Page 55 of The Familiar Stranger

I’d just spoken with him last night.

He’d been at his house in Jackson Hole.

My contact had confirmed it.

As the realization dawned that I’d been duped, I cursed myself for not pinging that call. Such a simple investigative maneuver, yet I’d dismissed it—because I’d felt so certain that it was just too complicated for the villain to have been him. The simplest conclusion was usually the right one, per Occam’s Razor, and that had been my reasoning for not bothering with tracing this man’s phone.

Each of us took a fighting stance.

Him with the cane.

Me, crouched, with my martial arts training, two strong legs, and two bare hands.

No more waiting.

I launched myself at him, coming in with an intended throat punch. He swung the cane, and I juked backward. At the same time, I managed to catch the end of the cane with one hand, then two, and I twisted. He lost his grip, eyes wide with surprise when I turned full circle, the cane now in my hands.

Was I that good, or had he let me win the round?

I wielded the cane like a baseball bat, and he grunted a menacing laugh, holding his hands in the air, as if giving up the fight.

“Well done, Sloane. And so good to see you again. My brother enjoyed talking with you last night.” He winked. “I knew you’d call.”

His brother? So, that was how it had happened.

“Yourbrother? Why would he pretend to be you?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe becauseyou’rethe reason we lost our lucrative side hustle.”

“Human trafficking?”

“That, and all the dirty work that comes with it. What else would I be talking about?”

“It wasyou, wasn’t it? You were involved in Olivia’s abduction all those years ago.”

He sneered, twisting his face into an evil grin. “It’s about time you put it all together.”

I’d just about pieced it all together, but questions remained.

“I’m guessing it’s the reason you lured me here, to Savannah, the place I took down Hugh Barnes,” I said.

“Hugh was my friend. We worked together back then, before you meddled in a business that wasn’t any of yours. You ruined everything. Everything! I thought I could put it all behind me. But I couldn’t. I stewed for years, and then one day, I decided there was only way I’d ever get past it. I needed to take you down.”

My breathing was short and rapid, the adrenaline and the cool wind cutting my lung capacity, despite my physical fitness. Not to mention my gritty eyes, which had started watering. With my vision blurred, all I had to go on was instinct now.

“This … is over,” I said.

Another laugh. “Oh, but it’s not.”

He withdrew a pistol from his waistband. “On your knees.”

My first instinct was to lunge, reach for the gun.

But I knew better.

He had the upper hand—for now.

I moved to my knees.

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