Lakeside Peril

Chloe sat up and put her hand over her mouth. Laura had written Hunter’s name down in her notes. Had there been more to that than just wanting him to help her? She’d have to come clean with Hunter one day but not right now. It was too dangerous to even mention the theory she had developed when she couldn’t sleep at night.

“Daddy, did you send those men after me? Or did you send them to kill Hunter?”

When she heard a knock on the door, Chloe’s pulse spiked into overdrive.

“Who is it?” she asked before opening the door.

“Hunter.”

Chloe grabbed the doorknob and let him in, her hands shaking, her heart skipping and jumping. “Did you find them? Did you find the people who’re trying to kill us?”

“No, but I will find them. All of them.”

Hunter held his hands on Chloe’s arms while he tried to reassure her. She felt tiny and fragile, but there was muscle underneath her slender frame. He saw that shard of steel in her eyes and that caused him to worry about her even more. He did not want to worry about her. Or this mess.

But he couldn’t walk away now. This was getting serious. Too serious. They’re tried to get to Chloe by every means possible, and now they’d upped things a notch.

They’d contacted him with a warning.

A dangerous warning.

He didn’t tell her about the cryptic phone call he’d received once he left her with Rory. Plenty of time for that later. She needed to rest and stay calm right now.

“Tell Chloe Conrad to go back to Oklahoma before she loses everyone she loves.”

Just that and then nothing. But Hunter had heard what sounded like a boat’s motor revving in the background and the sound of the water taxi horn blowing to indicate it was leaving the public docks. Those docks were a few blocks from here.

The first clue.

“Hunter, what’s going on?”

“Nothing. We haven’t found anything. No prints, no weapons, no humans.” He sat her down in the chair and then he sank back on the end of the bed, exhaustion weighing him down. “But we found your laptop in a ditch. Someone had shot holes in it.”

Chloe gripped the wooden arms of her chair, her expression full of regret and fear. “I should have stayed there and done this on my own. I shouldn’t have brought you into this.”

Hunter wished she hadn’t come to him, either, but his reasons had nothing to do with someone trying to off him. Now in spite of his feelings regarding her, he wasn’t about to let her out of his sight. “Well, you’re here now and I’m in it with you. And that means I’m with you twenty-four-seven for the next few days.”

“But we need to get back to Oklahoma and see what we can find.”

“We’ll do that, but for now we build a case that shows your sister could possibly have been murdered. We’ll need to set up a time frame of the days before her death and try to find anyone she might have spoken with.”

She stood up, her gaze downcast. “I need something to focus on. I’ll use the computers here sparingly, but wish I had my laptop.”

“Trust me, that machine is stone-cold dead. Blain took it as evidence, but it’s fried.” Hunter motioned to the door. “Let’s go to the break room and get some coffee and a snack,” he suggested.

This little room was too closed-in and tight for him. It put him too close to her. He needed some air.

“Okay.” She got up, worry shadowing her face. “Hunter, I had a thought while you were gone.”

“Yeah, and what was that?”

She held her hands twisted together in front of her. “If these people tracked me all the way here, they could easily have taken me the minute the plane landed or right after I got the rental car, but they didn’t.”

He nodded. “That did cross my mind. They’ve had several opportunities to either kidnap you or kill you and they could have come after you back in Oklahoma. But they didn’t.”

“And yet they waited until I was that restaurant, hoping to find you.”

“Somebody is definitely stirred up,” he said. “Maybe they were waiting for the perfect opportunity.”

“Or maybe they were waiting for something else,” she replied. “Someone else.”

Hunter saw the reality of her words in her eyes. Before he could voice what he was thinking, she did it for him.

“What about you?” she asked, a dark dread in her eyes.

Chloe gulped in a breath and dropped her hands down by her side. She didn’t speak for a moment and he didn’t try to encourage her. Hunter saw things in black and white. There were no gray areas in his mind. So there was no point in stating the obvious.

Finally, her gaze locked with his and her eyes went wide with anguish. “What if they’re not after me, Hunter? What if they tracked me here so they could kill you?”