In Seconds
- Автор: Новак Бренда
- Серия: Bulletproof #2
- Год: 2011
- Язык: французский
- Жанр: Остросюжетные любовные романы
Электронная книга - «In Seconds». Краткое содержание книги:
Laurel Hodges has changed her identity twice. She's been on the run for the past four years, trying to outdistance the gang members who blame her for the death of one of their own. She's finally found peace and stability in the small town of Pineview, Montana. But just when Laurel thinks she and her children are safe...the nightmare starts all over again.
The Crew, a ruthless prison gang with ties to Laurel's brother, will never forget and they'll never forgive. And now that they've finally tracked her down, they'll stop at nothing.
Sheriff Myles King, who happens to live next door with his thirteen-year-old daughter, appoints himself Laurel's personal guardian. His growing attraction to her could change his life—Myles is beginning to picture marriage and family. But it could also end his life. If he can't save her, everything he's built, everything he wants, could be destroyed. In seconds...
Rex pulled back to look into her face. “You haven’t said a word since you dropped the phone.”
The way she’d grabbed the pedestal in order to keep from sagging to the ground had told him something was wrong. He’d dashed out to catch her, hung up the handset and helped her back to the car. Then he’d brought her here, where there was no phone and no busy street, only green grass, green trees, gold and orange flowers and a wide blue sky.
“I don’t know what to say,” she said. “I don’t even know what to feel.” She was pretty sure there should be something besides emptiness inside her. What about sorrow? Regret? Relief? Vindication? She could justify any of them, and yet they weren’t there. A void filled her heart where the pain should be.
He removed her sunglasses and lifted her chin, forcing her to look him in the eyes. “Start with what you’re thinking.”
“Nothing.” She gave her head a quick shake. “I’m numb.”
“Come on, don’t shut down.” Setting his hands on her shoulders, he squeezed them for emphasis. “Talk. It’ll make this easier. You can trust me, remember?”
She could trust him to care about her, but she couldn’t trust him to take care of himself. And that meant she couldn’t risk loving him. And yet she did love him. Not like she used to. Not in a romantic sense. But as a good friend, someone who’d always be special.
Even that frightened her.
“Laurel?”
She had to get him to stop calling her that. “Vivian.”
“Fine. Vivian. You’re scaring me. You’re white as a ghost and I could feel your pulse a second ago. Your heart’s racing like a rabbit’s. Will you let me know what’s going on inside that pretty head of yours?”
She studied the crushed grass between them while she tried to isolate a single ingredient from the stew of her thoughts. She wanted to ask what Ellen’s death signified. But he wouldn’t know. Did it mean The Crew had paid Ellen a visit and she wouldn’t give up what she knew?
That possibility made Vivian wince. Had she misjudged her mother after all?
Or…had Ellen told as much as she could about Vivian’s calls?
The mere fact of her death didn’t provide the answer. The Crew could’ve killed her even if she cooperated.
“Hey!” He gave her shoulders another squeeze.
Talk. She needed to talk. “Who’s going to see to her burial?” she asked. “I can’t expect Virgil to do it.”
“You’re right. He can’t leave Peyton. Not while she’s so close to having the baby.”
It was more than that. Her brother was absolutely convinced that Ellen had conspired with Gary to murder Martin and let him take the blame for it. He wouldn’t attend Ellen’s funeral even if it was right across the street and there was no danger.
“So?” She reclaimed her sunglasses and put them on. They provided a shield of sorts—a small one, granted, but that was better than nothing.
“It’s a homicide, so there’ll be an autopsy,” he replied. “That may take several days, maybe a week or two.”
“She’s already been dead awhile. Who knows how long? Sonja Ivey was so upset she could hardly speak. She was too busy gasping and crying.” Images of the murdered marshal in Colorado loomed, but Vivian shoved them away.
“The police will get whatever information they can about the way she was killed. But my point is this—you don’t have to make every decision right this minute. Let’s deal with the shock first.”
The shock was exactly what she was attempting to overcome. She felt as if she’d been dumped into some kind of arctic wilderness. If she didn’t force herself to keep thinking, keep planning, keep moving, she’d freeze and be unable to do anything. “But I have to worry about her burial at some point, don’t I? Some point soon.”
She stepped out of reach. Being so close to him had once felt right, but not anymore. He’d been Laurel’s crutch, Laurel’s love, not Vivian’s. Vivian was too infatuated with the sheriff to be able to fall back into a relationship with Rex. Not that she could pursue what she felt for him, either. “At the very least, I have to tell the police who’s responsible for her death. I won’t let The Crew get away with this.”
The empty place inside her was filling up—with anger and outrage. It threatened to make her reckless because she was beginning to care less about her own safety and well-being than achieving justice.
Or maybe it wasn’t justice she wanted so much as revenge. Was she becoming less like ordinary people and more like the men who hunted her? It wouldn’t surprise her. They’d made her live in their world, made her look over her shoulder every second, for nearly four years.
“You might have to let the police handle the investigation on their own,” Rex said.
“No.”
He gripped her elbow. “Look, I know what you’re feeling. I feel the same. But it’s a war we can’t win.”
She knocked his hand away. “We won’t win if we don’t fight.”
“Don’t you think Virgil and I have considered that? We have. Lots of times. But there are too many of them. We could pick off one or two, maybe even three or four. But we can’t get to the most powerful members. They’ll just keep sending more foot soldiers until we screw up or get too tired to run. Then they’ll get us.”
She didn’t want to hear that. As logical as it was, it pushed her into a corner. “Maybe that’s a chance we have to take. Maybe we have to risk our lives to make our lives worth living.”
“That sounds fine and good for us,” he responded. “I’m willing to take that risk. But what about Jake and Mia? And Virgil’s kids?”
“That’s exactly what The Crew’s counting on, that we’ll offer no resistance, play it safe.”
“Or, by killing your mother, they could be trying to coax you out of hiding. Which is why you can’t contact anyone, least of all the LAPD.”
She threw up her hands. “Oh, come on. The Crew can’t have moles everywhere.”
“They can in L.A.! That’s their home turf.”
She couldn’t even go to her mother’s funeral? “Then who’ll bury her?”
“Natalie.”
Ellen’s sister. “You think she’d bother to interrupt her life, to put herself out for us?” Natalie lived in Texas with her husband, who’d been in the air force for most of his career. She’d been very careful to keep her distance, didn’t want the taint of what had happened to ruin her life, too.
“If there’s no one else,” he said. “She remained loyal to Ellen throughout it all, right?”
Natalie believed that Gary had killed Martin as a favor to Ellen, but that Ellen had no foreknowledge of it. According to her, Gary only implicated Ellen because Ellen didn’t give him more of the money, and his ex supported this theory, which was another reason Ellen had never been charged. But letting Natalie take over the funeral arrangements meant conceding yet another battle to The Crew. “She was my mother. That makes her funeral my responsibility.”
He raked a hand through his hair, which was longer than she’d ever seen him wear it, longer than hers. “Doesn’t matter. You can’t go back to L.A. The Crew could be watching and waiting for you to do just that.”
Or they could be here in Montana. That was the problem. She didn’t know.
“I’ve…had it,” she said. “I don’t know how else to explain what’s going on with me.”
He sat on the edge of the closest picnic table. “You don’t have any other choice, Laurel—Vivian,” he corrected before she could protest. “You have to do what you have to do in order to survive.”