Page 99 of Holding Grace

“Sparkling water with lime, please?” I requested. The bartender gave us a nod and walked back toward the bar just as Detective Chase walked through the front door.

He was dressed casually in jeans and a hooded sweatshirt. He didn’t look at us or acknowledge us in any way, just walked over and joined the guy sitting at the big table.

The bartender delivered our drinks – Michaels’s in a dark bottle that made it hard to tell if it was full or empty, and mine in a short, wide glass that could easily have contained vodka along with the other contents.

As he walked away, Seth walked in.

I took a deep breath as Michael gripped my thigh under the table. Seth took inventory of the space, then twitched his way over to our table, looking as nervous as a squirrel in traffic.

He slid into the seat across from us, his eyes still darting around. “You’re sure this place is safe?” I was surprised to hear his voice shake. He was more than nervous; he was afraid.

Michael squeezed my leg again, giving me the lead.

“We’re sure. Tell us what you came to tell us.”

Seth ran a hand over his hair as he swallowed. “Ellis...” he paused, shaking his head... “I think your brother has completely lost it.”

“What do you mean?”

“All he’s talked about since you took off is finding you. He’s been obsessed. He fucking trashed the house that day when he realized you were gone.”

“Watch your mouth,” Michael growled, drawing a wary look from Seth before he focused back on me.

“You know how Ellis gets. He wants something he can’t have and it’s like that’s all he can think about.”

I didn’t comment but I knew that aspect of Ellis quite well.

“When you wouldn’t hand over that property, he came up with this whole plan to get it from you.”

Now I did speak up. “You mean the one where you were going to marry me, even if you had to drug me, and then steal it?” Seth’s face blanched as he stared at me. “Or the one where you and Ellis planned to kill me so you wouldn’t have to bother with the stealing part?”

“Hey. No.” Seth held his hand out as if he were pushing back on my words. “I never agreed to that.”

“Which one?” Michael asked, his words tight with barely restrained anger. “Drugging her, stealing from her, or killing her?”

“The, uh...” Seth hesitated, seeming to realize he needed to step carefully. “The last one.”

“We’re supposed to believe that?” I scoffed.

“I’m here trying to help you, right? Taking a big risk?”

I crossed my arms and stared him down, unimpressed.

Seth leaned in, stopping with another cautious glance at Michael when Michael shifted. “I never hurt you, Grace,” Seth said insistently. “We were together for years, and I never hurt you. I wouldn’t have let Ellis hurt you, either.”

It was true that he’d never harmed me. Whether he would have stopped Ellis from hurting me?

It didn’t matter now. All that mattered was whatever he said he needed to tell me.

“I don’t care about any of that. Tell us what you came to tell us.”

Seth straightened and glanced around like someone may be listening. “Ellis has been trying to track you down since you took off. He was just pissing in the wind for a while but once he got locked up, he got connected somehow with this guy who’s an amateur hacker. The guy found a credit card hit or something for you one time and maybe a phone number.”

I thought back to the times it seemed someone was following me or asking about me, and the phone message that had sent me fleeing from Lark, shaken at the evidence that all my fears had been founded.

Now that he was talking, Seth seemed anxious to get it all out. “The guy’s gotten better at hacking apparently and has some work release gig outside the prison now that gives him access to a computer that’s not monitored like the ones at the prison. He hacked into the DMV records looking for a driver’s license and found the records from when you sold your car and then when you renewed your license.”

Michael squeezed my thigh under the table. That explained how Ellis had tracked me first to Bluelake Springs and then here to Lark.

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