Page 62 of The Gift
“I don’t know.”
“Was it someone here?”
“I don’t know,” she repeated, her voice rising. “All I know is we have to find her and help her.”
He didn’t argue and grabbed her hand. “Let’s go.”
When they returned outside, the party was thinning. Chairs folding. Kids arguing about s’mores, someone calling for leftovers to be wrapped up.
“She was watching the game,” she said, scanning faces.
“It ended twenty minutes ago,” he said. “That’s why I came to find you.”
More time lost than she thought. Erica glanced toward the driveway. “Maybe she’s already left.”
“Let’s check the front.”
When his arm settled around her waist, strong and supportive, she didn’t realize how much she needed it.
They rounded the house. A red pickup was parked at the curb. The blonde stood beside the passenger door, laughing at something O’Reilly said.
“There,” she said, doing all she could not to point. “With your partner.”
He swept the yard until he found him. Then his mouth compressed a fraction. “That’s Shannon Carter. O’Reilly’s new girlfriend.”
Erica let that soak in. His partner’s girlfriend broadcasting terror couldn’t be a coincidence. More telling, how many people broadcast mint?
“What do you know about her?”
“Not much. We met earlier this week. She works for Senator Burnside.”
“That’s interesting,” she murmured, watching the pair closely.
O’Reilly was taller, broader, cocky in a way that was sometimes abrasive, and far too pleased with himself. But he didn’t have the cold control she’d felt. He was pickup trucks and hand-tooled leather, not the showy diamond-ring type. Instinct told her he wasn’t the man she’d seen with Shannon.
When he opened the truck door and helped Shannon climb in, it confirmed her belief. But as they drove away, her unease didn’t fade. If anything, it deepened, settling low in her stomach.
Coop took her hand. “We can go too, if you’re ready.”
They walked in silence farther down the block to his truck. In the cab, both buckled, he started the engine and switched on the AC, shutting out everything except the two of them.
“Tell me,” he said.
She inhaled, the images still echoing in her mind. “I saw a man with big hands and a diamond ring. He had her by the wrist and wasn’t gentle.”
“Recently?”
“I don’t think so. She didn’t have any bruises that I could tell.”
“Future, then?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” She swallowed before she gave him the rest. “I got mint, Vince. It was strong. The same as with the money, and Cheyenne.”
He went still. “Kedrov?”
“I didn’t see his face either time. But the mint as a common thread is damning, don’t you agree?”
He stared through the windshield, jaw set.
