Billy & The Beast (Ever After, New York #3) - Eli Easton Page 0,72
before I hit Interstate 15 and things finally eased up.
At least it gave me plenty of time to mentally grind away on the problem I faced. I had to talk to Aaron—and soon. I had to let him know there were no other victims that night, and what Amanda told me about Emmanuel. But his phone had me blocked, and I was on the opposite side of the country. I could fly home and scale that damned wall if I had to. But the earliest I could get there was tomorrow. I could ask my mom to go up to Malfleur and get Aaron to call me, say it was an emergency. But would he even respond if she tried the intercom at the gate?
I was pondering this when my cell phone rang. I glanced down at where it sat on the console. The display said Mom. I pressed the button. “Hey, Mom! I was just thinking about you.”
“Billy, it’s Aaron.”
The shock of hearing his voice made me swerve the car. I steadied it and grabbed the phone, stuck it between my ear and my shoulder.
“Hi! Hi. Um. Are you calling from my mom’s phone?”
“Yeah. You were blocked on my phone, so I had to use hers. Where are you?”
I wanted to ask him why he’d block me, but we could get into that later. “I’m in California staying with my dad. I have so much to tell you! I went to LA, and I—”
“Are you alone?” His voice was sharp.
I blinked. Did he think I was seeing another guy already? “Yes. I’m driving. Alone. Uh . . . wait a sec.”
There was a car on the shoulder up ahead, a little white sedan. Its raised hood looked like a flag of surrender. A young woman in a yellow dress and strappy sandals walked around it, stepping onto the road. I slowed down, not wanting to hit her.
“What’s going on?” Aaron asked.
“Just a lady having car trouble.”
This stretch of I-15 between Corona and Temecula was pretty rural, an empty stretch of brown hills and open spaces. There were other cars on the road, but not that many. The woman waved energetically at me as I approached. I should stop, at least offer to call a tow for her.
“Can you hang on for a minute?” I asked Aaron.
“No, don’t stop!” The urgency in Aaron’s voice took me by surprise.
“It’s just a—”
“Do not stop, Billy! Not for anything.”
I swallowed hard and accelerated, driving past the woman. I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw her watch me drive away, hands on her hips.
“Okay. Fine. I passed her. Now can you please tell me what the hell’s going on?”
I heard Aaron take a deep breath. “Emmanuel was here. He tried to kill me.”
“What?” I gripped the wheel hard with both hands. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. A bullet grazed my leg, but it’s just a flesh wound.”
There was a lilt in his voice, like he was trying to joke about it. But I wasn’t having it. “He shot at you? Like, with a real gun?”
“It was real alright. More importantly, he threatened you. He said you’d been digging around down there in LA. Did you talk to someone from Montgomery Enterprises?”
“Yes. I was trying to figure out what really happened the night of your accident. Did you know you were visiting Emmanuel that night? And that there wasn’t another car? Your car was the only one involved in that crash. No one else was hurt.”
There was a stunned pause. “Are you serious?”
“As a heart attack. I spoke to the police detective. You didn’t kill anyone, Aaron. I think Emmanuel made up that stuff about killing that mom and little girl to force you to stay hidden away at Malfleur.”
For a moment Aaron was silent. Then he growled. “Now I know why your digging around was so threatening to Emmanuel. I wish I’d killed the bastard when I had the chance. But right now all I care about is keeping you safe. Emmanuel’s been doing business with a foreign company that’s really bad news. They killed my father. And . . . he said they’re coming after you too.”
A chill of fear went through me, and I nervously checked the road behind me. There were cars back there, but nothing with a neon sign reading We’re After You. I thought about how nervous Amanda Wilkes had been, the way she’d hurried me inside.
Was her house being watched? Maybe she wasn’t so paranoid after all.