Page 64 of An Unexpected Claim

“Sam,” I warned in a steel tone. “If you say another word, I will kick your ass back to New York City.” Then I gentled my voice. “Linette, may I borrow it, please?”

She looked between Sam and me twice, then clearly decided I was more deserving of her support at the moment, because she scampered off to the front door.

Reluctantly, I passed their tiny cub into Sam’s arms so when Linette returned I could take the computer. It didn’t take me long to erase any traces of myself in the hospitaldatabase, then I cleared any record of me in a few other places. Then I moved on to the police files. While in the system, I scanned all of the reports pertaining to my “incident.” As I read, my eyes grew wider and rounder and my temper bubbled under the surface. My panther went on alert at the volatile emotions churning inside me, ready to pounce if I needed her.

Not that she would be much help once she figured out who it was I wanted to rip to shreds.

They had labeled my attackera serial killer. The woman I’d tried to save had been his seventh victim, as far as they knew. There didn’t appear to be a lot of details—they either didn’t know much, or they were incompetent.Could be a little of both.

Nathan filtered into my mind and the shock began to give way to the molten anger below my surface. How could he have kept all of this from me?Nothing to share?

“Did you know about all this?” I asked my friends before giving them a super-fast rundown on what I’d learned.

Both shook their heads.

But Nathan does.

That reminded me. I did a quick search of Nathan and found only a cursory explanation of his company, KBO Consulting—I couldn’t find what that stood for anywhere—on social networking sites for professionals. When I looked for a website, all I found was KBOC.com and it was password-protected.

“What is KBO?” I asked aloud.

“You should ask Nathan,” Sam replied cagily.

“Are you his friend or mine?” I huffed as I glared at him.

“Both. I’ve known Nathan even longer than I’ve known you, P. He does the security for the club.”

My lips curled down. “I had the impression that it was a much bigger deal than small-time security gigs.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Gee, thanks for that positive assessment of my life’s work, but also, he does it as a favor, because we are friends.”

“So what you’re saying is that he isn’t ignorant to all of this information, he’s just been lying to me about it.”

Sam moved uncomfortably in his seat.

“I can’t believe you won’t spill the beans, Sam,” I griped. “You’re basically choosing him over me.”

“Do you want to know what we named the baby?” Linette piped up all of a sudden.

“Good grief, I can’t believe I forgot to ask.” I shut the computer, distracted by fun baby stuff.

“We named him after his godmother,” she explained as she gazed down at her son fondly.

“Godmother?”

Sam nodded, as he studied the baby’s cute little face. “We named him Peyton.”

I gasped and my eyes welled up with tears while a giant smile split my face. I all but snatched the little boy from his father’s arms. “I forgive you,” I said to Sam before giving the baby my undivided attention.

I barely noticed Sam standing and slipping away, assuming he’d gone to find the bathroom. When he came back into the room, I frowned when I saw him slipping his cell phone into his pocket.

“Who were you calling, honey?” Linette asked curiously.Thank you, friend.He was much more likely to answer his mate than me.

“Checking on something,” he answered with a smile. “There’s a storm cell coming in. We should probably get going.”

I sighed, already lonely as they took back their little bundle of joy and readied themselves to leave.

After shutting the door behind them, I marched into the kitchen and over to the phone hanging on the wall. I debated for a good ten minutes before deciding that I wanted to have this conversation in person.

---