Page 45 of The Unknown Colton
“He threatened you?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I think Harrison was just drunk when he called me and was acting like Billy Hoover. Mitch says they can’t fire me over this.”
“I hope they do,” she said.
He gasped.
“You want to protect me,” she said. “That’s why you keep following me around, but you won’t protectyourself.” She shook her head. “You won’t even listen to me. And I’m sure your mom and Hetty are begging you not to go back, too.”
His face flushed a bit. “Well…”
“They don’t want to lose you,” she said.
“What about you, Lakin?” he asked. Had he already lost her.
“I don’t want anything to happen to you, Troy. I don’t want you to get hurt on the oil rigs or here in Shelby while you keep trying to protect me.”
“Lakin, you must realize that you’re in danger,” he said, pointing toward the splintered boards. “Someone tried to get into the hotel just like they got into your cabin. You know that someone’s following you.”
“Yeah, you are,” she said, her lips curving into a slight smile.
“I’m not the only one.”
She shivered. “Have you gotten a good look at who it is?”
“Just that old truck that drove me off the road that day,” he said. “But there are a lot of old trucks in Shelby.”
“You could have died that day, Troy,” she said. “You have to stop putting yourself in danger. Eli knows what’s going on. He’ll take care of it.”
“Eli has a lot on his plate right now,” Troy pointed out. “And he’s not even around Shelby very often. He can’t protect you.”
Troy wasn’t sure how well he could, either. He was never quite fast enough to catch whoever was afterher. And that was the only way to make sure that she was safe—to catch and stop whoever was after her.
* * *
The boyfriend was a pain in the ass. He was always around, always in the way.
Maybe it was time to get a gun.
That might be the most effective way to get rid of Troy Amos.
CHAPTER 14
Bobby Reynolds came by the hotel to check out the attempted break-in, but he wasn’t too concerned. “Teenagers break into this place a lot,” he said. “Looking for a place to hang out.”
Lakin wished she could believe that, but it all felt too coincidental that it happened so recently after her cabin had been broken into. And why would teenagers be breaking into abandoned buildings during the daytime when they should be in school? Of course she’d been a good student who didn’t skip classes, so maybe she was being naive about teenagers. Or paranoid about the break-ins. But she didn’t argue with the officer.
Troy, on the other hand, wanted Bobby to track down Jasper Whitlaw and check his alibi.
Bobby warned him against making accusations with no proof. He also refused to have the cigarette butt tested for DNA since a broken window wasn’t a high priority case. “Leave the policing to the police,” he cautioned.
Lakin definitely didn’t argue with that. Neither didTroy, though she didn’t expect him to stop trying to protect her. Fortunately he also helped her secure the hotel again so no damage should come to the place.
Despite Bobby claiming teenagers had broken into the building before, she and Troy didn’t find much damage inside. The roof, while old, hadn’t even leaked. It really wouldn’t take much for her to fix it up and get it going. She could renovate a couple of rooms and the lounge and start on a small scale, if she couldn’t secure that loan.
She was going to make it a success. Even Troy believed that. If only he would help her…
But she didn’t want to beg him to build a future with her. If after ten years he couldn’t commit, then, she told herself, she didn’t want him.
