Page 53 of Home Team Advantage
The driver gave her a passing glance through the metal divide that separated the back from the front. The holes were too small to see anything but a silhouette of his head and shoulders and the fact that he was wearing a baseball-style cap.
He faced forward again as she was unceremoniously manhandled into the back, turning a blind eye to the shoves and bumps. There were two rows of bench seats, each one running from front to back. She was pushed into the middle of the one on the left. Her hands and feet were secured first, and then a seat belt was pulled tight over her hips and the tops of her thighs. Seemed like overkill to her, but whatever.
They didn’t like her, and she didn’t blame them. They thought she’d tried to murder an old woman and steal her jewelry and cash. She wouldn’t care much for herself either, if any of that were actually true.
The rear door was slammed shut. The panel between the front and the back closed. The escorting officer slapped his palm on the side to signal it was good to go. Then, the van lurched forward.
When she’d thought about leaving Pine Ridge, she hadn’t imagined it would be like this.
She was going to miss Elsa. She was genuinely fond of the older woman. Most of all, she worried about what would happen to Elsa when she was released from the hospital. Without Anna or someone else around to help her, would Eddie get his way?
Based on the trumped-up—and totally bogus—charges, Elsa’s weasel of a grandson was behind everything. He had a key to the house. He could have slipped in and switched out the meds when they were out as easily as he could have planted that stuff in Anna’s room. Hell, he was probably the one who had picked up the watch from Otto’s Jeweler and made up that whole pawnshop story.
Would someone eventually figure it out? Maybe, but by then, it could be too late. Eddie was clearly desperate, and there was no telling the lengths he would go to, to get power of attorney—and thus gain control over Elsa’s assets.
Hell, if he’d managed to switch the meds and plant evidence in Anna’s room, then forging a POA probably wasn’t much of a stretch.
She thought about Matt too. Anna didn’t care about most people’s opinions because they didn’t matter. But the thought of him believing she was capable of doing those things cut like a blade in the heart.
It didn’t even make sense. They hadn’t spent that much time together, and most of that had been him trying to figure out if she was scamming his elderly neighbor. Oh, he was pretty smooth about it, but she’d been around con men all her life. The ones who smiled and said nice things under the guise of wanting to get to know her. The ones who appeared suddenly out of nowhere and pretended it was a chance encounter.
The difference between them and Matt was, while Matt had been digging for information, he’d done so out of concern for his elderly neighbor, not for personal gain.
As the tires ate up the miles, Anna put her head back and closed her eyes. She felt like she hadn’t slept in days. As long as she was in the van and they were moving, she could afford a wink or two.
Or so she thought.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
MATT
Matt was ready to lose his fucking mind.
Covered in sweat, Matt ran through another sequence, his muscles taxed to the limit. When he sensed Kieran at the door, he completed his kata and reached for a towel.
“When did that happen?” Kieran said, looking pointedly at the seeping wound on Matt’s side. When Matt didn’t answer, Kieran’s voice got a little deeper. A little angrier. “You’ve been sparring with that?”
Matt neither wanted nor needed a lecture on wound care. “It’s nothing.”
Kieran snorted. “Yeah, I’ve had a couple of those nothings myself. You should have Mick take a look at that.”
Maybe he would. Later. Continuously reopening the wound wasn’t doing him any favors, but he had other things on his mind at that moment.
He was angry and frustrated, which was probably why he said, “I know you didn’t come down here just to get on my case. What do you want?”
Kieran’s eyes narrowed, just like they used to when Matt had been a teenager and mouthed off. And just like then, Matt felt like he’d disappointed Kieran somehow.
“I’m going to let that slide,” Kieran said, “because I know you’ve got a lot on your mind.”
Like knowing he was only in Pine Ridge to see his family, say his goodbyes, and then close this chapter of his life? Or how hard it was to think about severing ties because anyone he cared about could be used as a weakness against him? Or maybe he was referring to his preoccupation with Anna and that whole clusterfuck.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Did he? Yes, he realized, he did. He wanted to lay everything out. Get Kieran’s advice. Have Kieran tell him that he was making the right choice in leaving. That his desire for Anna was a distraction, created by a need to escape his reality and nothing more. That everything was going to work out exactly the way it was supposed to.
But he knew that wouldn’t happen. Faith was the love of Kieran’s life. He would never be able to support Matt’s decision to leave, knowing what it would do to his mother. Nor would he blow smoke up Matt’s ass about this thing with Anna. Fuck, he’d probably say Matt was feeling those things because she was his croie or some shit like that.
“Talk about what?” Matt said.
