Chapter 16
Downtown Logan Point was almost deserted at nine, except for Two Cups. But it was Thursday night, and not much happened around town during the week. Until recently Scott had liked the quiet, but now he was ready to go back to work.
He looked for a red Toyota among the cars parked around the coffee shop and found it midway down the block. With an open parking slot beside it. Good. It would give him an excuse to walk with her when they left.
The thought surprised him. Especially given that if Tori discovered that asking her out had been Ben’s idea . . . not that asking her out hadn’t already crossed his mind. He just wasn’t sure he would’ve acted on it, given his goal of rejoining the FBI as soon as possible.
Scott’d had his share of dates, but he always made sure his heart wasn’t involved. Working undercover was no life for a married man. The few agents he’d known who had married usually ended up divorced. Not all, but most.
He shook the thought off, not believing the direction his mind had gone. But there was something different about Tori. Always had been.
Kate Adams had helped him get sober and encouraged him to attend church and he had, but he’d come close to quitting when everyone his age mostly ignored him.
Later he realized it was because they’d all been friends since kindergarten.
Tori was the first one who reached out to him.
He smiled at the memory of her walking up to him with that chessboard and plopping it down at the table where he sat and telling him they were going to play chess.
She’d had no idea that at one time he’d been a Class A player.
He’d almost gotten sidetracked when she’d smiled at him like he was the only person in the room.
Otherwise, he would have beaten her in five moves.
What he found refreshing then and now was her honesty, something he didn’t always find in the women he dated.
Dated? You just reconnected. You don’t know the first thing about Tori Mitchell now.
But he did. Earlier today she’d been cool under fire, literally. And she’d stood her ground with Ben. Besides, he doubted Tori was very different from her podcast persona, and she rocked it there.
He stepped inside Two Cups and scanned the room as soft Dixieland jazz provided a backdrop to the murmur of conversation. His gaze landed on Tori sitting in the last booth facing the door, working on her computer. His usual spot. Maybe they had more in common than he thought.
She picked up her coffee and glanced around.
When her gaze landed on him, she pointed to a second cup on the table.
Then she smiled, and it turned his world upside down.
It was like riding a roller coaster—that sense of floating, becoming untethered from everything.
It’d happened in a small way at the lake, but he’d ascribed it to the man taking potshots at them.
In his experience, whatever caused that feeling never ended well, and for a second, Scott didn’t move.
With a mental shake, he oriented himself and walked toward her.
Meeting with Tori was only a job. One he wasn’t getting paid for, which made it more a favor.
He could walk away any time. He sat across from her.
“I ordered for you,” she said and stowed her computer in a case. “Columbian dark roast with two shots of hazelnut creamer.”
Scott removed the top. “I never could drink coffee through that little hole.” He took a sip. “How’d you know how I take my coffee?”
Tori shrugged. “You just look like that kind of coffee drinker.”
He arched an eyebrow, and she laughed. “I asked the barista if you’d arrived and we got to talking.
She works days Wednesdays and Fridays and said she could set her watch by your arrival.
I almost got you the venti caramel she said you routinely ordered, but I figured it was a little late for that much sugar.
She said this was your second favorite drink. ”
“Thank you.” Set her watch. Routinely. My favorite drink.
The words set off alarms in Scott’s head he couldn’t ignore.
He was getting too comfortable in Logan Point, and while he wasn’t undercover, he’d made a lot of enemies in his job.
Some of them might be looking for him—in fact, it’d been his first thought when the shooter fired at Tori.
A routine definitely made it easier for anyone to find him, and stopping by the coffee shop after rehab was a routine. But confound it, the way-too-sweet coffee was his reward for the pain he endured at physical therapy.
“I can’t believe you got more than two words out of Carla.” He was surprised the girl even remembered him—she rarely said more than “thank you.”
“Getting people to talk to me is what I do,” she said. “How was your meeting?”
“Good. Actually, better than good—one guy got his green coin.” She shot him a puzzled look. “Staying sober is hard, and our group gives sobriety coins for encouragement. Green means he’s been sober six months.”
“That’s great.” She took a sip of her coffee. “Did you happen to find my brother?”
“Yeah.”
“At McKay’s, I suppose—Richard Livingston stopped by after you called, and he’d seen Zack’s truck there.”
He nodded. Her brother’s pickup had been parked at the tavern beside two other pickups that Scott recognized as belonging to Zack’s drinking buddies, and he hadn’t stopped. Wouldn’t have done any good, and knowing Zack’s buddies, it could’ve started an argument, or worse.
She sipped her coffee. “Why are you so interested in my brother?”
He thought a minute. “Your brother gave me a job when I needed it.” Not for the money it paid, but because he needed the structure of showing up for work every day. “Unfortunately, he’s not ready to stop drinking.”
“I wonder if he’ll ever be ready, but even if he quits, it won’t last. At some point, he’ll give in to the temptation.”
Like her dad. Scott didn’t miss the implication in her voice. He’d heard the story of how Clare Mitchell died when the car they were in blew a tire, and Edward Mitchell lost control, overshot a curve, and hit a tree.
Ed, as most people called him, walked away from the accident with few outward injuries or even a drunk driving charge because his blood alcohol concentration was under .
08. But the recovering alcoholic’s pain was evident whenever he told his story at AA meetings.
While he hadn’t caused the accident, Ed believed if his reaction time hadn’t been impaired by a hangover caused by a drinking binge, he could have kept the car from slamming into the tree.
Scott had heard one reason that Tori never came home was because she’d never forgiven her dad and didn’t want to be around him. Scott caught her gaze and held it. “Not everyone relapses.”
The lines around her mouth tightened. “What can you tell me about Jenny Tremont’s death?”
Before he formed an answer, a man approached their booth. “Tori Mitchell! Is that really you?”
They both turned toward the voice. Tori’s eyes widened. “Eli?”
“In the flesh.” He turned to Scott and extended his hand. “Good to see you, Sinclair.”
“You too, Livingston.” Scott shook the man’s hand even though he’d just as soon not.
Which was dumb. It wasn’t Livingston’s fault that he always made Scott feel less than for no apparent reason.
And that was it—there wasn’t a reason in the world for him to feel that way.
Scott had a trust fund that probably equaled anything Eli Livingston had, and he was a nice guy to boot.
“Mind if I join you two for a minute?”
Before Scott could answer, Tori said, “Sure.”
Scott started to slide over to give him room, but Livingston motioned Tori over and slid in beside her.
Okay, he had to admit that Livingston’s possessive way of wrapping his arm around Tori didn’t sit well with him.
But it wasn’t like Scott had a claim on her.
He managed to keep from grinning when she looked uncomfortable with the action and scooted away from Eli.
Livingston didn’t seem to notice. He graced her with a smile, showing off his perfectly even pearly whites, then turned to Scott. “Did she tell you we almost got married?”
Tori gasped. “Eli, you know that’s not true.”
“Well, it would’ve happened if you hadn’t gone off to college in Knoxville.” He turned to Scott. “I gather she hasn’t told you we were quite the item in high school?”
Scott shook his head. He couldn’t picture Tori with the lanky businessman.
“Oh, that’s right,” Eli said. “You weren’t around then.”
“No, I wasn’t.” Scott had not grown up in Logan Point, and prior to coming to the small town to recover at his brother’s house six months ago, he’d only lived in Logan Point that one summer ten years ago. He turned to Tori. “Although I do remember you from that summer. Were you two dating then?”
“No.” Tori shot Eli an exasperated glance. “Eli and I had an on-again-off-again relationship all through high school. That summer was one of our off times.” She closed her eyes briefly and shook her head. “Eli, you will not do.”
“I know.” He turned to Scott. “So, what are you doing now? Other than going to rehab for your shoulder.”
He knew about that? Oh yeah. This was Logan Point, and everyone knew your business. Except only a few people knew how he’d injured his shoulder or that he was undercover FBI. “I’m doing a little of this and that.”
“Good work if you can get it.” With a flick of his eye, he dismissed Scott and turned to Tori. “What are you doing in town? Oh, wait. For a second I forgot about the mess with Drew. If you need a criminal defense lawyer, I know a good one.”
“Your dad said the same thing.” She eyed him. “Do you know him from experience?”
He laughed. “Of course not. His son and I attended Harvard together. He became a lawyer, and I went into business.”
Now Scott remembered why he was uncomfortable with Livingston.
There was no way to have a conversation with him without hearing that he graduated from Harvard.
Or that he was Richard Livingston’s son, heir apparent to the Livingston Oil Corporation and its many holdings.
Not that Livingston did it in an obviously bragging way—it was almost always like this, in passing, but it annoyed him to no end.
Maybe that said more about him than Livingston.