Page 7 of Risk It All
“I can’t see anything from over there.” Her tone was apologetic, but she settled more firmly on the battered vinyl seat. This was just the view she needed—if she was willing to ignore the fact that she’d plonked herself down next to an unsettlingly attractive accused killer, which apparently shewas.
If Henry didn’t kill her, her sisters certainly would.
“So find another table.” That tone was back—the annoyed yet resigned inflection that was starting to become so familiar. It was oddly reassuring.
“This one is perfect for watching the bar, though.” She pretended to take a sip of her beer and scanned the crowd. Unless Abbott was wearing an excellent disguise, she was pretty sure he wasn’t in the main room.
A heavy sigh drew her attention back to her booth mate. “Who are you stalking now?” he grumbled.
“Geoffrey Abbott.” She watched his face as she said the name. Except for a slight deepening of the crease between his eyebrows, his expression remained impassive. Even if he did know Abbott, she wasn’t sure why she’d expected Kavenski to show any reaction. He had his poker face down pat. “He’s a tax evader.”
The amber liquid in his drink caught the light as he rotated his glass. He hadn’t taken a sip since she’d joined him, making her wonder if he was pretending to drink, just like she was. “He’s not just a tax evader,” he grumbled.
“What do you mean? What else has he done?” Even as she asked, her stomach sank. She’d known this was too easy, especially coming from Barney.
“A lot of bad things. You don’t want that mess,” he said, rather than clarifying. “Find another target.”
“But he was perfectly nonviolent and seemed kind of dumb. That’s just what I was looking for.” On paper, Geoffrey Abbott was the perfect opposite of Kavenski. Best of all, despite Abbott’s objectively handsome face and gym-toned body, Cara hadn’t even felt a twinge of attraction to him. She allowed her head to thump against the back of the booth. “I should’ve known he was too good to be true.”
Kavenski stayed silent as she worked through her disappointment. It made sense, now that she thought about it. After all, weren’t mobsters traditionally brought down by tax evasion? She stared at the crowd as she mentally ran over his file again. Organized crime ties fit, she had to admit to herself.
“Do you know him?” Even though she was pretty sure she shouldn’t continue pursuing Abbott, now that Kavenski had clued her in, she couldn’t just turn off her hunt for the truth. There was nothing she loved more than snapping that last piece of the puzzle into place, and she couldn’t just leave all the unconnected pieces of Abbott’s backstory scattered around willy-nilly.
Kavenski’s huge sigh was accompanied by a rolling of his shoulders, and she tried to swallow her smile. For as dour and supposedly dangerous as he was, he was quite dramatic. Now that she’d been in his company multiple times without him harming her—and with the memory of a recently rescued dog happily licking his chin fresh in her mind—she couldn’t dredge up any fear of him. She was pretty sure he noticed her smile, because his eyes narrowed on her mouth. Hurrying to straighten her face into an appropriately serious expression, she stared back at him expectantly.
“I knowofhim,” he finally said. “And what I know isn’t good. You need to stay away from him.”
“See, that’s the problem.” She played with the bottle in front of her, using her finger to follow a droplet of condensation as it trickled over the label. “I need to bring him in.”
“Why?” He shifted slightly, turning his shoulders a little more toward her. It was almost overwhelming to have the entirety of his attention focused on her. He was so…intense.And hot, the cheekier part of her brain added. Pushing away that ever-present and extremely inconvenient attraction, she tried to keep her mind on what he was saying. “There are dozens of easier skips out there that you could focus on. Why go after Abbott?”
“I told Barney Thompson I’d do it.” Her voice was gloomy. “Usually I’m really good at keeping myself out of trouble. I’m not sure what’s wrong with me lately.”
“Tell Barney Thompson to go after Abbott himself,” Kavenski said with another of his dismissive hand waves. “Who cares if he’s not happy? Thompson isn’t someone you want to get referrals from anyway.”
Resting her elbow on the table, she propped her chin on her hand as she studied Kavenski. “I wish it were that easy. Thanks to my mom, Barney’s holding the title of our house right now.”
“Explain.”
Despite the depressing subject of their conversation, Cara couldn’t help but grin again. He’d sounded so…princely just then, as if he simply needed to know the problem in order to do one of his imperious hand waves and solve all her problems. If only things worked that way. “It’s a long story.”
“The person I’m meeting isn’t here yet, so I have time.”
At that, she felt a very stupid, very irrational bolt of jealousy at the thought of him meeting someone. There hadn’t been any sign of a girlfriend when she’d been following him around. Was the meeting business or a hookup?Either way, it’s none of your concern, the practical part of her brain reminded her.
Quickly reining in the ridiculous emotion, she studied his face, wondering if she should share all of her personal drama with a skip she’d been chasing—or maybe still was? With a mental shrug, she decided it wouldn’t hurt anything. Most everyone in town already knew all the sordid details.
“My mom stole a very expensive necklace, was arrested, used our family home—that my sisters and I paid for—as collateral on her bail bond, and disappeared.” Hearing the words out loud, she felt a fresh surge of anger at Jane. “She hasn’tofficiallyjumped bail yet, since she hasn’t missed her preliminary hearing, but no one’s seen her since she got out of jail.” Kavenski was extremely easy to talk to, his impassive face showing no judgment.
“Oh, and Mom’s friends keep breaking into our house looking for the necklace, and one of them stole money and my sister Molly’s car.” This made his left eyelid twitch, and she paused, expecting him to say something. When he remained silent, she continued. “I usually just do research, but Felicity and Charlie have spent all their time searching for Mom, and Norah’s even more hopeless at fieldwork than I am, so Molly’s stuck with doing all the actual skip chasing. She can only do so much, so the business isn’t taking in much money, and things are tight.”
Remembering how stressed Molly had looked, Cara felt her lips turn down in an anxious frown. She stayed silent until the slightest tilt of his head prompted her to finish her pathetic tale. “On top of that, we could lose our house, and it’s the last thing we have of my dad. I wanted to help out, but I seem to be just causing more problems instead of helping.”
She’d started out confident, but her voice quavered slightly at the end. It was Kavenski’s fault. He just seemed so solid and had a way of listening intently that made it too easy to believe he was a supportive partner, rather than a skip she’d failed to bring in. Speaking of…
“I don’t supposed you’d agree to letting me bring you back to jail?” Even as she asked, her stomach twisted at the thought. It might be extremely dumb of her, but she didn’t think he was guilty of killing the Masons. Even the huge bounty wouldn’t help ease her conscience if she brought in an innocent man.
His mouth quirked in the closest thing to a smile she’d seen on his face, which was not the reaction she’d been expecting. “Can’t. Sorry. I have to finish a few things first.”
