Page 34 of Savage Peril

He should be focused on her protection, but he hadn’t even asked if she was okay. She certainly looked fine. While she was at the clinic, safety shouldn’t be a problem. Meanwhile, he would check in with Rip and see if he had learned anything from the clinic in Houston.

*****

The next evening, Lori went to dinner at Jess’s house. The family atmosphere was comforting, making her wish she had a family of her own. Sometimes, she felt so alone. But Jess welcomed her and let her help with dinner.

While Allen grilled steaks, Lori made the salad and Jess finished up the side dishes. They chatted about fun topics like clothes and skin care, even vacations. Allen had a trip planned for the following summer, and Jess was looking forward to getting away.

The girls, Katie and Amber, had grown since Lori had last seen them. They were still in elementary school but played with their mother’s high heels and makeup. They looked like Jess with their dark hair and big brown eyes. Before dinner, they played outside while the food cooked.

That left Lori and Jess alone to talk. The one thing they avoided talking about was Lori’s father, and that was a welcome relief. The ordeal weighed heavily on Lori’s mind, and it was good to focus on something else. She would have plenty of opportunity to discuss it with Jess another time.

Dinner was delicious, as well as entertaining. The girls giggled and played games, managing to eat some of their meal. Once the dishes were cleared, the girls went to take their bath, leaving the adults to visit.

Lori shared her tale of visiting the mobsters in Brentwood. Jess was intrigued, and Allen asked a lot of questions.

“It was so unexpected, and quite terrifying,” Lori said.

“I imagine so,” Allen said. “I work in the financial world, and stories about the black-market drug trade pop up in the news. It isn’t just small-time drug dealers, either. Painkillers bring in the big bucks, so I’m not surprised that your new acquaintance considered you a potential contact.”

“It sounds like that guy Lorenzo expected her to funnel painkillers to his organization,” Jess said.

“I’m sure he did,” Lori said. “But I was too scared to be insulted.”

“No kidding,” Jess said. “You were brave to go alone.”

“Nope, not at all,” Lori said. “It’s just that I had no idea what I was walking into.”

The conversation shifted to other topics, but Lori was hung up on Allen’s comment. She had been aware of drug sales on the street. That was one thing that she and her father had guarded against by closely monitoring prescriptions and watching for signs of addiction.

The mob’s involvement nagged at her. Maybe it was the fact that she had been approached. Yet she felt like she was missing something. It was a stretch that the mob boss had invited her to his home just because she had saved the life of his attorney. How had he made the leap from that to the possibility that she would agree to do business with him?

*****

Since she needed a good night’s sleep, Lori had left early and gone home to bed. Yet she hadn’t been able to relax. She would be glad when the exhumation was over and the autopsy could be performed. The process involved so much paperwork.

The next afternoon, Lori was in her office while Adam was seeing patients. She looked up to see Matt standing in the doorway. He looked like he had something on his mind. “Give me a second. I need to finish this up before I lose track of what I was doing.”

Matt sat in the chair in front of her desk and watched. He made Lori nervous with the way he observed her. She could feel him being critical, or maybe she was just remembering how it had been when they were together.

“You don’t need to deal with this alone,” Matt said.

Lori closed the report she had been working on then turned to face him. Matt’s expression conveyed sympathy for what she was going through. But she suspected there was more to it than that.

“I’m not alone,” Lori said. “My attorney is handling the process.”

“I meant emotionally.”

“You don’t need to be concerned about my emotional state.”

“Maybe I’m not presenting this in the right way,” Matt said. “I want you to reconsider…us. I think you made a rash decision, which I understand, considering that you were grieving your father. But you must see that we are well suited for each other. Any couple has rough patches.”

Lori stared at him.

“Please…don’t throw away what we had,” Matt said. “I wasn’t really there for you before. I admit that. I can change. Things will be different.”

“Why now?”

“I didn’t stop caring about you just because you broke off the engagement,” Matt said. “You don’t have to give up the future we can have together. And I would be by your side during this stressful time.”

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