feel her body heat; she all but pressed up against him, glancing around his body to speak to the intruder. He made sure she remained behind him, shielded as much as was possible, given the circumstances.
As usual, she spoke her mind. “If your girl left over money, then she didn’t love you and you’re well rid of her. You look like a healthy, intelligent guy, so I’m sure if you try hard enough you can find a legal way to pay your bills.”
Marilyn and Danny crept up behind Skinner. No one else was in the office this afternoon, just one receptionist and one investigator taking care of paperwork. In the distance, sirens sounded. Marilyn had surely called the police as soon as she’d realized there was going to be trouble.
Skinner heard the sirens grow closer, too, and he panicked. Sam could see the fear on his face. “I don’t want to go to jail.”
“Then you’d better run,” Lizzie said.
Marilyn hung back while Danny took a silent step closer to the man with the baseball bat.
“You all saw me, you’ll report me and I’ll end up in jail. I’m already in enough trouble, thanks to you. I don’t need this.”
Lizzie gave another snort followed by a soft “Well, duh. You’d better run fast and far.”
A panicked Skinner lifted his bat into a threatening position and rushed forward. Sam raised his gun. Danny ran.
And Lizzie slipped her hand around Sam’s body and fired a Taser C2. A purple Taser C2, Sam couldn’t help but note. The small identifying papers flew from the cartridge. The probes found their target—midbody, perfect shot.
Skinner dropped to the ground. He let loose the bat and shook uncontrollably, making noises that spoke volumes about the misery he was in as electric volts worked through his body. He twitched and cursed and drooled. The sirens were now right outside the door.
Lizzie took her finger off the activation button, ending the stream of electrical current that had taken Skinner to the ground. When that was done, Danny took control of the man, moving the bat several feet away and taking the intruder by the wrist—even though at the moment Skinner was no threat to anyone.
Sam looked down at Lizzie, who stared at the gun in his hand. “Overkill,” she muttered.
Chapter 2
Lizzie still couldn’t get used to calling this house home. Her father had only lived in it for three years before his death four months earlier, so it had never been home to her. Sure, she’d eaten plenty of meals here, and she’d slept in the guest room for a few days when she’d moved back from school in Mobile, but still—she hadn’t grown up here.
The house was paid for. Her dad had planned for an easy retirement, and house payments were not on the agenda. He’d sold their old home and moved into this split-level, two-bedroom, one-and-a-half-bath house south of Birmingham proper. This was the smallest house in a nice little neighborhood filled with young families as well as a retired couple or two and at least one other single person. She should’ve sold the house right away, but in a strange way she still felt her dad here, and she wasn’t ready to let him go. Not yet. So she’d given up her rented apartment and moved in three months ago.
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” she asked, her eyes on the framed photo of her father, which she’d placed at the center of the kitchen table. She ate her soup and talked to him as if he were there. “Why didn’t you find Jenna after that wacko woman told you to leave them alone? Sure, Monica said they had a good life and that it was possible Jenna wasn’t your child, but how could you know she was telling the truth? If you hadn’t believed there was a very good chance she was your child, you never would’ve pressed the issue. Maybe she’s yours and maybe she’s not, but what if Jenna needs us?” If there was even an iota of a chance that this child was a blood relative—pretty much her only blood relative—she couldn’t let the matter go. For now, at least, she would think of Jenna as her sister. No more doubts; no more maybes.
Lizzie played with her soup. She’d been young when her mother had left and she wasn’t blind to the fact that yes, that traumatic event colored all her relationships. She was always waiting for the people in her life to leave, and like clockwork, they always did. Her sister deserved better; she would not abandon Jenna if there was any chance the girl needed her.
Maybe she had serious abandonment issues, maybe she was starved for family, and yes, maybe she wanted a sister so badly she was willing to look past all the trouble she was stirring up. Sam was right when he said news like this would turn a child’s world upside down, but it just didn’t seem right not to at least check on the girl.
Lizzie’s soup grew cool and still she stirred and took the occasional small bite. She’d always dreamed of having a sister. Someone she could talk to. Someone she could tell everything. Someone who would laugh with her and play jokes on Dad and help her choose clothes. Lizzie did not have the fashion gene. In the balancing ways of the universe, surely a sister would. In her fantasies this sister wasn’t twelve years younger and living God knows where, but if this was all she had, she’d make it work. If Jenna needed her, that is. If showing up wouldn’t ruin the girl’s well-ordered life.
“How could you not tell me?” she asked angrily, and then she turned her dad’s picture facedown on the table. She missed her father, she grieved for him, she loved him dearly. And still, she was furious with him for keeping this secret. If he’d keep one secret this big, how many others were there? What else didn’t she know?
Lizzie had just started loading the dishwasher when the doorbell rang. Startled, she almost jumped out of her skin. Callers were not common here, not since the busy days following the funeral. She wiped her hands on a kitchen towel and headed for the front door. How pathetic that a visitor was a shock! She was so wrapped up in her work that she didn’t have a very active social life. No boyfriends, only casual girlfriends since most of her pals had gotten married or moved away from the area, no neighbors she was particularly close to.
Finding Sam Travers on her doorstep was a surprise. Normally she might think it a pleasant one, but the way he was glaring at her, pleasant was not the first word that came to mind. He clutched the letters she’d given him in one hand.
“What’s wrong? I just left you two hours ago.” Hope welled up in her, almost a physical sensation. “Have you already found her?”
Sam stepped closer, and she moved back, and the next thing she knew he was striding into her house as if he lived there. That gray suit must’ve been made for him, the way it draped perfectly on his lean—but not too lean—body. He was grace and strength, hardness and beauty. How could a man in a conservative suit be so intimidating?
“Nothing is wrong,” he said, “you left me three hours ago, and no, I don’t have anything to report just yet.”
“Oh.” The hope that had surged through her died as quickly as it had been born. “Why are you here?” Lizzie longed for the comfort and boundaries of the big desk that had separated them at his office for the majority of her visit. Sam looked bigger, more intimidating in her living room than he had in his office, perhaps because she wasn’t prepared to face him here and now. Perhaps because she knew his jacket disguised a shoulder holster and a gun. Perhaps because he wasn’t exactly the man she remembered.
He turned accusing eyes to her. “I wanted to make sure you were all right after the excitement at the office.”
“After
