Page 62 of Landry

“I’m stopping short of your place and will go in on foot. If the prison guard is there, I don’t want him to know that I am there until I can get close enough to take him down—which means you need to stay in the truck.”

“It’s my house.”

“I know. I understand why you’d want to go with me.” He reached for her hand. “But, sweetheart, you’re not trained in hand-to-hand combat. We don’t know if he’s armed. You can’t risk your life for a house.”

“But it’s my home,” she said.

“And if anything happens to you, Ava will be like Billy Ray. Parentless. Maybe worse, she might be placed with her biological father.”

Camille’s fingers tightened into a fist within his grip. “He can’t take her. She doesn’t know him.” Tears welled in her eyes. “She’d be so scared.”

“All the more reason for you to stay back until I clear the area.” He shot a glance toward her. “Will you?”

She drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, nodding. “I will.”

“And stay down in case he gets by me,” Landry said as he pulled onto the road leading down to her house. He switched off the headlights and slowed until his eyes adjusted. “You can’t let him see you in the cab.”

Landry drove the truck off the road, into the trees and parked behind a clump of bushes. Then he leaned across the console and caught her cheeks between his palms.

Starlight filtered through the overhead canopy of leaves and glinted off her blue eyes. “Stay here and stay safe. Ava needs her mother.”

She caught his hands in hers. “What about you? Don’t get yourself hurt.”

“I’ll be all right,” he said. “Besides, no one is depending on me like Ava is on you.”

She stared into his eyes. “I’m depending on you.”

“I’ll make sure you’re safe.” He brushed his thumb across her lips.

“I’m depending on you more than for safety,” she said. “Before I met you, I didn’t think I could ever trust another man with my and Ava’s lives and hearts. You made me realize there are good guys out there. You’re one of them.”

He forced a chuckle he didn’t feel. “Then you have a chance of finding one.” His heart squeezed tightly in his chest at the thought of Camille and Ava forming a family with another man.

“I don’t need to look,” she said. “I’ve already found one.” She leaned across the console and pressed her lips to his.

When her mouth closed over his, Landry couldn’t hold back. He kissed her hard, the walls around his heart crumbling.

All too soon, he pulled away. “If I’m going to catch him in the act, I have to go now. Please, stay down and stay safe.”

She nodded. “I will. Come back to me to finish what we started.”

He stared into her eyes. “Yes, ma’am.”

Then he pulled his Glock out of the console and left the truck with the keys in it. He tapped the window, motioning for her to lock the doors.

After she found the button and engaged the locks, Landry sprinted toward her cottage. Part of him wanted to find the place the same way they’d left it earlier. On the other hand, if he caught Harlan Mark Sanders in the act, he might put an end to her troubles.

Or he might just take one of the players out.

He moved as quickly as he could toward the cottage, careful not to make so much noise as to announce his presence.

As he approached the clearing where the cottage stood, he hovered in the shadows of the trees and studied the area surrounding the house. A dark SUV stood in the driveway.

Nothing moved.

Lights shone through the windows from inside, though Camille had turned them off before they’d left. A curtain rod hung halfway across one of the windows, the curtain gone as if someone had ripped it off the wall.

Was there more damage beyond?

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