let it happen again.”
“It seems to me you won’t need me to confront him,” I say, more than relieved at the thought.
Noah looks at Abel and heads toward the front door, his cell already in his hand. “I’ll find a judge who’ll sign this warrant and—” The front door shuts behind him, and I am left to look at Abel with raised eyebrows.
“We’ll leave the confrontation on the table. We need to see what happens first. Judges are fickle creatures sometimes.”
So are agents, it seems.
I nod, all the while biting my tongue to keep from pointing out that Ryker’s phone numbers can’t be found anywhere on that month-long call log. It’s nowhere.
But I don’t.
And just as if fate is giving me a different way to prove his innocence and eradicate all doubt I should feel guilty for even thinking, I point to the stack of papers. “Let me see those again.”
The smirk on Abel’s face says so much more than any words can. He’s a hunter, and his prey is so close within reach he can smell him.
But I’m about to remove one less person for him to go after.
I thumb through the papers again. I look past the sticker shock of the cover sheets that show the return address, my name, the balance due . . . and look at the pages after. The payments applied. The interest charged.
“There,” I all but shout when I see the date of the balance payoff.
“What?” He fights the smile on his lips, his tone feigning innocence.
“You knew all along, didn’t you? You knew these balances were settled before you guys even approached me. That Ryker didn’t pay me off to keep me quiet.” I sit down in the chair. “Son of a bitch!”
His laugh rings out through the house. I wasn’t sure he was even capable of having one. “We all have to play games sometimes to get what we want.”
I stare at him, blinking, slack-jawed. “So he’s in the clear?”
Abel twists his lips as he weighs how much to tell me. “Not exactly. But that’s a start.”
Two hours later—after we’ve gone through everything I have, including my own phone records showing calls from that same number of Carter’s, saved voice mails recorded from one of his burner cell numbers—I’m finally all alone in my house.
By then, the desire I have to chew Ryker out has dissipated.
It’s still there all right . . . but it’s being stifled by some major exhaustion and the elation that I just might have gotten myself out of being bait for the FBI to use to lure Carter Preston.
I refuse to be collateral damage.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Ryker
“Where are you?” I jolt at the sound of her voice. Guilt springs up at being here without her knowing.
“I’m out of town. A quick business trip. Why? Are you okay? Do you—”
“We need to talk when you get back.” The high of hearing her voice crashes down when she says the words every man dreads being told.
Especially after the odd week between us that sewed doubts into every part of me, no matter how hard I wanted to grab her shoulders, shake her, and beg her to tell me what was wrong so I could fix it.
Or at least try to.
But the one thing I know for certain is that she’s not bored with me. That she hasn’t written me off. I felt the exact opposite from her the other night when I told her I loved her. I know she feels the same way, even though she never uttered the words.
And while that might seem simple to most, that’s huge to me.
“Okay. What about?” I ask, trying to keep my thoughts and voice upbeat.
Her lack of an answer—rather just a sound—only adds more uncertainty to whatever’s going on with her.
“You’re okay, though, right?”
“You paid off my debts.” The sudden chill to her voice makes me smile. Now this? Her anger and defiance and independence? This I can handle. This I was expecting at some point.
I had it all planned out, what I was going to say when she realized it. Reasons and explanations and how now she’s free and clear with nothing standing in her way to keep Priscilla from giving her Lucy.
I wanted to take care of you.
I wanted to help fix the screwups I seem to keep making that continually put your getting Lucy at risk.
I wanted to see your face without the lines of stress etched into it, without the fear in your eyes, without the constant