Expired Getaway (Last Chance County #7) - Lisa Phillips Page 0,7

from the cupboard. Later she would go out and get some real protein, but she’d had to go without food often enough in her life to be grateful for what she had in any given circumstance.

Who complained about bacon, anyway? Even if it was the shelf-stable kind.

To stay awake, she wandered around the townhouse and even took a shower. Eventually she was going to have to submit to sleep. Resting during the daylight hours, maybe even on the back deck of the third floor while the winter sun shone on her, would be her best chance at negating the nightmares.

All she had to do while she waited for Millie to call her was keep from losing her mind.

If it only were that easy.

Bridget eventually resigned to watching the surveillance footage again.

Every frame with Enrico and his men. Then every minute of the footage she had of Clarke working for the last week or two.

If she wanted to implicate him in something, then she needed evidence. But there was no way a man with his training would leave a breadcrumb for her to find on their computer system or the proprietary phone system they had purchased.

No one could trace any of their cell signals or hack into their phones. Sure, it was a network designed for criminals to keep their conversations from getting into law enforcement hands, but for the right price, they sold phones to good guys too.

Bridget wandered to the front window and looked out through the lace curtain that hung over the glass. A row of townhouses faced this one, and she saw a garage door roll up.

An adorable little girl skipped around the back of a small SUV wearing a big winter coat, gloves, and a wool hat on her red hair. She disappeared to the other side, a backpack dangling from one arm. Seconds later, a guy in jeans and a jacket with a backpack of his own, got into the driver’s side.

Bridget had an uncanny feeling she had seen the guy before, but brushed it off. It wasn’t like she had a super clear view.

He pulled out and they set off together while the garage door rolled closed again. Bridget looked at her phone. Just after eight in the morning. Two members of a family going about their normal life.

Headed to wherever kids went during vacation from school, and work.

Just another day.

Bridget’s entire body wanted to turn so she could look at the backpack. Years of training held her still. Nothing could induce her to give away how she felt when she didn’t want to. Not even when no one was looking. She lived her life assuming that someone was always watching, even when she was completely alone.

Not even the burn in her heart over the one thing she would always miss could break that concentration.

Her life was what she’d made of it, and nothing would change that. Everything was fine with her mental state. Her emotions were in check. Pretty soon there would be a ton of work to do, but right now there wasn’t. And it was fine.

All she had to do was wait for Millie.

Bridget could try and figure out how to find Clarke or how to get Enrico to let go of his revenge plan.

Now that she knew Clarke was working with the Capeira’s, it was clear there was a bad seed in the company. So long as he was the only one. Much better to dwell on that than to start thinking about her personal life. Bridget had plenty to sink her teeth into. The potential for devastation across the accountant’s firm and their clients was catastrophic. Clarke could single-handedly destroy the entire business and put everyone’s lives at risk. Nearly two hundred clients could be killed because of him. Everything they’d worked on for years would fall around them like the walls of Jericho. The stronghold in ruins.

Just because Bridget was back in Last Chance didn’t mean the past needed to creep in. What was the point anyway when there was no way to fix it?

After all, she had faked her death for a reason.

Most people pined over the past. She had changed everything about her life, with no intention of ever wanting things how they used to be. There had been nothing good about who she was back then or the town she’d lived in.

This town.

So maybe her heart’s cry was to be like that guy coming out of his garage, just like it was any normal day,