Fatal Exposure - By Gail Barrett Page 0,61
bearing the inscription “Always Home” decorated the wooden door.
A pregnant girl let them inside a minute later. Brynn crossed the threshold, then paused, experiencing her usual shiver of pride. Sunlight streamed over the hardwood floor. Flowers brimmed from vases, adding bursts of color to the cheerful room. Oversize, sagging armchairs formed an arc around the fireplace, inviting a weary runaway to put up her feet and relax. The mouthwatering scent of baking cookies filled the air.
Haley’s shelter was a sanctuary, the kind of place they’d both yearned for as runaway teens—a safe, comfortable home where they could escape the danger, where there was a nonjudgmental shoulder to cry on, where they could curl up beside the fireplace and figure out how to mend their shattered lives.
Haley emerged from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a towel. Concern filled her eyes when she saw her old friend.
“Brynn! I’ve been so worried! Are you all right?” Her cheeks were flushed from baking, her thick, chestnut hair slipping from a haphazard knot atop her head. But she still managed to look poised, despite her flour-dusted T-shirt and jeans—a legacy from her former life as a debutante.
“I’m fine. I brought someone to see you. This is Parker McCall.”
Haley’s gaze whipped to Parker, sudden caution stealing into her eyes. Brynn knew she’d pegged him as a cop. Despite her gentle appearance, Haley was as street savvy as Brynn. She’d had to be to survive. And Parker was the epitome of danger with his dark, gunslinger eyes, his tall, muscular build, the lethal masculinity oozing from every pore.
“He’s Tommy’s brother,” she added.
Surprise replaced the wariness in Haley’s eyes. She tilted her head, studying him anew. “You look like him.”
Parker gave her a nod. Brynn realized it had to be odd for him to meet people who’d known his brother back then. And she could tell by the tension rippling his rough-hewn jaw that it affected him more than he cared to let on.
“Can we talk?” she asked Haley. She glanced at the teenager watching from the kitchen doorway. “Somewhere private?”
“Let’s go in my office.” She turned to the pregnant teen. “Jessica, can you take out the cookies when the timer rings? Then turn the oven off. It’s the last batch.”
“Okay.” Smiling shyly, the teen disappeared into the kitchen.
“She looks young,” Brynn said, trailing Haley into her office down the hall.
“Sixteen. About the same age I was when I ran away. It seems incredible now.”
It was a lifetime ago. They’d both changed and become much stronger—strength they needed now if they hoped to defeat their ghosts for good.
Haley ushered them inside and shut the door. Brynn plopped down beside Parker on the faded couch and sighed. Haley’s office was the opposite of Gwendolyn Shaffer’s with its threadbare sofa and mismatched chairs, ironic given Haley’s privileged childhood. But it was the type of place a kid could unburden her heart—which was exactly Haley’s intent.
“So what’s going on?”
“We’re trying to identify the man who shot Tommy,” Brynn said. She summarized the recent events, including the possible link to the Ridgewood gang. “It’s complicated, but we were wondering about your father and how he knows Senator Riggs.”
Haley pursed her lips. “They go way back. They were classmates at Georgetown Law. He came to a lot of parties at our house when I lived at home. He’s friends with my mother, too.”
Parker leaned forward. “Your father’s a criminal defense attorney, right?”
“That’s right. He’s the senior partner at the firm, so he mostly takes the high profile cases. And he hardly ever loses. He’s a real SOB in court.”
And at home, according to the stories she’d told Brynn.
“Any chance he defended Markus Jenkins?” Parker asked. “He’s the leader of the Ridgewood gang.”
“I don’t know. I don’t follow his cases now.”
But if Haley’s father had defended Markus Jenkins, it made for an interesting twist. Haley’s father golfed with the senator, his former classmate. Now Hoffman was the senator’s protégé—linking the three men. And Markus Jenkins led the gang that was trying to kill her, possibly at Hoffman’s behest.
“I wish I could help,” Haley added. “But I haven’t had contact with him in years.”
Parker seemed to process that. He asked a few more questions about her father’s practice, but while it was possible he defended gang members, Haley couldn’t confirm it. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know that’s not much help.”
“It was worth a try.”
“No one’s bothered you, have they?” Brynn asked. “You haven’t seen anyone hanging around?”
“No. Everything’s peaceful here—or as much as