Anxiety overtakes me as he shoves the puppy into my arms and rises to his feet. With one hand, he reaches down to help me up; the other is busy pulling his iPhone from his back pocket. I’m too baffled to fight with him as he drags me vertical and starts snapping pictures of the sedan just before it turns acorner.
He curses as it vanishesfromview.
“Luca, what is it?” I’m really beginning to freak out, now. “What’sgoingon?”
“Damn. Didn’t get a clear shot. There’s a partial plate, at least… it’s a start… should be enough for Nate totrackit…”
“Luca!” I yell, starting to freak out. “Tell me what’s going on.Please.”
“Get the kids. We’re leaving. Now.” He looks more serious than I’ve ever seen him. “That’s the third time that car’s driven by while we’ve been here. Thought it was a coincidence the second time they did a sweep, but after getting a better look at them just now, I’m positive it wasintentional.”
“What doyoumean?”
“Don’t know who they are or what they’re searching for, but they didn’t look like locals. They’re clearly canvassing this park for something… orsomeone.”
My stomach flips uneasily, bad thoughts beginningtoform.
Luca shakes his head. “Could be a sexual predator, could be something worse. Don’t think we should stick around tofindout.”
Pulse pounding, I grab the phone from his hand and zoom in on the car window in the picture. It’s pixilated, too blurry to make out much at all… but the man in the passenger seat is definitely dressed in black… built like an ox… and bald as acueball.
My heart drops into myshoes.
Because I have a sick intuition that I know exactly who’s in that car… and exactly who they’relookingfor.
Me.
ChapterTen
They say you are what you eat…. but I don’t remember eating a sarcastic, shoe-obsessed, prosecco-drinking shopaholic with commitmentissues.
Delilah Sinclair, contemplating her most attractivequalities.
Luca simmerswith quiet tension for the rest of the night — the whole walk back to Beacon Hill with the twins sandwiched between us on the sidewalk; the entire time I’m making macaroni and cheese in the Macombers’ gorgeously renovated two floor townhouse. He barely says a word to either me or the kids as we eat dinner, instead standing in the front room by the bay window with one eye on the street and a phone pressed to his ear. I catch a snippet of his clipped conversation when I approach with a bowl of macaroni and extend it in hisdirection.
“No, Nate. Let me know what you find after you run the plate number.” His eyes meet mine as he accepts the bowl with a nod of thanks. “Could be someone from the fighting circuit, a bookie looking to hedge his bets or maybe one of Forrester’s guys, checking me out before the championship. Doubt it though. These guys didn’t looklocal.”
I strive to keep my face a mask of composure, doing my best to hide the fact that I’m pretty sure I knowexactlywho those thugs were, and who they were looking for earlier. Luca’s eyes linger on my face, studying me with extra intensity, as though he knows I’m hiding something. The man is a human lie detector, I shityounot.
Maybe it’s wrong, not to tell him that two loan shark lackeys are attempting to track me down and quite possibly take a baseball bat to my kneecaps. (And not just because I’ve always considered my legs to be one of my most attractive attributes.) The thing is, I know if I tell him, he’ll drag Nate and all available Knox Investigations resources into thematter.
I can’t do that to Phoebe. I won’t. Not the day before her wedding. She deserves a perfect day, unmarred by my familydrama.
I’ve never needed someone to solve my problems inthepast.
No need tostartnow.
I turn and flee back to the kitchen, feeling safer in the kids’ company than I do in Luca’s. Unfortunately, my security blanket is short-lived; when the clock strikes seven thirty, it’s bedtime for the twins. Upstairs, I help them brush their teeth and change into pjs before tucking them intotheirbeds.
“Will you read us a story, Lila?” Harry asks, peering down from thetopbunk.
“Which one,kiddos?”
“The one about thecrayons.”
I roll my eyes. “You guysalwayspickthatone.”
“Because we like it, duh,” Potter says, shooting me anexasperatedlook.