Page 46 of The Verdict

“Where would she go?” Ty asked, standing behind his desk, half-hunched in front of his computer.

He traced the GPS on Ryan’s bike to a public parking lot in Carmel Cove, and then called in a favor from our friends at Covington Security to go pick it up and keep it safe until we got there. But the bike was secondary to the beautiful woman who’d taken it.

Go?I drove a hand through my hair.Forget where Merritt would go. I wanted to know why the hell she left.

Tension ping-ponged between the three of us—Dare, Ty, and me. I refused to look at Dare, his haunted stare eating a hole in the center of my chest, the words “I told you so”like sharp spikes through my skin.

“Where could she go?” I ground out.

She was a fugitive. Wanted for murder. A target for the real murderer. And still, she’d left.

Rage cocked in my chest like a bullet in the chamber, primed and positioned to fire. I’d protected her. Defended her. I’d let her in…and she’d left. Fucked me and then disappeared.Again.

The first time, I could believe it was out of fear. She’d been attacked by one stranger and then fucked by another. I could rationalize her panicking and disappearing while I’d called in backup.But this time…

There was no panic. There was no danger.There was no dead man.There was only me and the truth, and she’d taken both and vanished.

“You don’t know a whole helluva lot about a woman who you blindly trusted,” Dare drawled.

I snarled and spun, my rage locking on its target. My hand fired out and fisted around the collar of his shirt. “Fuck. You.” But really, I meantfuck mebecause he was right. I didn’t know anything about Merritt except how damn badly I wanted her, and I’d let that guide me.Right off a goddamn cliff.

My friend gritted his teeth, his lips twitching. “The more it hurts now, the less chance you’ll ever make this mistake again.”

His calm, hollow eyes sucked in my anger like a black hole, absorbing it into his endless depths of pain.

With a growl, I released him with a push and strode in front of Ty’s desk, using my anger to sharpen my focus.“I found her in here yesterday, staring at Lorenz’s photo.”

“You think she knew him prior to the attack?”

“She said she didn’t, so yeah, I think it’s probably safe to assume she does.” Acid leached into my every word, my body rioting with the thought of what else she’d lied about until all I could do was swallow down the bitter betrayal and hope it incinerated every lingering trace of her sweetness on my tongue.

“You think she recognized the killer, too?” Dare’s low tone slid like a knife into my side.

“Whether she knows them or not, why leave now? Why not days ago?” Ty reeled me in before my thoughts could spiral.

“She came in here looking for answers.” I said slowly, flipping through every second of our encounter yesterday with painful scrutiny.

“Okay…” Ty folded his arms. “So, you find her in here, she plays innocent… maybe she thought you were onto her? Doubted her?”

No.Another wave of anger coursed through me. She didn’t think I doubted her. In fact, it was the complete opposite. I’d just fucking told her the truth—what we had was real.She had me right where she wanted me.

Dare snorted, and my head whipped in his direction just as he uttered low, “You were on her, alright. Just not ontoher.”

My nostrils flared.

“Enough!” Ty snapped at us like we were children. “If she wasn’t worried about her cover, then the only alternative is she left because she found the answer she was looking for—the answer we’ve been looking for.”

Fuck.I pinched the bridge of my nose.

“What did you last talk about in here? Alvaro?”

“No,” I clipped, pushing air through my tight lips as I recalled the conversation. “It started there. Then she asked if we had any idea who the killer was, and I said we needed the flash drive. If we found the drive, we’d have photos. And if we had photos, she could ID the killer.”

“What if she already knows who the killer is?”

“Forget that,” Ty said. “If she knew the killer, she knew him before coming here, so that couldn’t be what made her leave. It was whatever she figured out in this room yesterday. That’s what we need.”

Mygut tightened.

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