anywhere.
His sister’s was, and that gave him some serious concern.
A moment of regret for how he was leaving Shelby struck him. Shelby would worry. He had no doubt about that. He’d call Elliot when he could, and ask the other man to personally see to it that Shelby was told Allen was ok. That he was helping…a friend in a bad situation and that Shelby shouldn’t worry.
Allen unlocked the van and did a quick inventory. He was not someone who camped, by any means, but he had cold hard cash in his bank account. If he’d known Barry Lanning well at all…
Allen opened the glove box and found exactly what he’d expected to find under the registration. There was an envelope with five thousand dollars in cash right there.
Logan’s father had been a bit paranoid at times—he’d always had cash on hand. It was a testament to how bad Logan had gotten after his parents’ deaths that the cash hadn’t been found.
Barry’s paranoia was going to pay off for Allen now.
Allen would stop off at a bank and pull what he could from an ATM before they left the county. An indoor ATM. He didn’t want the van spotted.
Allen wasn’t into subterfuge and maneuvering. That wasn’t his thing and never had been. He wasn’t going to do anything that would risk her. He checked on her quickly.
To make this work, he’d have to be very careful.
Izzie was still sound asleep in his passenger seat. Allen left her there and unlocked the kitchen door and stepped into Logan’s parents’ home. A fresh wave of grief hit him, like it did every time he was there.
Maybe that was why neither he nor Shelby were in a great hurry for her to move there yet.
Too many good memories.
It had been his second home for a while there. He wouldn’t have made it through losing his own parents and being suddenly saddled with a fifteen-year-old without Logan’s family to help him back then.
The Lannings had become their family.
There were guns in the study, locked in cabinets that Shelby had mentioned having removed when she finally moved in.
Shelby was severely frightened of guns after what had happened to her five years ago. There was no way she was going to be able to move in with weapons in the house. Allen had promised to see them sold. Tonight, Barry’s collection was going to come in handy. Tonight, he had more respect for the man Barry had been than he ever had been before. Barry had taken Allen and Logan shooting several times, making certain both of them had known exactly how to handle those weapons.
He’d told Allen a tool was only as good as the man wielding it, and that he hoped what he had taught them was never needed. Allen had needed to know it.
It was one of his father’s guns that Logan had used that night.
Allen flinched as he remembered what had happened.
No. He wasn’t going to let himself think of that. Not tonight.
Not with Izzie there, dependent on him.
He wanted, needed, to protect her. Allen knew himself well enough to understand that.
No doubt, it stemmed from his failure to protect Jess, and Shelby. Lacy, Jillian, and Ariella. Izzie and Nikkie Jean before. Logan.
For some reason, he’d conflated Jess and Izzie in his head. Dark hair, dark eyes, targeted at the hospital where they worked. Vulnerable and almost alone.
Needing him. Even though Jess had needed him for selfish reasons, she’d still made him feel needed before he’d found out the truth about her.
Allen missed being needed. He understood himself well enough to know that.
Izzie wasn’t a damned thing like Jess. Izzie was far more…real. She probably wouldn’t welcome his interference in her life—once she tuned back into reality. He didn’t care.
He was going to keep that woman safe. Period.
Honest. She was honest to a damned fault—and loved to point out his failings to him.
Unlike the rest of the nurses on staff—this one had no bones telling him when she thought he was wrong. She didn’t tiptoe around him, either.
He respected that.
Allen found what he was looking for in the gun cabinet in Barry’s study. There in the floor underneath a rug that cost more than some people made in a year, was another forty thousand dollars in stacks of twenties, fifties, and hundreds tucked away in a tiny, fireproof safe.
He’d not have to hit an ATM after all. Forty thousand would keep them for a long, long time. If they were careful.
Allen took