Page 5 of No Reason to Trust

“I know Mel and Dev, the owners of Blackhawk Security, were thrilled to get her,” Noah said. He took a long drink of his beer, then set the glass down. Frowned as he darted a glance at Olivia, then looked back at Jake. “Aren’t you at least alittlecurious about that odd reaction from her?”

“’Course I am,” Jake said. “But I don’t want to dig into it. Pretty sure that would piss her off even more.” He shuddered and picked up his beer. “Let sleeping dogs lie. I’ll be here a couple more days, then I’ll never see Olivia again.”

“But won’t you always wonder what she was talking about? Won’t it be a pebble in your shoe you can’t shake loose?”

“Hell, no. IknowI didn’t do anything wrong.KnowI didn’t screw up somehow. Whatever’s in Olivia’s head is made-up shit.”

Noah leaned a little closer, and his gaze bored into Jake’s. “Livvy’s always been a straight shooter. I’ve never known her to make shit up. If I were you, Jake? I’d want to find out what she thinks you did. God knows how many other people she’s told about whatever she imagines you’ve done to her.”

Jake scowled. Opened his mouth. Closed it again. Finally sighed. “Maybe you’re right,” he said with a sigh. “Maybe Idoneed to talk to her. But not tonight. I just spent my day listening to a guy talk about his father killing his brother. Listening to the tape he had, with his father giving the order to have his own son killed. Watching the video where a guy beats Doyle’s brother to death. What Nick Doyle had to say, and what I saw and heard on those tapes made me sick to my stomach.”

“You gonna be able to prosecute Bobby Doyle?” Noah asked.

“Hell, yes,” Jake said. “With what Nick has, it should be a slam dunk.” He scowled. “As long as someone doesn’t leak it to Bobby Doyle.”

“You’re the only one besides Nick and his father, and now me, who knows what’s on that tape,” Noah said. “So that shouldn’t be a problem, as long as you and Nick keep your mouths shut.”

“I can’t speak for Nick. But I’m not saying anything to anyone.”

“Neither am I,” Noah said. “And based on the shit that went down here a few weeks ago, when Bobby Doyle tried to kill Nick and his fiancée Celia? Bobby Doyle isn’t talking to anyone but the guards at the Henderson County Correctional Facility.” He shook his head. “And I’m guessing they just laugh at that shit from Bobby, anyway.”

At the other end of the bar, Olivia Williams and Tom Larson were getting ready to leave. Olivia didn’t glance toward the booth he shared with Noah, and Jake pretended he didn’t see Olivia leaving. But he could feel Olivia’s gaze burning into his skin. He needed to talk to her. Find out what it was she thought he’d done.

A few minutes later, Olivia and Tom exited the bar, and Jake blew out a breath of relief. He was pretty sure Noah did, as well. Noah slid out of the booth and jerked his chin at Jake. “Talk to Olivia. Find out what she’s talking about. It’s better than flying blind.”

Jake stared at his beer for a long moment. Finally nodded. “Yeah, you’re right. I need to know what’s going on. And Olivia has some explaining to do.”

“You wanna talk to her here? Or at the Blackhawk Security compound?” Noah asked.

Jake thought for a long moment. “Here,” he finally said. “Feels like neutral ground.”

“I agree,” Noah said. “Call Olivia and set it up.”

Jake studied him for a moment. Nodded his head. “I’ll do that.”

Jake paced near the bar, glancing at his watch every few minutes. Finally, when about twenty minutes had passed, he turned to Noah, who was sitting across from Hiram. “Did I give her enough time to get back to the Blackhawk Security compound?”

“Should be plenty of time. When I was working there, I could make it in less than fifteen minutes.”

Jake blew out a breath. Then he turned to Noah. “You have her phone number?”

“Yeah.” Noah pulled out his phone. Tapped on his contact list and set the phone in front of Jake. “Use my phone,” Noah said. “She might not pick up if she sees your name. And put it on speaker. I want to hear what she has to say.” He grimaced. “Should be interesting.”

Staring at Noah’s phone, Jake squared his shoulders. Punched in Olivia’s phone number. It rang four times before Olivia answered.

“Hey, Noah. What’d you need?” she said.

“It’s not Noah. It’s Jake Dunbar. We need to talk, Olivia. You need to tell me what crawled up your ass and died. I have no idea what you think I did, but I can assure you, I’ve never done anything to make you hate me like you do.”

For a long moment, there was silence on the line. He couldn’t even hear Olivia breathing. Finally she said, “That’s rich, Dunbar. I’m sure you know very well what you did.”

“If I made a mistake, I’ll own it,” Jake said immediately. “Always have, always will. But I never did anything to cause that, thathatredyou seemed to feel for me today. So are you going to have the balls to look me in the eye and tell me what you think I did? Or are you going to walk away like you did fifteen minutes ago?”

The only sound on the line was the crackling of the connection. For a moment, Jake thought Olivia had hung up on him. Finally she cleared her throat. “I’ll be happy to refresh your memory, even though it pisses me off that you could have forgotten such a huge thing. I could have died, Dunbar, and it would have been your fault. But it’ll have to be tomorrow, because I leave the next day for a job. If you can’t make it tomorrow, I’ll call you when I get back to Helena.”

Jake frowned. Was Olivia shining him on? Trying to avoid a meeting?

If so, nothing he could do about it. “Okay. I’ll meet you at The Trailhead tomorrow. Seven work for you? If not, give me a call when you’re back at the Blackhawk Security compound. Not sure how much longer I’ll be in Helena, but call me anyway. If I’m gone, we can settle this with a Zoom call.”

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