Page 12 of Breathless
“Thanks,” Rawlins replied. “I’d rather be safe than unprepared.”
“Exactly. And it could all come down to very over protective parents,” Hank said.
“You would think so but they couldn’t even stick around in Colorado Springs with Chaney long enough after she was located to fit that category,” Rawlins said.
“Now that you mention it, Liberty Killion did all the foot work on finding her sister and Chaney,” Hank said.
“Yes. And Chaney said her parents didn’t appreciate Liberty’s hard work at all. Didn’t even thank her for helping save their daughter’s life,” Rawlins said grimly.
“Some people are that way. We have to take the good with the bad,” Hank said. “I’ll get Swede on it and get back to you with what he finds. Is anything else going on that you need assistance with at the moment? Chaney seems okay after being threatened by those men in the elevator?”
“How’d you hear … ah, Rafferty spoke to you?” Rawlins said.
“He reported in yesterday.”
Rawlins winced, wondering if he should have called in as well. But did they need to hear from both of them on the same incident? It didn’t sound like Hank expected to have heard from him.
“Yes, she’s fine. She’s more upset by what Justus said to her afterward,” Rawlins said. “I think Justus was trying to break ties so they’d have distance and it would keep Chaney safe. But only time will tell.”
“I don’t envy you and Rafferty on this assignment,” Hank said.
Rawlins thought he heard a chuckle in his tone. “We’re more than up for the task, Sir.”
“I’m sure you are or Kenneally wouldn’t have picked you for the job. I’ll be in touch,” Hank said, before ending the call.
Rawlins stretched out on his bed and thought about things for a while after that. It didn’t surprise him to wake up a few hours later to the soft knocking at his door.
He rolled off his bed and went to open it. “Yeah?”
“I’m sorry, did I wake you?” Chaney said, holding a piece of printed paper in her hands. “I’ve been working on my resume and wanted you to look at it before I sent it to The Village.”
“Sure. I’ll take a look,” Rawlins said. “Have you called them yet?”
“Yes, I had a nice conversation with Hannah Collins, the director. She’s a friend of Dr. Saunders. And she is willing to have me work there once she sees this resume,” Chaney explained.
Rawlins nodded, reading through it one more time, checking the spelling and grammar for any errors. “It’s good to go. I think you have a crisp and clean looking resume. Do you mind if I have The Village contact information? I need to check the location out for your protection if you are going to be going there.”
“Sure,” Chaney said. “I’ll take a photo of it for myself and bring you the business card. I’ll be right back.”
She disappeared and he thought about what this would mean for him to keep her safe while she was at The Village. How was he going to finagle that? He hadn’t taken that into account when she first mentioned it and he could have kicked himself for not thinking about it and bringing it up to Hank when they spoke a few hours ago.
He leaned back against the door frame and wondered what he was going to do. He couldn’t very well lurk in the distance outside of the shelter. Someone would see him and think he was casing the place. That would never work. And if he tried to volunteer there as well, how would that make Chaney feel? She already felt her parents were keeping tabs on her with Broderick reporting back to them.
No. There had to be a better way for him to keep her safe without making her feel like she was not standing on her own two feet. That was very important to her right now. And heaimed to make sure she was supported by at least one person in the world.
CHAPTER 4
The following afternoon…
Chaney and Rawlins sat around the cocktail table in her small living room playing their third cutthroat game of Scrabble. They were tied again, and it was her turn. She’d never had a more competitive opponent. Her pulse raced and she chewed on her bottom lip as she studied her tiles, trying to decide what to play to make a killer word, one that gets the points to put her over the top and possibly win this round. The silence in the room was palpable and when the cellphone rang, she jumped, knocking her tiles off the wooden rack.
Rawlins chuckled, grabbing his phone. “Sorry, it’s Hank. I gotta take this.”
“I understand,” she said, scooping up her tiles and rearranging them into a word on the rack. Now if she could place them all on the board, that would get her a bingo– a fifty-point bonus.
Studying the board, she found a place to play her tiles, but she wanted to wait until Rawlins returned to do it. Instead, she went to the kitchen to refill her glass of water and stretched her back from sitting on the floor.
Once in his bedroom,Rawlins closed the door. “I’m glad you called. I’ve been wanting to talk to you about something I failed to mention yesterday.”
