Page 64 of Pick Yourself Up
Gray shrugged. “It’s a possibility. Norm will call me if he hears anything further, and I’ll put a call into the Chicago organized crime division to see if I can learn anything else.”
Dodge frowned. “He’d gain nothing by hurting either of you. His boss would want the situation to die down, not ramp up. He’d be pissed at Allard for stirring up shit.”
Gray appreciated his friend’s succinct summary and the fact that he’d avoided saying Allard might want to kill them rather than hurt them.
Knox continued. “We need to figure out if he could somehow trace you here. How many people know where you are?”
Amber shrugged. “I told my boss and staff I was leaving to visit with family. I didn’t specify which family or where.”
Gray nodded. He was in love with a smart woman. “Norm knows where I am. No one else that I know of. But rumors have a way of circulating.”
Jolie rolled her lips together. “I don’t use social media much, but I’m in a few loops and chats about regenerative farming. I wouldn’t have posted names, but I don’t know if any of the posts had pictures of either of you. It didn’t cross my mind to crop you out. I’m so sorry.”
Amber reached across and took her sister’s hand. “No reason to apologize, Joles. No one asked you not to. There’s no reason for this jerk to come after us. He’s already been charged, and the police have all the evidence they need. I doubt he’s the type to visit online farming sites, anyway. And there’s no reason for him to connect me with that either.”
Thea leaned into Annie. “When Asshole Andy followed me here, he hired someone to hack into the phone company and find my location.”
Gray hadn’t known about the photos Jolie took, hadn’t yet considered social media photos and hackers. “It’s probably safe to say that pretty much anyone is findable these days. Hackers can find almost anything online. We need to assume he can find us if he wants. I guess the question is, what are we going to do about it?”
Amber trembled under his arm, and he tightened his hold. Boomer rested his head in her lap, and she stroked him automatically.
Gray kissed her hair. “He won’t get to you.” He only hoped he could keep his word.
Amber stroked Boomer’s head as she sat with her family and tried to figure out how to thwart a thug from a crime family. She also battled to keep her fear under control.
Would Allard try to find them? To hurt them? Kill them?
No one had said the last out loud, but she knew it was a possibility, anyway. If Allard came after them, he wouldn’t want to leave witnesses. From his point of view, it would be better to eliminate them than to hurt them and leave them free to talk about it.
It had taken her so long to recover from the physical injuries the first time. She knew she still hadn’t recovered all the way emotionally. Would she ever?
How could she face it if Allard came here and hurt someone she loved? The man was heartless. She’d seen no emotion in his eyes when he’d struck her. It wouldn’t bother him at all to kill them all just to get to her.
She kept her fingers moving in Boomer’s fur so that she didn’t freeze. “I should go somewhere else. If he tracks me here, it’ll put all of you in danger.”
Gray’s arm flexed on her shoulders. “Not without me. You’re not going anywhere alone.”
She looked up into his serious eyes. “I don’t want you getting hurt because of me.”
He squeezed her shoulder. “We don’t know which of us might be his target. It doesn’t make sense for him to come, but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen.”
Knox leaned forward. “We’ve got security systems on both farmhouses.”
Ford nodded. “We’re not unarmed and we’re not easy targets. He’d be a fool to try anything. If he’s found your names, he’s also got access to your history. Gray’s record alone should be enough to deter anyone.”
Which meant that Gray was even more impressive than she’d known. But he was still human. Still vulnerable.
Knox frowned. “You could both go visit Burke or Lawson. Spend some time in Boston.”
She didn’t want to leave. “If we go anywhere, it won’t be to see them. I’m not bringing danger their way, either.”
Malssum wasn’t a common surname, which would help anyone searching for them to make connections between the names they found. Suddenly, even innocuous social media posts seemed dangerous.
Her name and photo had been listed on the websites of the hotels where she’d worked. Had she mentioned her family or her Vermont roots in any of her bios? Probably. She wouldn’t be on those lists now, but nothing online ever truly disappeared. “I think some of my old bios on hotel websites mention growing up in Vermont. It wouldn’t be hard for him to find those bios.”
Gray kept her firmly under his arm, kept her tethered to the present. “It’s fair to say that anyone can find anyone online. Maybe not always legally, but there are ways. We can’t dwell on what we’ve posted or had posted about us in the past. It’s going to take time for Allard to recover from his beating and find us. We don’t have to decide on a course of action today.”
She sighed. “If he comes here and discovers we’ve left, he might take it out on everyone else. We can’t have that happen.”
