Page 25 of End Game

A trip she would later learn had been initiated by Vicky, not Jillian. She was still processing that fact. Still didn’t know how she felt about it. Maybe she never would.

That day seemed like a lifetime ago, now.

Kayla wasn’t the same bright-eyed, bend the world toward goodness person. A decade as a lobbyist had opened her eyes to the fragility of democracy, the flexibility of morality, the power of hope.

She traced the tip of her index finger across Vicky’s laughing face. Her throat contracted, making it hard to swallow, to breathe, to think of a life without one of her greatest cheerleaders.

Her dearest auntie.

Her godmother.

Her friend.

She loved them all, but there had always been something special about Victoria. Though no one had ever acknowledged it. Not Kayla, not Vicky. Not Jillian or the other aunties. They all knew of her and Vicky’s special bond.

Maybe it was the godmother-goddaughter connection. Maybe they just clicked better.

The constriction around her throat crept downward to engulf her chest. It squeezed and squeezed, daring her to release the grief bottled up in her heart, making her eyes burn.

Kayla wouldn’t let the tears fall. She hadn’t earned that right. Her auntie’s killer was out there. Free. No doubt congratulating themself for removing whatever threat Vicky had posed to them.

No matter what Ash or Detective Morgan said, Kayla didn’t buy their hypothesis that a scuffle between a rhinestone and a rug had saved her from assassination. If the killer had wanted her dead, they had only to pull the trigger for the second time. She’d given an experienced killer ample time to take her out before she’d thought to drop to the floor.

Kayla didn’t know who would want Vicky dead, but she would use every bit of her abundant resources to find them and avenge her auntie’s murder. Fire gathered in her center, filling her with new purpose and replacing her earlier reluctance to meet the day.

Somehow, she would figure out who’d stolen North Carolina’s beloved governor from the people of this great state.

From her.

And make them pay.

11

Standing at the bay window in Kayla’s kitchen, Cameron sipped from a steaming cup of black coffee. The graphic on the side depicted a sassy, blinged-out chicken with the inscription, This chick’s still got it.

An entire cabinet full of mugs and cups and not one a solid, boring color. The lobbyist had a definite mischievous side. One he’d done his damnedest to ignore. And mostly failed.

If she’d been anyone else, he would have enjoyed giving as good as he got from her. Nothing sexier than a woman with a sense of humor. But with him, she always seemed to be harboring something else beneath the surface of a well-delivered barb.

Meeeoow.

Cup near his mouth, Cameron turned to find the cat with the creepy yellow-green eyes staring at him. She lifted her pert pink nose, with its drop of black in the center, and sniffed the air.

“You like bacon?” He picked up a thin slice cooling on a plate beside the stove. “Is this what you want?”

She rose on her hind legs, stretched her body upward, and placed a soft paw against his knuckle to brace herself.

“Ah ah ah, not so fast.” When he made to pull away, her sharp claws sank into his flesh. Air hissed between his teeth.

Her nails curled deeper.

“Here’s the deal,” he gritted out. “You get the bacon if you tell me one of your mistress’s secrets. Let’s start with?—”

The feline snatched the bacon and ran to the nook housing her food and water bowls.

“You play dirty." He rubbed the torn flesh on his hand, hoping bacon wasn’t to cats what grapes were to dogs. “Just like she does.” He turned back to the window and let the coffee roll down his throat.

Images from the previous evening flashed through his mind. The devastation on Kayla’s face when he’d found her next to the governor. The pain clouding her beautiful eyes when she awoke after he’d bludgeoned her with his pistol.

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