Page 58 of Justice & Liberty

I shook my head, frowning. “But how did he not notice the taste? Pretty sure antifreeze actually tastes better than cheap vodka.”

He shrugged, casual and careless, like it no longer mattered what he was telling me. That was...concerning, to be honest. Unless I had been lied to by Hollywood my whole life, it meant that Martin Hayes had just decided to kill me. “The ass burned out his taste buds years ago. Why do you think he was choking down ten dollar vodka when he was a millionaire?”

“I always figured he was just cheap. Besides, was he a millionaire anymore? He was pissed at you for a reason. A reason that I think led to you trying to steal Mom’s business from me before it got noticed. You wanted to sell off the shop and try to replace what you stole from him, right? At least some of it.”

He reached over to a drawer on his right, and naive me, I thought he was going to pull out some papers that showed whatever point he wanted to make.

Nope, gun.

Just like a Hollywood stereotype.

“There are still millions in the damned Collins accounts,” he snarled, gripping the gun so tight I worried he might accidentally shoot it. Rather, shoot me with it. “But the cheapskate noticed a few hundred thousand, like they meant anything to him. He was going to go to a different lawyer. Thought I’d been mismanaging his investments. Can you believe that? Decades of working for him for peanuts, and that’s how he thanks me. He was going to fucking Dooley and Franks to sue me for mismanagement.”

“And if they’d done that, they’d have gone through thefinances and discovered it wasn’t actually mismanagement, but theft,” I said. That...all made sense.

“But this will work,” he shifted gears, smiling bright, and I realized that somewhere along the line, Martin Hayes had broken. He was so convinced that the world owed him something, that he didn’t comprehend he might not get exactly what he wanted.

What he thought he deserved.

“Boys will be boys” really fucked guys up, hardcore.

“You’ll ride off into the sunset, but not before signing over the shop to me in lieu of back-payment. I’ll replace the money. Everyone will be just fine.”

“And of course, by ride off into the sunset, you mean you’re going to murder me, like you murdered Ephraim Collins, and steal even more money. Still planning to let Sabrina take the fall for your murdering her grandfather, too?”

He waved the gun around, like my words were an annoying gnat he could dismiss. By waving a dangerous firearm around like a jackass.

“Going to murder me right here in your office?” I asked, pretending nonchalance. “Because I gotta tell you, that doesn’t seem too smart. They can find traces of blood, no matter how much you scrub them. Since I just announced to the whole coffee shop that I was coming down here to talk to you, this is the first place they’ll look if I go missing.”

He frowned at that, but only for a moment. Then he motioned, again with the gun, toward a door in the back of his office. “Out, then. We’ll go out into the country. I can weigh you down and throw you in the reservoir.”

I quirked an eyebrow and didn’t bother mentioning the issues with that plan, since he was, at least at the moment, giving me what I wanted. We were leaving his office. Itwould give the sheriff a chance to stop us, hopefully without degenerating into a hostage situation.

The back door opened right into a small parking area, and for a moment, I panicked. No one would know we were going out the back, and he’d get away and?—

Movement next to me caught my eye, and I saw the sheriff standing there in the alley behind the building, looking as calm as he ever had.

He wasn’t what was moving, though. I spun to find Hunter right beside the door. She’d stuck her cane out between me and Martin Hayes, flipping it up to smack him right in the gun hand, sending it up in the air as he pulled the trigger, shooting at random. I heard a bullet ricochet off brick as Hunter grabbed Hayes by the throat with one hand and disarmed him with the other, tossing the gun on the ground at Sheriff Parker’s feet.

Sheriff Parker, who, calm as you please, pulled a baggie from his pocket and picked up the gun.

“You all right?” Hunter asked me from where she was holding Hayes against the door, turning concerned blue eyes on me. Her gaze raked me from top to bottom and back, searching for damage.

“I’m fine, just a little shaky.” I wanted to lean in, to grab her and kiss her, but she was restraining a murderer, so I also didn’t want to do anything that might let him get away.

A moment later, as though he’d read my needs—or maybe more like he was actually doing his job—Sheriff Parker returned, flipping out a pair of handcuffs as he walked. “Martin Hayes. You’re under arrest for the murder of Ephraim Collins, and for kidnapping MissJoneshere.”

It was cute, how he stressed my last name. Like he might be giving Hayes information he didn’t have.

Hunter handed the bastard over to the sheriff, and then turned toward me in time to receive a Hunter-seeking humanmissile. I clung to her, wrapping my arms around her middle as I breathed hard.

Kidnapping. I had, in fact, for just a second, been kidnapped. Held at gunpoint.

And Hunter, action fucking hero, had stopped the asshole.

She didn’t even have a say anymore.

I was going to date the hell out of her.

---