true they’re intercepting her messages—”
“But you said you didn’t.”
“I said I couldn’t remember,” she corrected.
“Think, Annie.”
Events had been racing along at such a pace that Annie hadn’t really concentrated on what she’d told Shelby Parker before this. She bit her lip and took a few steps back and forth. “I told Ms. Parker you were in Poplar Gulch. I mentioned the name Ben Miller because I’d seen it on the mailbox and remembered it from your file.”
“My file?”
“Well—”
“Never mind, that’s how the thugs knew where to come look for me. Did you tell Parker how you happened to know about Poplar Gulch in the first place? About the picture of me in Ben’s truck taken outside my ex-wife’s house?”
Annie stopped pacing as her heart dropped to her feet. She faced Garrett. “Oh, my gosh, I did say just about exactly that. But I didn’t say her name.”
“Still, they know I have a daughter and an ex-wife.”
“If I’ve hurt your little girl because I was too stupid to remember this before, I’ll never forgive myself. I’m so sorry—”
Garrett reached for the cell phone. As he waited for it to power up, indecision stole over his face.
“What is it?” Annie asked, sitting down beside him again.
“I don’t know who to call.” He took out his pocket watch and checked the time. “It’s almost midnight.”
“I forgot your ex-wife is a dancer at one of the casinos. She’ll be at work.”
He looked up with alarm. “What else do you know about me?”
“Mother dead, father and brother in Oregon, infant nephew—”
“What? Infant nephew? Brady has a kid?”
“Named Nathan. And a wife. Former name Lara Kirk.”
“Lara Kirk? As in the Riverport Kirk family?”
“I don’t know about that.”
“I wonder what else I missed.”
“Call Megan’s grandmother,” Annie said.
“You know about my ex-wife’s mother, too?”
“She’s a semi-invalid and watches Megan while your ex goes to work. Call her.”
“If I told her to take Megan away from Reno right now, she’d hang up on me.”
“Then call the police.”
“And tell them what?” He ran a hand through his thick, dark hair. “I’m a wanted man,” he said softly. “If Megan disappears into the system I’ll never get her back. But I can’t go to Reno—”
“Why not?”
“It might lead them to her.”
“But she needs you. I mean, apart from the fact she hasn’t seen you in months and to a little kid that’s a lifetime, there may be two really awful men on their way to her house. She needs you to protect her.”
He stared at the phone without answering.
Annie got to her feet. “What are you waiting for?”
“Listen here—”
“Are you going to leave your little girl to fend for herself until you get your life all straightened out?”
He glared at her a few more moments before saying, “If I don’t show up, Megan will be okay. The thugs will decide I’ve skipped and leave her alone. Once I show up, she’ll be in horrible danger. Just like you were tonight.”
“You’re walking away from your own daughter.”
“I don’t have a choice. It’s why I left Reno in the first place. Megan is safer without me hanging around. They may not even know she’s living under her mother’s name.”
“But they might. If my—if I can figure it out, so can they. How can you say she’s safer without her father? How can you be so selfish?”
She suddenly noticed he was standing, too. He took a step toward her, eyes murderous. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, I do,” she all but growled, her voice growing distressingly thick with emotion as her own past reared its ugly head in her mind. She took a deep breath. “I absolutely do know what I’m talking about. A little girl needs her father, no matter what. This isn’t just about you, it’s about her, too. Her mother stays out most nights and her grandmother resents babysitting and lives on painkillers, and her father is hiding—”
“How do you know all this? No, don’t tell me. You must be better at your job than I gave you credit for.”
“Megan needs you and you’re running away. Again.”
He stomped off a few feet toward Scio’s stall and stood staring at the horse, hands shoved in his coat pockets. Annie picked up the phone he’d left sitting on the hay. Maybe she could call a taxi to come get her. She’d have to wait until her fingers stopped trembling.
Garrett returned. He scooped up his duffel bag, took out a pencil and a piece of paper and started writing.
“What are you doing?”
He said, “Making a note for Joanna. Explaining there was a fire at Ben’s place, telling her I’m leaving. She boards Ben’s horse during the winter. I only had him for a few weeks.”
“Where are you going?” she asked as she saw him sign the name Pete Jordan to the note.
“To Reno.”
“How?”
“I’ll borrow Joanna’s hay truck. She keeps an extra key in a grain bag.” He scribbled something about taking the truck on the bottom of the note before sticking it through a nail located next to Scio’s stall.
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