Page 42 of Mine to Protect

“No,” Rhett said.

“Why not?”

“Because he was too busy trying to chase them down, and then I was five minutes out and asked him to wait,” Rhett said.

She lifted her gaze and caught Rhett’s. He stared back at her with the most loving eyes she’d ever seen. They were deep blue pools of kindness. She could dive into them and swim around forever, never drowning. She took his hand and shifted her attention back to the note, reading aloud as she read to herself.

Rhett.

First. Thank you for taking care of my sister. I had to bring her here for her own safety. I didn’t know what else to do. I had no intention of you getting that key. Or the information. Unfortunately, I was found before my sister arrived, and you found my hotel room. Nothing is as it seems when it comes to all of this, and Jackie’s father isn’t dead. Albert Staub lives. We must protect him. We can’t afford for any of this to come out. I’m not ready to come in or tell you the whole story. Just please, keep my sister safe. They will come after her because of me and Jackie. But even though they followed me here, they won’t know to look for you. I took care of that. When it’s safe, I’ll be in touch.

Chris.

Shelby tilted her head. “Again, how does he even know about you? I never talked to him about you. I even asked him, but he didn’t tell me. I don’t understand. I need to understand.”

Rhett took the note from her hands and took a picture of it with his cell before tapping away on the screen. “Did you keep a diary or a journal?”

“Yes.”

“Did you write about me? Could he have learned about me that way?” His focus remained everywhere but on her, and that boiled her blood. She flicked her fingers on his biceps.

“Ouch.” He jerked. “What the hell was that for?”

“Doesn’t it concern you how my brother knew to connect you to all of this?”

Rhett raised the note. “What concerns me more is the fact that Albert Staub is alive and the questions that raises. Like was Joe the one who was murdered? Did Jackie know any of this? She was just a baby when it happened, but would she know the difference between her uncle and her dad if it was really her uncle who was murdered? Or was that body someone else? And how much more of this was covered up and why? And then there is how it affects Jackie’s and your brother’s safety. So, I’m sending all this to Miles and contemplating how much I want to tell Emmerson. He needs the information, but I think I might hold off until we know if Chris and Jackie are hiding out at the state park and whether Albert is with them—or if they know where he is.”

She gasped. That was more important than the fact that her brother had gone through her things. Her journals. Her private diaries. The ones she didn’t think he would dare read. The ones she’d left out in her office, right on her desk where her brother could sneak in and read them.

Which he obviously had. He’d been snooping around, and that was why she’d thought he was using again. He kept coming back into her house to read more about Rhett. To understand who he was and learn about his job, which she’d also written about in her journals. How fascinating she thought it was.

“Okay. But my diaries mention you and the fact that you live here. If the bad guys got those, they—”

“If he left them behind, I’m sure he hid them.”

“They must have found them, because the bad guys are here,” she said with a squeaky voice. She hated it when she sounded like a scared rat.

“Not necessarily. There was a tracker on Jackie’s phone,” Rhett said. “When was the last time you saw your diaries?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t written in them in a while.”

“Perhaps Chris hid them. Or took them when he disappeared. I’ll send someone to your house to check on things. Okay?”

She nodded. Her mind wandered to Trapper Joe’s and the state park. She and her brother had gone there a couple of times when they were kids. Their mom hadn’t enjoyed it, and they’d packed up and gone home early.

Shelby had returned for a trip in high school, though. She loved it and had vowed to go back someday.

Unfortunately, she never did, and she couldn’t imagine her brotherevergoing camping. At least, not when he’d been using. It wasn’t the kind of thing he was into. But sober Chris was very different.

“It seems to me that camping there wouldn’t be smart. It wouldn’t be easy to escape. There’s only one way out,” she said.

“That’s where you’re wrong. They could take off by boat at high tide. Kayaks anytime. Hiking trails. Biking trails. If they have a camper with a car, they could leave the camper behind and just take the car. They could have more than one campsite. They could even be at one of the more remote sites by Trapper Joe’s. Maybe Albert is there with him or is hiding somewhere else.”

“Why are we sitting here on our asses, then? Let’s go get my brother. We can bring him back here.” She jumped to her feet and turned. “Don’t you think he’d be safer with you?”

Rhett grabbed her wrist. “We’re not going anywhere.”

“Why not?”

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