Page 89 of Redemption

He’d want to help; hecouldhelp—except him helping would likely also be him saying,whoa, stop.

She slipped down the dark hall, looking over her shoulder like a teenager sneaking out at night, and made her way into her study. Only after she shut the French doors behind her and sat at the desk facing the door with her laptop open did she finally take a deep breath. Her finger ran along the side of the laptop and pressed the power button. The screen illuminated the small room. The laptop chimed, and she cringed in the dark and shook off her paranoia.

What was the deal? All Ryder would do was ask what she was up to.

Victoria turned on the desk lamp. “Lights mean I’m not sneaky. Talking to myself means I’m going nuts.”

With a couple quick clicks, she logged into her email and made a mental to do list—

Lenora Appleton.

The email glared at her from near the top, and Victoria should have expected it after lunch today. It wasn’t as though they hadn’t worked together in the past. They shared a network of contacts and had done one another favors. What did Lenora want that warranted the subject lineMeet Only?

Mayhem, in all likelihood, was one of the Russians’ biggest clients. The better question Victoria had for Lenora was if she had expanded her clientele. Did she represent the Russians now? In particular, did she work for the assholes from the Ice House or the bounty she never captured? “Okay, Lenora, let’s see what you have to say.”

She pushed back from the desk and grabbed one of many burner phones neatly stacked against the wall. She unwrapped the box, opening the phone, and even though it came with a ready charge, she popped it on the charger before clicking open Lenora’s email. As Victoria expected, it contained only a phone number.

Giving the burner a second to boot up Victoria cued up a message to the number and thumbed her response.Sam’s Deli. Mid-morning.

She hit send and leaned back.

The burner rang, and Victoria scrambled to answer it before it woke Ryder. Her guilt raced as much as her surprise, even if it had to be Lenora. “Hello?”

“Sam’s works for me.”

Her heartbeat pounded in her chest. “I figured as much, but I thought this was an in-person only conversation.”

“I had one other thing. Unrelated.”

“I’m sure.” She rolled her eyes, heartbeat steady now that the normal wheeling and dealing of Sweet Hills was back on the table.

“There’s an outstanding Mayhem bounty. Ignore it.”

“I’m not working.”

“The mayor didn’t push you?”

“No. He pushed you?”That son of a bitch.Lunch hadn’t been about welcoming her back to town. It was about sending a message, as much as was the message she heard when Mayhem rolled through town during lunch. It wasn’t their style, the noon rolling thunder show.

“He put in his request.” Lenora mentioned far too casually.

Victoria leaned back in her office chair, rubbing her thumb along the edge of the cell phone. “No one knew I’m back in town.”

“I did,” the attorney said, “before I saw you at the diner, and now everyone does. Don’t pull that naïve fresh-to-our-world bullshit on me, honey. I know you and don’t give two shits if you’re twenty or two hundred.”

“Not twenty,” she mumbled, though she might’ve been acting like it, sneaking out of bed from her boyfriend—boyfriend?

Victoria set that shock of internal madness aside for a second and concentrated on Lenora. “I have a friend in town. I’m not working. Consider your man ignored.”

“Many thanks.”

Why did they have to have this conversation? It easily could have been done tomorrow. “So tomorrow, Sam’s?”

“Yes.”

“Lenora, what am I missing here?” Victoria finally asked. “Meet only and then a phone call. What’s the deal?”

“I wanted to see what your state of mind was.”

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