Harlequin Love Inspired Suspense March 2021--Box Set 2 of 2 by Dana Mentink (novels to improve english txt) 📗

“I’m not sure. Jude said there was nothing in Rita’s car. I heard them talking at the crime scene. They think she might have been locked in her own trunk. She may have managed to make the call from there before she was killed, probably by a blow to the head with her own tire iron.”

“It’s so terrible. She must have been so scared. Who could have done it? It had to be the person implicated by whatever Rita had.” She chewed her lip. “But maybe this proof is still at the hotel—maybe it never left. There was nothing in her room, unless we missed it.”

“I’m going to go through it again, but, Laney, there’s so little chance I’m going to find anything to help.”

“Little chance is better than zero chance,” she said firmly.

He pulled in a breath from deep down. “You standing by me…” He swallowed and tried again. “I was wrong to push you away before.”

Her chin went up, showcasing the slight tremble in her lower lip. “Yes, you were.”

He smiled. “Thank you for being here now.”

“You’re welcome.”

He would not bring up what was in his heart, the yearning that had caused him to reach out to Dan after decades. There could be no future between them with Rita’s murder and Kenny’s threats. The injustice of it burned a path inside him. His only hope was to locate whatever Rita had left, if there really was anything to find.

A flash of headlights caught his attention in the rearview mirror.

Traffic on this road was minimal. Was it Willow come to check on them? Not at this late hour after she’d just left. Levi would have waited at the hotel for them.

Laney, alerted to his tension, looked in the side mirror. “They’re getting closer.”

He pressed the gas, taking the next turn much faster than he normally would.

Who was closing in behind them? Kenny? A nameless killer? Townspeople who’d heard about the second woman he’d been accused of murdering?

He accelerated. The silvered foothills whizzed past at dizzying speeds. “Call…”

But she was already dialing Jude.

“Dispatching help now,” Jude snapped over the speakerphone. “Got a guy close. Stay on the line with me.”

He could get no more than a dim outline of the car, no sense of the driver, but he had a feeling he knew who it was.

“Beckett,” Laney breathed.

A figure was pushing through the sunroof in the car behind them. There was a flicker of light, as a fuse caught flame, illuminating Kenny, his face ghoulish.

“Close your window,” he hollered, bracing as Kenny lobbed the Molotov cocktail in an overhand toss. It shattered in the back of Beckett’s truck; flames whooshed up for a moment and then died away.

“He’s still behind us,” Laney screamed.

He punched the gas harder. Around the next corner they heard the sound of sirens. Kenny must have heard it too because he immediately fell off the pursuit, dropping away into the darkness until he disappeared. Beckett slowed to a safer speed, allowing the police car ahead of them to roll up alongside.

Beckett reported what had happened.

The officer nodded. “Couple of places he might have pulled out. I’ll check.”

Lights still strobing, he drove away. Beckett made sure the fire was completely gone before he got back in the truck.

His heart was pounding, hands clenched tight on the wheel. “Laney,” he gasped. “Please.”

She must have known what he was asking. “You want me to leave.” It was the barest of whispers and it cut him to the marrow.

“Honey, it’s too dangerous at the hotel, too isolated. I can’t risk you and the baby getting hurt. I can’t let that happen. I won’t.”

Her lip quivered and she looked at her lap. “I don’t want to leave you.”

“Hearing you say that means everything to me.” His voice broke as he said it. “I will find a way out of this.” I will find a way back to you.

She cried softly as he captured her hand again. “I’ll take you to the hotel to put a bag together and pick up Admiral, okay? Herm can cancel any reservations. I’ll drive you to stay with Aunt Kitty. Levi and Willow can take turns hanging out there until things settle down. Just for a while.”

How long was a while? Days? Months? Forever?

If that was what it took, he would have to learn to live with it, but he knew right then that he would never give up.

* * *

Laney tried not to cry as she packed a small bag. Beckett was talking to Herm in the courtyard. It was only just after midnight, but she was bone tired. It took all her will not to sink down onto the bed and wail. She was leaving her home and Beckett, and it felt like her heart was being ripped out in quivering chunks.

It was not faithfulness, or sentiment, that kept her tied to him. A supply of new tenderness had welled up to fill the scars and wounds he’d left behind. Maybe it wasn’t love exactly—she wasn’t actually sure what it would feel like to love again—but whatever it was, she was loath to leave. Why would the Lord fill her with such healing, grant them a child and then tear them apart again?

“He wouldn’t,” she muttered to herself. “He will find us in the middle of this mess.” She believed it; she trusted Him, and at the moment, it was the only thing she could cling to. A rap on the door made her wipe her eyes.

“Laney?” Irene stuck her head in, doctor bag in her hand. “I saw all the activity at the police station from my window. I called Trent and made him tell me. I’m so sorry.”

The floodgates opened and all the tears she had been trying to restrain emerged in a mighty rush. Beckett came in, looking uneasily between the two women. “Things are all settled with Herm. We can go anytime. But, um, it can wait a few minutes.”

Irene continued to pat