailing had slowly stopped and Darlene had come out of her trance to blink at Liam a few times, saying, “Aurora’s safe now. I don’t know where she is. We’re not supposed to. But she’s safe and she sends her love.”

“Bullshit!” Vivian exploded, jumping forward, so Liam yelled at her and Stella grabbed her arm, yanking her back.

Darlene left a few moments later, but Vivian sicced the police on her, saying she knew where her daughter was. Apparently that wasn’t true because Darlene passed every lie detector test, as did Everett Stemple, who swore he had nothing to do with the attack. Even Harold Stemple took the test. In fact he had insisted on it, to make sure somebody didn’t “try to falsely pin another crime on him.”

Jacoby suspected that Darlene did not know where her daughter was all these years. That wasn’t the way he’d found Rory, though he’d been less than forthcoming about what his methods were. “You don’t want to know, and I don’t want you to know, in case people want to ask too many questions, you understand?” he’d finally told Liam.

Liam had nodded. He understood that too much scrutiny might bring up something no one wanted: a complaint about Jacoby’s methodology. A question about why Liam hadn’t immediately told the police. The hammer of the law down upon Rory’s head before Liam had time to get at the truth.

And so now, here he was. In front of the place where she lived. Where she’d taken refuge. The sanctuary to which she’d escaped. The notion that she’d somehow found a better life, left him standing at the altar because she’d hooked up with someone who had offered her more, had been way off base. The waitress job at the Buzz was a fair indication that she wasn’t exactly rolling in riches, and now this neat but tiny home.

That idea still rankled but he reminded himself that she ran because she knew about the attack. Hadn’t there been blood in the hotel room where she’d dressed in her wedding dress, the very lace-and-silk gown that had also been stained in splotchy dark stains?

The blood had been analyzed and hadn’t been Rory’s. The reports had proved the blood to be from a male. An unknown male. Probably the assailant who had opened fire on the ceremony, a murdering bastard who was still at large.

Her accomplice?

No. It still didn’t make any sense that she was complicit in the murder. If she’d wanted out of the marriage, he’d have divorced her. There was no need for the violence of the attack, the sheer terror rained upon the group of guests. There had to be another motive, one he didn’t understand, but one, he suspected, she understood. Somehow she’d been tipped off to the attack and had run. So who was behind it? How did she know the assailant? Why, why, why?

He rubbed his leg where the bullet had entered. He still bore a scar, of course, and felt pain at times where the muscle had torn and the bone had shattered. A series of surgeries involving pins and bone grafts had given him the ability to walk, but it had taken nearly a year for his strength and endurance to return. He’d been lucky the bullet to his gut hadn’t hit his spine. It had passed through, nicking his intestines, but had done far less damage than anyone expected. A miracle, his mother had pronounced in tears. Everyone told him how lucky he was.

He didn’t feel lucky.

He’d hate to count how many hours of physical therapy, miles on a stationary bike, and steps on a treadmill he’d logged while recovering. With each effort, while sweating bullets and fighting through the lingering pain, Liam had silently vowed to find Rory and bring her to justice. One way or another he was going to clear up the mystery of the attack on the wedding party.

Of course Bethany had been at his side throughout. He’d woken up to her worried face in the hospital. Her eyes had filled with tears when he’d focused on her. “Thank God,” she’d whispered, and grabbed his hand, then turned to avoid letting him see the tears drizzle down her cheek. When she’d faced him again, she was all brave smiles, and gave him words of encouragement. “Don’t scare me like that,” she’d scolded as she’d leaned down to kiss him. Then the doctor had come into the room and she’d been ushered out of the ICU only to return later in the afternoon. She’d resented everyone else surrounding him, especially Darlene, and she missed the scene between Darlene and Vivian, but she was his most steadfast companion. Slowly, day by day, as he’d recovered and been released to a private hospital in Portland, then a rehabilitation center and finally to his condominium, she’d been rock steady. Liam had recently asked about the boyfriend who had been her plus-one at the wedding, to which she’d just shrugged. “He was just a date,” she said.

Liam had been standing at the floor-to-ceiling windows that looked over the Willamette River. As he leaned on his crutches, he could see Bethany’s ghostlike reflection in the glass and her wistful smile. “You’re still married to her, you know,” she’d said, never speaking Rory’s name.

“I know.”

“What’re you going to do about it?”

“Go back to work.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about.”

“I know,” he said again and caught a tightening of her jaw in the reflection as her mouth bowed into a sad frown. “I haven’t decided yet. It’s only been three months.”

She’d wanted to argue, he’d seen it in the image of her eyes, but she’d just slipped her hand over his as it rested on the handhold of the crutches, and when he’d rotated his head to meet her eyes, she’d managed a bright smile. “Just don’t take too long,” she’d said lightly. “You could lose me.”

But he hadn’t. Not in five years.

Training his gaze on the cottage, he climbed out of the SUV and headed for the front door. As he passed the Honda he noticed a child’s car seat strapped into the back. Just as the private investigator had said. He felt a pang of regret. A kid complicated things. Big-time. What would happen to the child if the police were called in?

And Rory had answers. If not all, then some.

“Showtime,” he muttered under his breath and was surprised that he didn’t feel an immediate sense of satisfaction, that after all these years there was little triumph in knowing he’d finally run her to the ground. Well, too bad. Pocketing his keys, he jogged across the empty street and up a broken concrete path to the front door. He pounded on the door, heard a child crying and a sharp, “Hush,” before the door was swung open and a woman of no more than twenty, with a girl of two balanced on one hip, stood on the threshold. She shaded her eyes with one hand. “Can I help you?” she asked, squinting. The little girl with brown hair that looked as if it had been combed with a Mixmaster stared suspiciously at him.

“I’m looking for Rory, no, Heather Johnson.”

“Well, make up your mind.” Her voice was tinny and her expression perturbed.

“Does she live here?”

“Nuh-uh.” She was shaking her head and heavy footsteps approached. From the interior, a burly man of about twenty-five, tattoos running up both meaty arms, appeared. A beard covered the lower half of his face, a baseball cap was pulled low on his forehead, and his eyes, beneath the bill, cut like lasers as he stared at Liam.

“Somethin’ I can help you with?” he asked.

“He says he’s lookin’ for a woman,” the woman clarified. “Heather somethin’ or other.”

Liam said, “Johnson.”

The guy frowned. “What you want with her?”

“Old friends.”

The trio in the doorway didn’t say a word.

“I heard she lived here.”

“Where you hear that?” the man asked as he stepped in front of his small family protectively, wedging his heavy body between Liam and his wife.

“Mutual friend.”

“Well, the friend got it wrong. Ain’t no one here but us. Me and my family.”

“How long have you been here?” Liam asked.

“Not quite two years,” the woman said. “Right before Emmy here was born.”

“Who the hell are you?” the man demanded.

“Liam Bastian.”

“If you’re so friendly with this Heather person, why don’t you know where she lives? Huh? Why don’t you, y’know, tweet her or somethin’? Whoever gave you this address sent you barkin’ up the wrong tree. Me and Mona here, like she said, we been here nearly two years and we don’t know nothin’ about Heather anybody.”

The man was adamant. He crossed his arms and waited. Obviously expecting Liam to take the very broad hint to leave.

“Well, maybe she lived here before you moved in.”

“I said I didn’t know her, didn’t I?” The man was insistent. Liam saw Mona’s mouth open as if to disagree, but she closed it again quickly. This was a small town. Everyone probably knew everyone. “Mona, here, she never met whoever lived here before us, neither.”

Next to him, Mona lifted her chin a bit and her eyes flashed with resentment.

Liam said, “Heather works at the Point Bob Buzz.”

Almost imperceptibly Mona nodded and again caught herself, looking away quickly and pushing some of her child’s wild hair from her face.

“Then maybe you should check with Connie. She owns the place. She can probably send you to the right address,” he said.

This guy wasn’t about to budge. His jaw was set, his feet planted, his lips thin. And he was lying through his not-so-straight teeth.

Liam wasn’t going to get anywhere with him or the wife, Mona, as long as he was around. “Thanks for your time,” he said and walked away. From the corner of his eye he saw Mona punch the guy in the arm, not hard, but enough to have him swivel his gaze so she could get his attention and, it seemed, chew him out.

Liam filed that bit of information and he punched the number of his PI into his phone and drove to the place that he’d rented. As was usually the case, he had to leave a message, which was simply, “Call me.” Obviously Rory, now Heather, had moved since obtaining her driver’s license, but it should be a simple matter for Jacoby to find her new address. Hell, she could’ve moved several times since residing on Looking Glass, keeping herself under the radar.

Which she might never return to, now that she was warned off. He thought about calling the police as he pulled into the gravel parking area and stopped near the cedar-shingled cottage tucked into the woods. He locked his car and took the stairs to the porch that skirted the building that was little more than one of those fashionable “tiny houses.” As he was stepping into the living area his cell phone rang. The caller ID was Jacoby’s cell number. Liam dropped his keys on the small kitchen counter and answered. “The address was wrong.”

“What?”

“The Looking Glass address on Heather Johnson’s driver’s license? Bogus. If she ever lived there, she split. The couple who greeted me at the door had been there nearly two years.”

“Huh.”

Liam leaned a hip against a wooden counter with a minuscule sink and half refrigerator tucked beneath it. A microwave was cut into the back wall beneath a flight of stairs leading to the bedroom loft.

“I’ll dig a little deeper,” Jacoby decided.

“Do that.” Liam hung up and tamped his rising temper down. All wasn’t lost. Yet. He noticed a few calls that had come in, three from the foreman he’d left on the apartment construction job. He called the foreman back and was relieved to learn the problem was with the city and the permits instead of more vandalism, a small glitch that was already being taken care of since the foreman had made the calls.

Thank God for small favors.

He put in a call to Derek, too, who thought he was on a business trip to Vancouver, looking for Canadian investors. Derek never had much interest in the Bastian-Flavel Construction deal-making, though his father was a far different story. Geoff Bastian had been a little harder to fob off, but Liam was bound and determined not to let anyone in his family know what he was doing. Bethany had to know the truth, since he’d blown off the Napa trip, but she was as interested as he was in keeping the nature of his trip under wraps. She wanted him to just take care of it. No muss, no fuss. She, too, had left several messages on his phone, but he wasn’t ready to call her back yet.

So where was Rory?

Still in Point Roberts? Hiding out in this small town, right under his nose?

Or had she already taken off? Afraid of confronting him? Scared that her neat little life was about to unravel?

Well, he wasn’t giving up. Not yet. He’d come too far. He planned on finding her, contacting the authorities so that she could be interrogated if not arrested, and if nothing else, demand the divorce he so desperately needed.

His jaw tightened as it always did when he thought of Rory, his marriage, her disappearance, and the dissolution of their short union.

He decided his mother had been right. Stella had warned him not to get involved with Rory when she’d first learned of the seriousness of their romance. “Nothing good will come of it,” she’d said on a sigh as she’d climbed out of the heated pool. She’d toweled off, her body trim and tanned in a sleek navy one-piece, and Liam noticed that surprisingly not one strand of her short hair had gotten wet while she’d stroked through her ten laps. “I’m sorry, Liam,” she’d added, dabbing at her face before dropping the towel onto a striped chaise longue flanked by huge pots of geraniums and some cascading white flower he couldn’t name. “But it’s just the way it is when people of different . . . stations . . . get involved romantically.” She’d shrugged. “There’s just too much inequity.”

His father clarified, “Your mother thinks Rory is a gold digger.” Shirt sleeves pushed up, Geoff Bastian had been seated at an outside table in the shade of the porch, newspapers spread in front of him, a sweating glass of scotch anchoring one corner of the business section.

This was hardly news to Liam, but Stella felt compelled to defend herself. “Not exactly,” she said, sending her husband a sharp glare. She turned to her son. “I’m just saying you’re setting yourself up for heartache, honey. That’s all.”

Over the tops of his reading glasses, Geoff had raised his eyebrows while mouthing, “Gold digger.”

“I heard that,” Stella said as she walked behind her husband and through the open French doors to the family room.

“I don’t know how she does that,” his father had grumbled, picking up his newspaper and snapping it open.

Liam didn’t either, but Stella Bastian had always made it her business to know exactly what all the members of her family were doing at any given time. It was uncanny and a gift. And it bugged the hell out of Liam. His mother should just butt out.

And yet, hadn’t some of her predictions come true? Hadn’t she been nearly apoplectic at hearing the news he and Rory had gotten married in a civil ceremony, without his family’s blessing? Hadn’t she said, “Marriage is about commitment, Liam, not lust, for the love of God. You two have barely known each other a month, and now you’re married? I can’t believe it.” At that point she’d nearly swooned into her favorite wingback chair positioned near the fireplace in the family room. “This . . . this . . .” She’d waved a long-fingered hand in the air as she searched for the right word. “. . . this foolish mistake needs to be undone.”

Rory, standing next to Liam, her hand in his, had glanced up at him with the I told you so look in her eyes that had bored into his soul. She’d warned him this utter dismay would be his parents’ reaction. Meanwhile, her larcenous family had insisted that the Bastians would receive the news of the union with the same warmth the Montagues had felt upon hearing that Romeo had married a Capulet. And they’d been so, so right. At the time, Liam had waved off Rory’s concerns with a blithe, “My folks will come around.”

Rory hadn’t been convinced, even bringing up the obvious fact that Stella had wanted Bethany Van Horne, a beautiful and socially acceptable choice for a daughter-in-law. Liam had laughed off her worries and told her he was going to marry who he chose and he’d chosen Aurora Abernathy, for better or worse.

He’d never anticipated that the worst could be a rifle assault on the wedding, a horrifying murder and a missing bride.

The irony was that now he was, indeed, planning to marry Bethany, the girl of his mother’s dreams. Which was a good thing. He just needed to find Rory, serve her with divorce papers, meet her face to face and get some answers.

His phone chirped again.

A message from Jacoby.

With an address in Point Roberts.

Not ten minutes away.

Liam felt his resolve harden as he headed for the door.

Jacoby wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.