Page 70 of Golden Touch
It makes me feel about ten percent safer than I was last week. So I guess that’s something. Back inside, with the doors locked, I open up my laptop and check all the new camera feeds. When I run the clock back a minute or two, I find a crystal-clear shot of myself, along with views of the whole property. If anyone threatens me, I can lock myself in the bedroom and call 911.
Hoping it won’t come to that, I sit down on the sofa again and try to read.This is fine, I tell myself. Feeling scared is pointless. Feeling lonely is, too.
I’m a few pages into the chapter when my phone buzzes with a text.
Nash
Don’t be alarmed if an unfamiliar car pulls up in a few minutes. It’s a friend of mine.
Besides, when you see the car, you’ll know it’s not those assholes.
While I appreciate the warning, his message doesn’t tell me what I need to know.
Am I supposed to do something? Take in a package? Let in your friend? Serve drinks?
Do all of that.
???
There’s no further response, and I find my irritation rising. Nash ought to realize that I’m a little fragile, here. And his note about the car makes no sense. If Razor wants to kidnap me, he’lldrive an unfamiliar vehicle. Because neither of us was born yesterday.
Five minutes later, I hear an engine.
Ping!says the security system.
Thunkgoes my tummy.
In spite of Nash’s warning, every muscle in my body tenses. I get up and tiptoe to the window, where I twitch the curtain an inch and peer outside. I actually let out a bark of laughter as a car rounds the building toward the pumphouse.
Because Nash was right. There’s no way my ex is driving that car.
CHAPTER 29
LIVIA
The car whizzes up to the building before making an abrupt stop. It’s a Mini Cooper in hot pink with orange racing stripes.
Razor wouldn’t be caught dead in that thing.
Its owner kills the engine and flings open the door. She’s a tall, curvaceous woman with wavy hair in several shades of honey blond.
And wait—I recognize her. She’s the one who climbed up on the counter and hugged Nash that day in the tasting room. I saw her through the refrigerator window.
Instead of heading for the door, she trots around the car on three-inch heels to the passenger side, where she struggles a tote onto one arm and then pulls another object off the front seat. It’s a footed cake plate in a deep shade of pink.
So this woman isprobablynot an operative on a mission to kill me. Or, if she is, her cover is flawless. And so is her makeup.
“Yoo-hoo!” she calls, approaching the door. “Knock knock! I’m Nash’s friend, here to make a delivery.”
I unbolt the new lock on the door and open it. “Um, hi,” I say, because a year in hiding is hell on your social skills. “Come in?”
Her mouth—clad in rosy lipstick—parts in a big smile. “You’re Livia, yeah? Nash told me all about you.”
“That had better not be true.”
The woman tips her head back and laughs so hard that she has to grip the cake plate. She’s wearing a smocked, rose-colored blouse with black embroidery around the collar, and kickass silver earrings.
So I hate her a little already, but I’m trying to be polite. “Do you need me to hold anything?”
