her how stupid that line of Pollyanna thought was. Her old flame obviously knew the activity Mitch and Porter had been involved in had been illegal as hell.
But did he know what kind of illegal? And did he know it extended to Sean?
“All the guy who kidnapped me said,” Sarah offered in a level voice, “was that Mitch owed him money, and he was going to use me to force Mitch to hand the money over.”
Brett’s eyes narrowed and he frowned, his gaze even more suspicious.
“Why didn’t he sue? Why jump straight to kidnapping?” Brett shot back.
“I don’t know,” Sarah snapped. “He never said. Maybe he did sue and lost. Maybe he didn’t have time for a long drawn out lawsuit. Maybe kidnapping was his next best option. Here’s a thought,” she added sarcastically. “How about we hold a séance and ask him?
Brett scowled, and for a moment it looked like he was going to challenge her, but then he shook his head, ran a palm down his face, and stared at her with glittering, razor sharp eyes.
“You still haven’t explained why you took off.”
So, they were back to that. Sarah blew out a tired breath. “Not to meet up with Mitch.”
He studied her for a moment in silence before offering a simple, “Okay.”
She couldn’t tell from his face or his voice whether he believed her.
“Then why?”
“Why do you think?” He wasn’t going to let the subject go, not unless she came up with a convincing explanation. “Look, I’ve lived in the same house my entire life. My address is published in the phone book, along with dozens of places online. If someone wants to find me, they can simply type my name in Google and out spits my address.” She scowled, disgust rising as she realized that as excuses went, this was too damn close to the truth. “Heck, Google will even give them directions to my house—that’s how easy it is to find people these days. What if this Porter guy isn’t the only person Mitch owes money to? What if there are others out there willing to use me as leverage to force Mitch to pay up? I wasn’t safe at home. So I left.”
He greeted her argument with an absent nod, and for one moment she thought she’d pulled it off, managed to convince him.
And then he glanced around the motel room with an expression of disgust. “You left home to come here?”
The suspicion was back.
Damn. She rubbed at her forehead tiredly. The exhaustion dragging at her made it hard to think—even harder to deceive. But then she didn’t need to lie about this.
“I was going to drive further. Put some real distance between me and San Diego. But I’m exhausted. I almost fell asleep at the wheel. It was too dangerous to go any further, so I ended up here. In this palace of hourly rates.”
He cocked his head, apparently picking up on her tone. “Hourly rates?”
She scowled, the disgust rising hard and fast. “The desk clerk asked me how many hours I wanted the room for. Hours.”
His eyebrows rose. “As in working girl hours?”
“So I would assume.” She sighed, scrubbing a hand tiredly down her face. “What are you doing here, Brett? Why did you follow me?”
He ran a lean finger over his eyebrows and shrugged. “I assumed you were off to meet Mitch. We need to find him. Talk to him. His acquaintance with Porter Hayes has raised serious questions.”
She mentally snorted. The very neutrality with which he delivered that explanation told her clear as a bell that more than questions were at work. There were suspicions too. Her kidnapper’s identity had set Brett’s instincts off. Which meant it had probably set Lucas’s off as well, along with the rest of their teammates and the whole stinking police department. Were the cops looking for her too?
Just what had Porter Hayes’s identity uncovered?
It didn’t matter.
It didn’t change anything.
She still needed to get to Dark Falls. She still needed to find Sean. Nothing could interfere with that. “Now that you know I’m not running off to meet Mitch, you can go back home and get on with your life.”
She locked down a flinch at the thought of him walking out the door, and her life, again.
“Yeah…” he looked around the room again and shook his head before shooting her a get-real look. “That’s not going to happen.” He rolled his shoulders, tiredness suddenly touching his face. “Look it’s late. It’s been a long day and