Chapter 5 #2
When I was finally forced to stop to get gas on the way home, I had to sit in my car for a few minutes before I got out because I didn’t trust my legs to hold me up.
Everything Barry told me during our meeting today rattles around my brain. Even after listening to the audio recording of our conversation over and over again during the drive, I still can’t fully wrap my head around what I heard.
Probably because it sounds more like a plot of a movie than anything that actually happened in real life. It was so much more than I ever expected or could have hoped for going into that meeting. More information. More evidence. More of exactly what I need to complete my story.
But it didn’t come easily.
It took a lot to get Barry to talk.
Placations…
Imploring him to protect other innocent people from getting hurt…
Downright begging…
And making a lot of promises I probably shouldn’t have made.
Like that he would be safe…
I’ve always known that if I went ahead with this story, I would be putting myself in the crosshairs of some very dangerous people, and I’m dragging other people, like Barry, with me. But he knew who he worked for and the consequences of it. That’s why he’s been hiding from them for so long.
But nothing stays hidden forever.
Bringing everything into the light is necessary to protect the greater good.
The story is already writing itself in my head—sentences and paragraphs flowing endlessly—and as soon as I get home, the first thing I’m going to do is get it all out.
Every thought I have about our conversation, every new question that it raises, every detail I can now prove.
All of it.
I almost blow through the stop sign coming back into town, and by the time I pull in behind the bakery and throw my car into park, releasing a shaky breath, my heart is thundering so loudly that blood is rushing in my ears.
The sun has already started to set, and I climb out into the dusky evening and grab my computer bag and the voice recorder from the center console to continue listening to the replay of our interview again as I make my way toward the front of the building and the entrance of my apartment.
“I have boxes and boxes of files…the Lorells trusted me…”
Barry’s voice fills my head as I hustle around the corner of the building and slam into a brick wall…of solid muscle. Strong hands wrap around my upper arms, keeping me from toppling over, but the voice recorder tumbles from my hand and falls to the sidewalk, little pieces of it flying everywhere.
“Fuck! No!” I glance up to see who I ran into, and my blood immediately runs cold as Connor McBride stares down at me, his eyes as dark as onyx. “You asshole! Look what you did!”
I jerk out of his hold and drop to my knees, scrambling to gather the metallic pieces of the voice recorder.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
The internal drive better not be damaged because if I can’t salvage the audio, all I have left are my hand-jotted notes and memory of the interview—and that might not be enough.
Connor towers over me, crossing his arms over his huge chest. “You were the one who wasn’t watching where you were going.”
I glance up long enough to scowl at him. “Well, I wasn’t expecting there to be a grumpy, growly mountain man looming around the corner of the building!”
Looking back down, I gather the final pieces of plastic and shove them in my jeans pocket, hoping he won’t notice, but his eyes follow the movement intently.
“What was that you dropped?”
I clear my throat and swallow thickly. “Nothing.”
“Really?” One of his dark brows rises. “Because I could have sworn I heard a familiar name said from the speaker of that thing right before it fell from your hand.”
Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.
“Umm…”
He takes a step closer, looming over me where I still kneel on the sidewalk. His dark eyes remain locked on me, searching my face as if he might find whatever he’s looking for there. “What the hell are you up to, Raven?”
I climb to my feet, averting my gaze before peeking at him again. “What do you mean?”
His jaw hardens. He scans around us, at the people milling up and down Main Street, sitting at the small bistro tables outside the bakery only a few steps away, having their last sweet treat before it closes up for the night, at the cars driving down the road, and abruptly grabs my arm again.
“Hey!”
He drags me toward the entrance to my apartment.
“Connor, what the fuck are you doing?”
We receive a few questioning looks, but everyone in town knows him and the fact that he and I have a…complicated relationship. This likely doesn’t seem too weird for them for us to be having a tiff on the damn sidewalk, especially if any of them witnessed what went down at the bakery the other day.
Connor dips his head close to mine, so that when he says the words, they rumble against my ear. “Taking you inside so the rest of McBride Mountain doesn’t hear what the fuck you’ve been up to.”
Goosebumps break out across my skin as he jerks open the door and ushers me up the stairs. I let him because I don’t stand a chance against his strength, even if I wanted to fight him. And there wouldn’t be any point. Now that he’s heard what he heard, he’s not going to let this—or me—go.
When we get to the top of the stairs and the single door that leads to my apartment, he pauses to look at me expectantly.
I incline my head toward the knob. “It’s unlocked.”
His eyes widen. “Jesus Christ. Of course, it is.”
He grabs the knob with his free hand and shoves it open, guiding me inside before he closes it behind us and throws the deadbolt lock.
I scoff. “Is that really necessary?”
When he turns to face me, I can see the tension in his entire body.
Every hard muscle flexed and ready for a fight.
He’s an immovable force, and he’s directed all that power at me, at stopping whatever he thinks is happening.
“I don’t know. You tell me. Because I just heard the name Lorell on that voice recorder you tried to hide in your pocket. ”
Fuck.
I release a heavy breath, walk over to the couch, and lower my bag onto it.
There are two options here: play dumb and hope I can convince him he didn’t hear what he thought he heard, or come clean. Something tells me the first one isn’t going to fly. Not with Connor. He’s too smart, too observant.
I still have to at least make an attempt. “Connor, I don’t know what you’re talking about…”
He takes a step toward me, then another, his hands fisting at his sides again.
The flinty gray-black of his eyes only darkens more.
“Don’t play dumb with me, Raven. Willow warned me that you were up to something and that you’ve been lying to her, then you get up before the asscrack of dawn, looking nervous as hell, to drive to Atlanta to meet with someone who lives in a house owned by a goddamn LLC, like that isn’t shady as fuck—”
“How the hell do you know that?” It takes a few seconds for me to process what he just said, to clearly understand what it means. “Oh, my God, did you follow me to Atlanta?”
Connor doesn’t react.
Not an apologetic look.
Not a hint of embarrassment or regret.
He fucking followed me!
“How dare you, Connor McBride?”
He advances another step. “That’s rich, coming from you, after I just heard that name, the one name we never talk about, the one name we can’t discuss, because we literally made an agreement not to, on a recording that you’re carrying.
The woman who loves to splash gossip and information that she shouldn’t be sharing all over the fucking internet is delving places she shouldn’t go.
So, how dare you, Raven Perry? Stop lying to me and tell me what the fuck is going on. ”
His anger permeates the air between us, thick and heavy like the chorded muscles of his neck and forearms.
He is pissed.
And maybe he has a right to be.
I draw in a shaky breath and release it.
Fuck.
I had hoped I would have more time. That maybe the story would be mostly completed by the time I finally had to speak to Connor about it, to get his side of what happened on the homestead and any information he can provide about the men he took out or what might have been said by any of them.
But I guess the cat’s out of the bag at this point.
Running my hands through my unruly hair, I release a heavy sigh. “I’m working on a story…”
One of his dark eyebrows rises slowly. “What kind of story?”
The kind that’s going to blow everything up.
“About the Lorells.”