Page 88 of Matthew
Panic kicked harder, sharper now. No calls. No texts. No way to get help.
She was on her own.
Finding an inner calm she didn’t know she’d possessed, Callie eased her stance, inching back toward the potting bench, trying to look more confused than alarmed.
“Les,” she said carefully, “what’s going on?”
His jaw ticked. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”
“Like what?” she asked, buying time, every nerve ending screaming at her to move, to run, to do something. “You’ve been using my nursery to stash drugs?”
He looked down as if he couldn’t quite meet her eyes. “I never wanted to bring it here. I told them that.” His voice cracked. “But they said it was temporary. That no one would notice.”
Callie’s breath caught.They.
“Who’s they?” she asked, voice calm even as her pulse raged.
He didn’t answer.
Instead, he stepped further into the greenhouse.
She took a step back.
The back of her left calf nudged a gardening trowel resting on the lower shelf behind her. She didn’t look at it—didn’t dare—but she marked the location, already calculating the angle, the reach.
Sammy. Nate. Matthew.
Where were they?
A flicker of anger rose beneath the fear, sharp and bright. This was her business. Her home, dammit. And she’d trusted this man.
Les let out a shaky breath, something almost regretful in his eyes. “I like you, Callie. I do. But I can’t go to prison.”
She stared him down, her teeth gritted. “Then you picked the wrong greenhouse.”
“I didn’t pick it.” His lips pressed into a grim line. “My brother did.”
A chill swept through her spine. Before she could respond, a crunch of footsteps echoed beyond the greenhouse door—heavier than Les’s, deliberate and slow.
Callie’s fingers curled tighter around the pouch, heart hammering against her ribs.
Les didn’t turn. He stared at her, eyes full of apology and warning.
She took one step back.
The door creaked wider, the air shifted, and every instinct in her body screamedrun.
Les’s jaw clenched. “Doesn’t matter. You saw too much.”
Callie inched a step back toward the rear greenhouse door, fingers twitching near the trowel she’d spotted earlier. Just a few more feet…
A voice behind her cut through the air, sharp and sudden. “Where do you think you’re goin’, sweetheart?”
She spun.
A second man stepped through the rear entrance, blocking her escape. Taller than Les, same sharp eyes. Her heart sank.
The brother.
