Page 27 of Survive the Night
As he sprawled in a chair in Jules’s kitchen, Otto watched his partner stride back and forth, crossing from the back door to the hallway entrance and then angrily retracing his steps again. It wasn’t as if Theo was doing anything especially interesting. Pacing was his usual response to a stressful situation, and Otto had seen him do it hundreds of times. Watching Theo, however, was keeping Otto’s eyes away from Sarah—no, Alice. If he let his gaze stray, it kept turning toward her.
“So, Alice, you were hiding from your brother?” Hugh asked. He was also sitting, but his chair was arranged right next to Grace’s, close enough that he could keep an arm around her. Grace didn’t seem to mind. Otto glanced at Sarah despite himself. They were seated on the same side of the table, although there was an empty chair between them. Even with that wooden chaperone, they were still close enough that sweat beaded on the back of Otto’s neck. He resisted the urge to wipe it away, knowing that eagle-eyed Hugh would notice his nervous tic. Sometimes, it was hard to work with people who knew him as well as Hugh and Theo did.
“Call me Sarah. I don’t want to be Alice anymore. And yes. My mom passed away when I was a baby. I don’t remember her. My father wasn’t a good man, and my brother’s even worse. They didn’t share details of the business with me, but I lived in the middle of it. It wasn’t too hard to figure out. Both my father and Aaron were very controlling and cruel. A…friend helped me escape.” Although she was sitting, Sarah wasn’t still. She shifted in her chair, leaning forward and back, occasionally chewing on her thumbnail before jerkily returning her hand to her lap. Otto fought the urge to reach across the chair and put a soothing hand on her arm or rub her back or… The back of his neck prickled, and he rubbed at it instead.
“What’s wrong with you?” Hugh asked.
Otto jerked his hand back down, but it was too late. Hugh was starting to smile. He looked from Sarah to Otto, his gaze a little bit knowing and a whole lot devilish.
“What?” Sarah asked faintly.
Hugh laughed. “Oh, I didn’t mean you. I was talking to the offspring of Paul Bunyan over there.”
“Hugh,” Theo said sharply, pausing in his pacing to give Hugh a glare. “Focus.” He looked at Sarah. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-three.” She sounded a little confused by the question, but Otto knew where Theo was going.
“Why did you have to run?” Theo asked, glancing out the window as he passed the sink. “You’re an adult. Why not just move out? Your brother doesn’t have any legal authority over you.”
“He doesn’t seem to care about that.” Although his words came out mildly, Otto was seething on the inside, remembering the pain on her face as her brother tried to yank her back into the basement.
Sarah shot him a grateful look that warmed Otto’s belly. “He doesn’t. If I’d told him I was moving out, he would’ve locked me in my room until I was eighty—no”—she corrected herself—“until my wedding day.”
Needing something to do with his hands, Otto picked up a spoon that was sitting on the table. Even as he did so, he marveled at his strange behavior. He wasn’t a fidgety person. Something about Sarah, though, made him as twitchy as Bean, the horse that was his newest rescue project.
“Your wedding day?” Grace repeated. “If you’re locked in your room, how are you going to find a groom?”
Sarah’s face tightened in a way that made Otto want to go to the police department, corner Aaron in his holding cell, and choke the life out of him. It was a good thing that Aaron wouldn’t be in Monroe for much longer. The FBI had been very excited to hear that the Monroe police had arrested Aaron Blanchett, and they were sending agents to pick him up as soon as they could arrange a transfer. The entire Monroe Police Department—what was left of it, at least, since three quarters of the officers left for the winter—had joined Theo in searching for Logan. There’d been no trace. The Texas authorities were notified, but Logan hadn’t been spotted yet. Otto wasn’t too hopeful that they’d find the fugitive. He had a feeling Logan would disappear.
“Aaron’s already found the groom,” Sarah said, and Otto’s whole body went stiff. “Logan Jovanovic.”
“Ugh!” Grace groaned. “I met him briefly at the police station where he tried to kill me.”
Sarah stared at Grace, but everyone else had heard the story, so she was the only one shocked. Otto did notice that Hugh scowled and tucked Grace closer to his side, though. “Logan Jovanovic tried to kill you, too?”
“What?” Jules stood in the entrance to the hallway, her face chalk white. Theo immediately strode over to wrap an arm around her. She leaned in to him but kept her gaze locked on Sarah. “What about Logan Jovanovic?” Her voice shook a little as she said the name.
“He tried to kill Grace,” Sarah said.
“I know that part.” Jules still looked too pale, although her voice was fairly even. “How do you know Logan Jovanovic?”
“He shot out Otto’s car window today, and I’m supposed to marry him.” Sarah was trying to sound brave, but her voice quavered. “Aaron thought that giving me to Logan would give him an opportunity to take over the Jovanovics’ business. Supposedly, the Jovanovic family is a mess right now, with Noah and Martin in jail.”
“What the hell did you just do to that spoon?” Hugh asked, looking at Otto’s hands.
Otto glanced down, staring blankly at the twisted metal clutched in his white-knuckled grip. He looked at Jules. “Sorry.”
“What?” She waved a hand. “It’s just a spoon. Don’t worry about it.” Still pale, Jules turned back to Sarah. “Your brother’s name is Aaron? Aaron what?”
“Blanchett.”
At the name, Jules leaned against Theo. He wrapped his arms around her. “Do you know him?”
“Yeah, I know him—well, of him. I wanted to work for him at one point.”
“Why?” Sarah said, sounding bewildered. “He’s not a good person to work for…at all.”
“I know.” Straightening and turning to face Theo, Jules said, “I tried to keep this a secret. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust you, but I didn’t want to put you in a bad spot. I mean, I broke the law. I’m still breaking the law, and not in a jaywalking, take-the-tag-off-the-mattress way. It’s serious, and I didn’t want you to have to decide between your duty as a cop and how you felt about me.”
