Chapter 17 #3
His wide gaze met hers, followed by a tight smile. Her fists clenched at her side. She wanted to punch him in the face more than anything she’d ever wanted to do in her life.
I’m not going to make a scene… I am not going to make a scene…
“So nice to see you again…” So, he’d decided to go into smarmy politician mode. “Ms. Davidson, isn’t it?”
“Mr. Spivey,” she managed to say, unclenching her fists, then clenching them again.
Her hands would look good crushing the lapels of his tailor-made suit as she marched him out.
It was a temptation she had to tamp down as she stepped close enough the man took a step back.
But that one step wasn’t enough to keep her from getting in his face and poking a finger into his chest.
“Why are you here?” she whispered with enough force she might as well have yelled.
“We’re paying our respects to a man we greatly admired.”
“Yeah, right,” Chance said on a huff, while drops of sweat formed on Spivey’s forehead. Good, he should be intimidated. Beside him, his wife wrapped her arm more firmly around her husband’s.
“Yes,” Mrs. Spivey added, pulling Solace’s gaze from the man to his wife’s cold, ice-blue, malicious glare centered on her, before she brought a black handkerchief up and dabbed at her eyes.
If the woman had shed a single tear, Solace would eat one of the pews.
“We didn’t expect for our presence to be questioned in this manner. ” Then she had the nerve to sniffle.
At the corner of her eye, a large figure approached. She’d seen this man before. Had met him at?—
“Enders Knight,” Chance murmured.
That was right. He’d worked for the Spiveys. But why was he here?
“You two need to sit your asses down,” the big man said directly behind Spivey, whose body jerked at Enders’ low, hard tone, while his wife let out a small gasp and turned her hate-filled gaze over her shoulder. “And stop trying to hog the attention.”
Enders tensed, while his harsh features froze and body went on alert.
“Pardon me,” a quiet, feminine voice broke in.
A young, dark-haired woman accompanied by an older man skirted around their small group.
Nothing was strange about that. Several people had entered the chapel as she’d confronted Spivey.
It was almost time for the service to start, and people were taking their seats.
What was strange, was the knowing, almost sly, look she sent Enders as she passed. Stranger still was how the big man seemed to completely forget about the Spiveys and followed the two newcomers heading straight for the front. On impulse, Solace’s gaze remained fixed on them.
“Honestly, Ms. Davidson,” Spivey said, just as Enders stopped the two by taking hold of the woman’s arm.
“This way,” Enders said just loud enough she was able to hear.
What’s going on?
“Enders is right,” she said, cutting off whatever else Spivey was about to say. “Sit your asses down.” She then threw over her shoulder, as she walked away from them, “Chance, make sure they take a seat.”
“Well, I never,” Paula Spivey said, her tone affronted.
“I’m sure you haven’t,” Solace muttered, her focus on Enders basically pushing the man and woman down one of the few empty rows of pews toward the side of the chapel.
Solace mirrored their movements by going around the last row of pews, then quickstepped to make it to the same side door Enders was currently opening.
“What the hell did you think you were doing,” Enders groused, throwing the door wide, as she drew close.
“You insisted for this to be in person,” the young woman said. “What else did you expect?”
“Not for you to mess with the family.”
“Haven Sheppard messed with my family,” the man said low—angry—as Enders attempted to push him inside the door. Several people close by turned their heads in the direction of the three, obviously drawn to what was starting to become a commotion. “She deserves this.”
The man spun away from Enders, giving Solace the first good look at him—tall, graying blonde hair, and at one time she’d imagine he’d been fit and handsome. But his clothes hung on him, and his features were pale and drawn—his gaunt eyes, manic.
“And she’s not lost enough,” he yelled, then quickly turned and rushed down the side of the chapel toward the front. In his hand…
“Gun,” she yelled, sprinting after him—passing Enders who had been after the man too, but now had the young woman’s arms firmly wrapped around his legs.
Bedlam erupted in the chapel—people running toward the exits, while others fell to the floor in front of their pews.
“Everybody out,” bellowed from somewhere behind her, stopping her cold in her tracks.
That voice.
Her heart hammered, while she turned in place and her desperate gaze scanned over the crowd.
A flash of movement had her zeroing in on a man in a long black coat vaulting over several pews on the far side of the chapel.
Her heart beat faster as he ran across the length of a now empty pew to make it to the middle aisle—his own gun drawn.
The black fedora-type hat he wore flew out behind him, revealing a shaved head and grizzled face.
It can’t be…
“Duncan.”