Page 20 of Runaway
I whistled low. She snorted.
“Yeah,” she muttered. “Real brave, wasn't it? I ditched all the evidence, called in sick the next morning, and requested a three-week sabbatical to go on a retreat to Canada with a friend. Since I'd left a few things there, no one thought anything of it, I would imagine. I didn't have friends at work to notice, anyway. Joshua's attention was an effective isolator. That night, I packed up all the important things at my apartment. An old college friend of mine had been crashing at my place for a few days and wanted the lease. I signed it over and left.”
My eyebrows rose. “Left left?”
“Left left,” she repeated with a little twitch of her lip. Like she wanted to be amused, but the reality was just too ugly. “My furniture was minimal anyway. I didn't really . . . I didn't reallylivein my place.” She frowned, running the tip of her finger along the top of her mug. “I worked a lot. Shayna bought all my furniture and plates and that stuff for $2,000. I packed up my car and drove away.”
“To here?”
She hesitated, chewing her bottom lip. “To here,” she said without looking at me. “I needed someplace to hide. Eventually, Joshua would figure out I wasn't coming back and maybe even realize I was the whistleblower. I thought about buying an RV and just driving around the country, but . . .”
She trailed off.
I leaned my head back against her mattress as I tried to comprehend all she'd revealed. Of course, she'd been running fromsomething. That much had been obvious from the moment that she showed up. But this wasn't what I had expected.
She sighed heavily.
“Then,” she muttered, “today happened.”
While she explained the text messages she'd received and the calls that dipwad Joshua made to her clients—which call I never got, but calls rarely come through here—my mind raced.
She was good and stuck.
“Joshua is in love with you?” I ventured carefully.
She sighed. “I guess? If that's called love. He's married. But ever since I started the job, he's made it very clear that he's interested in me. At first, it was subtle and not a big deal, but it's grown in the last year. If I hadn't found the fraud, I probably wouldn't have quit. But his attention . . . it's been so slow. So steady. He's . . . possessive of me, in a way.”
My fists clenched. “He's an asshole.”
She laughed mirthlessly. “That too.”
The situation was bleak and infuriating. No job. Just closed her business. No way to venture into the outside world until all of this was set aside. No wondershe came to Adventura. It was out of the way and she had some sort of trust in me. Even if I was likely her most frustrating client, at least she knew me enough to be fairly certain I wasn't a creep. The thought of her on her own, in an RV, sent a shudder through me.
Bad idea.
The silence rode for several minutes once she finished. She sipped the rest of the hot chocolate and didn't seem so bleary afterward. I lifted the fire poker and shoved a teetering log back. As always, I had ideas.
Lots of ideas.
But of all the ideas whirling in my head, filling me with that heady exhilaration that I hadn't felt in a while, was one that really made the most sense—even though it made absolutely no sense at all.
“Well,” I said with a steady breath out. “Sounds like you're here to stay.”
She recoiled. “Mark, did you just hear all that? What if Joshua comes after me? You could be in danger.”
“And since you're here to stay,” I continued as if she hadn't spoken, “I think it's also time that you realize something.”
Wary brown eyes studied me as she drawled, “Yes?”
No doubt she heard my tone. The cheshire cat tone. The tone that saidoh yeah, I have ideas and you're about to get all of them.When I smiled, she grew more serious, which is just where I wanted her.
A little shock-and-awe never hurt anybody.
“I think you've got a bunch of time on your hands with nothing to do and the need for free rent. Not to mention someone that can kick Joshua's ass if he comes by. For the record, that’s definitely my job.”
My grin grew even as I felt a shot of trepidation. What was I thinking? I couldn't pitch this. She'd never go for it. I reached into my back pocket anyway and handed over the folded envelope I'd been carrying around for days, waiting for the right moment to give her the $500 rent back without seeming like a weirdo. There had always been a clear line between us. Client. Accountant.
This broke that in a big way.
