Total pages in book: 767
Estimated words: 732023 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 3660(@200wpm)___ 2928(@250wpm)___ 2440(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 732023 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 3660(@200wpm)___ 2928(@250wpm)___ 2440(@300wpm)
“Sure.”
I went to my desk, sat down and ripped open the envelope. I popped right back up when I read the note.
I’m sorry, Nix. It’s not going to work out between the three of us. I know you said forever, but two days is all we get. Don’t try to change my mind. It will only make things worse for you and Donovan.
Kit
“Hey, where are you going?” Miranski asked as I strode by.
“DA’s office,” I said.
“Don’t forget the lab at two,” she called as I cut through the other desks. I raised my hand in acknowledgement, but my mind wasn’t on the case. It was on Kit, on what she wrote.
I didn’t believe a word of it. She was in with us. All the way. I’d seen her when I said we wanted to marry her. Surprise, definitely. But she’d also been happy about it. She wanted forever. From what I’d heard of Erin Mills, the info Miranski had collected, she’d worked through quite a number of men in Cutthroat. I didn’t really give a shit if she had a different guy in her bed every night. A woman could do whatever the fuck she wanted. But Kit wasn’t like that.
She wasn’t a one-night stand woman. She wanted forever. Hell, she’d wanted it with us and have even left town to let Donovan and I be together. As I tugged open the door on my SUV, I rolled my eyes. Me and Donovan in love. I dialed his number on my cell.
“Where are you?” I asked.
“Office,” he replied.
“Meet me out front in five minutes.”
I hung up, turned the key in the ignition.
We weren’t in love with each other, we were in love with Kit.
And now she was dumping us.
I drove to the city building and pulled up at the curb. Donovan climbed in. He had on a tie, which meant he had to be in court. He looked at me, knowing something was up.
I handed him the note. He scanned it. Cursed.
His eyes met mine. “She’s protecting us.”
“The murder investigation,” I said, as answer.
He nodded. “Has she been cleared yet?”
“Miranski confirmed she got a lottery ticket at the convenience story at eleven ten. It fits with Kit’s statement that she got home—back to Erin Mills’ house—around eleven thirty. That means Erin was still alive then.”
“No time of death yet?”
“The coroner only offered a four-hour window. After midnight.”
“Fuck.”
“The killer’s going to be found and this will all blow over.”
“Except we’re the prosecutor and detective for the case. Our asses are on the line.”
“I’m not letting this get in the way of making her ours,” I said. “We’ve waited long enough. She had nothing to do with it.”
He ran a hand down his face. “I know it. You know it. But there’s no evidence to prove it.”
“Yet.”
“Yet,” he repeated.
I slapped my hand on the steering wheel. “Why the fuck can’t we have the woman we want? Why can’t it be fucking simple?”
He didn’t reply. “Let’s go talk to her.”
Now he was talking.
I put the SUV in gear and headed toward the diner. I had to assume she was working. “Being with us, she’s going to learn that we protect her.”
***
KIT
I knew they wouldn’t let it go. Knew the note wouldn’t have given them the answers they needed. There weren’t any answers, none that any of us wanted to hear. None that would let us work out.
I couldn’t let them lose everything. I knew what it was like, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. I wasn’t worth it.
When I saw the SUV pull into the parking lot—thank god I’d been doing a pass for coffee refills—I practically ran back to the coffee machine and set the pot down. Dolly came out of the kitchen and I walked right up to her, blocked her path toward the pie case.
“You have to cover for me.”
She frowned. “What?”
I glanced over my shoulder, saw Nix and Donovan headed toward the entrance. God, they looked good. Big, brawny, serious. And pissed.
Her gaze flicked behind me.
“I broke up with them.” She knew who.
“What? Why?”
The answer would take much longer than the twenty seconds before they came into the diner.
I grabbed her hand, squeezed it. “I’m not here. Please, Dolly.”
I didn’t give her a chance to say no, just dashed behind the counter before they could see me and sat down on the floor, tucked my knees up.
Dolly came over to me, then stared down at me as if I’d sprouted a second head.
“Please,” I begged. I couldn’t face them or talk to them. It would be too hard to push them away, to do the right thing. The diner was the Grand Central Station of Cutthroat, and I wasn’t going to have my love life front and center for everyone to see. To talk about. They could talk about me all they wanted, to spread idle gossip about my involvement in Erin’s murder. I wouldn’t drag Nix and Donovan into it.