Page 105 of Protected By Duval
Noelle took a step to the side, meant to catch up to Tracy, but she stopped short when a woman and her two children pushed a cart down the center of the available aisle.
Noelle bit into her lip and moved closer. “Miss?”
“Miss?” the woman shot back, gesturing at the two children beside her and the one standing in the basket before her. “Does it look like I’m a ‘Miss’?”
Trust herself to pick the exact wrong word to use.
“I’m sorry. I just wanted to say-”
“Look,” the woman before her looked and sounded harried, “I’m just here to pick up stuff to put in the garden that I don’t have to grow from a seed, okay?”
“Sure... of course.” Noelle bit her lip, trying to hide the building fear inside of her. “Please, can I just get past-”
“Well,” the other woman huffed and lifted her nose in the air, “aren’t you special?”
“Please, ma’am-”
“Look, children,” the other woman leaned over and pointed at Noelle, “she’s special. We need to get out of her way because she owns this store,apparently.”
She must have been having a horrible day, or maybe she was just a horrible person.
Noelle looked over her shoulder and the man... Tony, was staring at her. His hands which were down at his sides were balled up into fists.
The stories in the news, the videos with Aracely’s image, the search for her identity, the search for her murderer?
They’d all been on TV. On the internet.
A local station had leaked that the Coolidges had been interviewed.
Like the men themselves, eager to get ahead of any suspicion that they were the ones that had killed her.
All of that had been out in the public.
Noelle had no idea that she’d walk into the workplace of the killer, or that he might recognize her from the news features.
How had a man like Ranger Douglas been the one to possibly put her in danger?
She hoped she’d have time later to give him a slap across his face, but first?
She needed to get her family out of that store.
Yes, her family.
All of them.
The woman blocking the way in front of her wasn’t going to let her by.
Noelle looked behind her and saw that the only way to get out in that direction was to go around the tables and walk right past Tony.
Noelle reached into her pocket for her phone and as soon as she took it out and lifted it to unlock it with facial recognition, the woman jumped to a crazy conclusion.
“Oh my god! Are you going to video me?”
Ignoring her for the moment, Noelle opened her phone app and hit speed dial 1.
MOM
The phone rang and then rang a second time.
