Total pages in book: 160
Estimated words: 149137 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 746(@200wpm)___ 597(@250wpm)___ 497(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 149137 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 746(@200wpm)___ 597(@250wpm)___ 497(@300wpm)
“I thought it was quite inventive.” He didn’t look at her, keeping his eyes on the road. “I did not put that into my report. Does he really do stuff to your feet?”
Finally she gets a dude who wants to talk and she was too mad at him to do it. Life sucked. And damn it, she wasn’t mad at Riley. She was mad a Josh. He was hiding something, probably something terrible. “What’s he doing out here, Riley?”
“I think he’s making a dead drop.”
Shit. Her stomach threatened to plummet. “To the Commander?”
“I don’t think so, but I can’t be sure. He’s involved in something nasty. The woman he talked to, she implied that this has been going on for a long time. Levi thinks this has something to do with his ties to the drug dealer, but I think it’s pure blackmail.”
That didn’t mean this wasn’t about the Commander and what Josh knew about him. It could be he was being blackmailed because of those ties. “It was a woman?”
“Yes, though she was using voice alteration. I still think the voice was female. She threatened you, Kay. Josh got extremely upset about that. You should know how he talks about you when you’re not around.”
“Hit me.” It would be good to know.
“He talks about you like you’re the sun in the sky. Like he didn’t understand what sunshine was until you walked in. When his publicist told him you might think about getting a little lift in the chest area…well, there’s a reason he’s getting a new publicist.”
Her heart softened. “He didn’t mention that to me.”
“But he’s volatile. He’s a powder keg waiting to go off, and I’m worried you’re going to be too close when he explodes. I know you’re capable of handling yourself, but it’s different when you care about the person. Emotions get in the way and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
“What am I supposed to do? Pretend I don’t care about him? I can do that around Levi, but I can’t around you guys. You’re my team and you have to know everything. I do care about Josh.”
Riley nodded. “Just remember that when the shit hits the fan, and it will. Remember that you’re compromised when it comes to him and you might want to listen to people you trust. Or follow your instincts. Here’s our turnoff. Reach in the back and grab the boots I brought for you.”
She reached around. “Hiking boots?”
“You can’t go running all over Solstice Canyon in those heels. I swear I breathed a massive sigh of relief when you walked in wearing jeans. Tuck them into the socks I brought along. There are lots of snakes where we’re going.”
“Snakes?” The socks were super thick and long. She pulled them up over her jeans. “I hate snakes.”
“Yeah, I don’t think they like us much either, Dr. Jones,” Riley said with a sigh. “But I’ll be happy if snakes are the only predators we have to deal with tonight.”
* * * *
Josh turned the Ducati into the parking lot, lights off because despite what he’d told his blackmailer about night hiking, there wasn’t a lot of activity here in Solstice Canyon. Those adventurous hikers would be looking for city views.
What they would get out here would be a whole lot of nocturnal predators and potential places where a hiker could fall to his very adventurous death.
Of course, that was likely her point. She enjoyed forcing him into nasty situations. Once he had to make the drop in the middle of a tent village in Skid Row. He’d been given specific instructions for that one. He was to leave his vehicle at the outer edges of the “city,” parking it close to the mural proclaiming the city limits and population—Too Many. He had to walk the streets at midnight.
He was sure she’d watched him from some high ground, playing the god who liked to teach the piddling human a lesson.
He’d ghosted in and out of that place without ever bumping into one of the desperate, sometimes violent residents. Did she think he didn’t remember how to go unnoticed? He’d had a lifetime of disappearing into the shadows. Sometimes his life had depended on how well he could hide. Those lessons from his childhood had never left him.
But fuck he hated snakes.
She might have finally found something that really freaked him out. He could handle the dark, deal with being alone and vulnerable and watched. This was something different.
He parked the bike at the far edge of the lot and thanked the universe for Jared’s choice of the color black. The bike blended in well and unless someone was looking for it, would likely go unnoticed. He left the helmet on the seat and checked that the laces on the shit kickers he was wearing were well tied. Not his normal loafers, but they were made of thick leather and he could move in them. Leather gloves on his hands and a leather jacket and jeans completed his look for the evening. He liked to call it “dude who didn’t want to get bitten by snakes or covered in poison ivy.”