A California Christmas (Silver Springs #7) - Brenda Novak Page 0,120
that cowboy up to threatening Emery. Providing they could catch that person, they should be able to catch the cowboy, too. All they’d have to do was search phone records, contacts, that sort of thing, and he felt certain the police would be willing to do that, given that the cowboy had gotten so physical with Emery.
Pulling his coat closed, Dallas ducked his head as he picked up his pace. He hadn’t been able to get Emery off his mind since he’d left her at the airport. The way she’d acted once they returned to Los Angeles had been so remote. He could tell she was preparing to move on without him, and he couldn’t blame her. He had to respect her for being unwilling to settle for less than what she wanted, but he definitely felt the loss. On top of everything else, his mother and brother thought he was crazy for letting her go.
It didn’t help that he trusted their judgment.
But he was actually doing her a favor. He couldn’t give her what she needed. For him, love equaled fear. He couldn’t trust enough to step out of his isolation.
As he got closer to the wheel, the operator shut everything down and the snowman disappeared as the lights snapped off. “We’re closed,” the man announced the minute he spotted Dallas loitering near him.
“No worries,” Dallas said, and stepped out of the way so he could leave.
He gazed out to sea, listening to the waves crash up on the shore. Occasionally, he’d turn around to see if he could spot Ethan, but Ethan was doing a good job of remaining out of sight. Dallas hoped he’d followed through with the plan and told his friends and contacts what he was supposed to tell them. But Dallas couldn’t be sure about that any more than he could be sure his plan would work even if Ethan had followed through.
It was twelve-thirty when he began to think this would be a wasted trip. No one was coming to meet him. The last few stragglers who’d been at the pier when he arrived were gone. He seemed to be all alone.
He decided to wait fifteen more minutes, just to be sure, but still no one approached. A woman wearing a thick coat with the hood pulled up against the cold was the only other person in the area. She’d walked past him a few minutes earlier, and although he couldn’t see anything other than her face, he could tell she was too old to be Heidi.
He pulled out his phone to let Ethan know he was calling it off. First he was going to turn off the app Emery had told him to download that would record the audio part of whatever happened, but right in that moment the woman approached. He assumed she needed directions, some change for a bus ride or a light for a cigarette, but she surprised him by pulling a bag out of her coat and tossing it at his feet.
“Here’s what you want,” she muttered before pivoting abruptly and hurrying back up the pier.
Scooping up the bag, Dallas shoved his phone in his pocket and took off after her.
She could obviously hear his footfalls on the wooden planking, which frightened her. Crying out, she started to run in earnest, but he was younger and quicker and was able to head her off.
Holding his arms out in front of him in the classic stop position, he got in front of her every time she tried to turn a different direction and yelled, “Come on out!” to Ethan.
“It’s about damn time.” Ethan appeared from behind a retail booth about twenty feet away and hurried over. “I was just about to give up.”
With Ethan on one side, it was easier to keep the woman from getting away. Her eyes were wide with fear but now she stood perfectly still.
“Who is she?” Ethan asked.
“Hard to say. But she showed up and tossed a bag at my feet, which I assume has the money in it.”
She was keeping her hood up and her head down, but Ethan ducked so he could see her face and shocked Dallas when he cried, “Mom! What are you doing here?”
Dallas’s jaw dropped as he looked from one to the other. “This is your mother?”
“Yes, but... She’d never... I mean...” Ethan shook his head, momentarily speechless, until he managed to say, “Mom, please tell me you had nothing to do with that cowboy—Terrell Something—who choked Emery.”