Buried in Secrets (Carly Moore #4) - Denise Grover Swank Page 0,52
backtrack the conversation, and make a graceful exit. Try to leave the sources happy and open to talking to you again.”
I nodded. “Okay.” But anxiety was oozing out of my pores. I didn’t feel qualified to do this. I’d already messed up with Ashlynn.
“Hey,” he said softly, patting the concrete bench next to him. “Come here.”
I walked around the table and sat next to him, resting my head on his chest when he wrapped an arm around my back.
After a few moments, he said, “You don’t have to do this, Carly.”
I lifted my head to look up at him.
“You don’t have to do any of this. I’m not stuck in Drum. I can leave. We could go somewhere else. Start fresh.”
“But what about the sheriff’s department? You’re working on becoming a detective.”
“I only became a deputy sheriff to help out Max,” he said. “My degree’s in communications. I can change jobs.”
I held his gaze. “You’re not the running type, Marco Roland. You stare danger in the face and don’t flinch.”
“There are different kinds of danger, Carly. Starin’ down a rogue deputy is different than starin’ down a man who aims to hurt you usin’ underhanded methods.”
My mouth twisted into a wry smile. “Only with Paul Conrad, you got both.” That man had been corrupt in every sense of the word.
“Bart Drummond’s a lot sneakier than Conrad ever thought about bein’.” He hesitated, then said, “I’d love to see Bart get his comeuppance, but I’m not sure it’s worth riskin’ your life over.”
I turned to face him more. “What are you talking about? We both knew this was the plan. Hell, he’s threatened to turn in information on Hank, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was real evidence and not concocted.”
He cocked his head, his eyes boring into mine. “If it’s real, what if Hank deserves to be in prison? What if he killed someone? Or multiple someones. You can’t get as high as he did in the drug game and get away with squeaky clean hands.”
I broke the stare. “Trust me, thinking about his past has kept me awake more than a night or two, but if he deserves to be in jail, let someone other than Bart put him there. Besides, the plan was to use Bart for practice. My father is the main goal.”
“So let’s forget Bart and go straight to the FBI.”
I groaned. “We’ve discussed this already, Marco. Multiple times. My friend in Arkansas told me the FBI won’t protect me. I don’t have any evidence they can use to prosecute him. They’d just send me back to him, probably with a wire, hoping he’d share incriminating information. But he wouldn’t. He’s never trusted me, and he certainly isn’t about to start after a year-long disappearance. He’d have me killed, and then he’d pay for someone to falsify evidence that I’d married Jake first. I’d rather live in hiding.”
His eyes widened at my mention of Arkansas. Without my friends there, I never would have been able to come here. They’d had their own close brushes with my father’s illegal organization, which was moving into their town like a cancer. They’d given me this second life as Carly Moore so I could stay on the run. Still, we’d hashed out the other options before I left. The FBI had been one of them. I’d only spoken to Marco about my time in Henryetta, Arkansas twice, so I understood his surprise that I was mentioning it now.
“If you have to run again,” he said cautiously, “I want to go with you, but we need a plan.”
He was talking about throwing his life away again. For me. I couldn’t handle the guilt. What was I giving him in return? Myself? It didn’t seem like enough, and I wasn’t even sure I could bring myself to do that all the way.
“We can talk about a plan to run later,” I said, getting to my feet again. “I have work to do.”
Chapter Fifteen
I’d only eaten half of my lunch, but my appetite was gone. Still, I felt bad that I wasn’t making the most of the surprise Marco had prepared for me. I mentioned it to him as I cleaned up my trash.
“Hey,” he said. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll go back again sometime after this mess has been cleared up.”
I grinned. “I like that enthusiasm. We’ll plan on a celebratory lunch.”
“It’s a deal.”
We threw our trash away and Marco walked me to my car.