Page 41 of A Step You Shouldn't Take

“Really? Watch me.”

I jerked the wheel, and my SUV skidded into a supermarket parking lot. An old lady pushing a shopping cart gave me a dirty look.

Fuck. I was breathing hard, exasperated, and I didn’t even understand the conversation we’d just had. Why was Kim so determined to screw this up? I mean, the way she kept her office, her late-night obsession with getting every ribbon exactly right, I knew she had to be a control freak, but this… This was a whole other level.

A flash of red caught the edge of my vision, and I glanced across to see her BMW nosing into the space alongside. Big blue eyes stared back at me, watering slightly if I wasn’t mistaken. Why was she so upset? She’d seemed fine yesterday evening.

Neither of us moved. A stand-off.

A minute passed. Two, and Kim focused on the steering wheel. I’d never met such a stubborn woman in my life, and since I’d grown up with my sister, that was a strong statement to make. Kim didn’t even look at me when I slid into the passenger side of the BMW, just kept staring straight ahead.

“What was that all about?” Nothing. I reached out and turned her head towards me. “Kim? Kimberly?”

“I thought… I thought that if I could see the car, you know, in person, it might jog my memory. Help me to picture the man who drugged me. I read this article on the internet about associative memory, and… Like I said, it doesn’t matter.”

A tear rolled down her cheek, and when her hands stayed in her lap, I reached out and wiped it away with a thumb. Sometimes, smart clients were the most difficult to deal with. I’d read studies on associative memory too, and even made use of it in the past, like the time a rape victim recalled extra details about her attacker when she smelled his cologne. He’d gotten fifteen years as a result.

“I understand that you want to help, but we need to be sensible about this.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Look, I’ll try to get you into the car, but we need to do this my way, okay?” Yes, it was official. One emotional woman and I lost my fucking mind. “I don’t want you getting hurt.”

“You’ll help? Really?”

“My way.”

She nodded and even managed a half-smile. “Just tell me what to do. I promise I’ll follow instructions.”

Giving her this would mean losing the chance to follow Lincoln’s companion, but more than likely they were only heading to the strip club. I felt Kim’s pain. And I also needed the money.

“Right, let’s get this over with. I’ll do the talking—you just follow my lead and try to look happy.”

CHAPTER 13 - KIMBERLY

I WANTED TO get into the car, but at the same time, I didn’t. In daylight, I could see Georgette through the window, watching me with a mixture of surprise and happiness. It was an expression I’d seen many times before, usually on a bride as she walked down the aisle and realised her husband-to-be had scrubbed up better than she thought he would.

Reed’s arm tightened around my waist, getting dangerously close to my ass, but I’d promised to behave so I couldn’t slap it away.

“What do you think of the Mercedes?” he asked the Latino guy he’d introduced as Tyrone, jerking his head towards the car I’d been abducted in. So far, they’d discussed the merits of steam cleaning the upholstery versus merely vacuuming, last night’s ball game, and which chain restaurant sold the best fries. “We need to replace the SUV sooner rather than later, and we’re thinking of going for a sedan instead. Right, honey?”

Honey? Oh, yes, that was supposed to be me. In Reed’s hastily created plan, he’d admire the Mercedes with a view to buying one similar, and I’d balk at the idea. If Tyrone was the helpful guy Reed thought he was, he’d let us take a closer look at the car to settle the argument.

“I’m not sure. Now I’ve seen it up close, I think it’s too big.”

“It’s no bigger than the Jeep.”

“No, it’s longer.”

Tyrone shook his head. “It only looks longer because it’s not so high, ma’am.”

“Really?”

Reed gave me another squeeze, and I began to sweat a little. Purely because of the situation, nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that I was plastered against a muscular private investigator who admittedly wasn’t butt ugly. I’d perhaps been a little disingenuous when I compared him to an orc.

“I bet it comes with parking sensors,” Reed said to Tyrone. “Am I right?”

“And a backup camera.”

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