Page 22 of Outplayed

Chapter Six

Violet

Since my phone was in my hand, I made a quick call, putting it on speaker while I changed. “Vi,” Warden said into the line. “Did you kill him?”

Laughing, I shook my head. “Not yet. Listen, I want you to do a search. Travis was married. I want you to find out everything you can on his ex.”

“On it,” he answered, and then hung up.

Dressed in jeans and a dark-blue blouse, I washed my face, tied my hair up, and slipped on my boots before rushing out of the house.

Wait… I paused on the front steps. Why was I rushing off to help Travis?

He’d tapped my phones.

My fucking phones.

Who did that to people? I didn’t know what to think. I hated it, yet a small part of me understood it. In his weird way, he was doing it to protect me. But I swore to all the Gods out there, if he thought of doing something stupid like that again, I would rip his balls off and shove them up his arse.

Where had the promise to myself gone to stay away from him? Yet, there I was walking swiftly—I wouldn’t call it running, just walking fast—to my car.

The fool confused me, muddled me, and it pissed me off.

One day. One goddamn day he was back in my life, and he was already in my head.

Yes, I’d known he was in Ballarat, but I never wanted to see him. Not since we were polar opposites in what we did in our jobs.

I slammed my hand onto the steering wheel as I drove down the road. Stupid man.

Why did he have to say I’d always been on his mind? How could I have been when he’d been married, had girlfriends? If that were the case, wouldn’t he have come back to Ballarat a long time ago?

My phone rang when I was close to Travis’s place. I pressed the button. “Warden.”

“Her name’s Kathleen Jaida. She’s twenty-seven, been in rehab for the third time around. Drug addict.” He paused. “Vi, Travis has a restraining order against her. She stabbed him when he was trying to protect their daughter. She was high at the time, and according to the report, she thought her daughter was the devil.”

My stomach churned, and I rubbed at my aching chest.

She tried to kill her daughter. Stabbed Travis. All because of drugs.

“Got it.”

“She gonna be a problem?”

“I don’t think so. I can take her in for going against her restraining order.”

“You’re going to her?”

“She’s at Travis’s trying to get in to see the daughter. I’m heading there now to see if I can help.”

“Want backup?”

“No. You know I got this.”

Warden chuckled. “Yeah, I do. Then, want backup for Travis?”

“What do you mean?” I demanded.

He laughed again. “Woman, he wants you.”

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