Page 17 of Montana Rain

Chapter 8

Rayne

God, why did conferences need to give away so much crap?

I sat on the floor of my living room, the bags and swag from the Chicago conference in a big pile. Absolutely everything, from advertisements for new billing and filing systems, to personal cards of therapy specialists in case we ourselves needed help.

Every therapist should have a therapist, and I did. But I doubted I was going to find a new one in the midst of all the brochures, pens, bags, notebooks and notepads, magnets, and even a flash drive.

I didn’t remember which table the flash drive was from, but I put it in the keep pile. More often than not, I found myself needing small gadgets. Might as well keep one for free.

Some of the pens, I kept, and one of the tote bags with less…overt branding. But all the rest I guiltily put into the trash and recycling. Every time I went to a conference, I swore I would just do the culling while I was there. Then I arrived, and I ended up shoving everything into whatever bag I had with me because the conferences were full of people, and it was easier to just take everything.

I turned on the coffee and the news before I stashed the loot I’d decided to keep in the single tote bag and stuck it in the back of a small closet in my home office, where I probably wouldn’t look at it for a few months. Having it out of sight and out of mind was more important than putting it away.

I had enough things on my mind.

Like making sure all my clients were in good shape, and lips on mine that I shouldn’t want there.

I turned and went back to the coffee before I could get caught up in the memory of Cole pressing me up against my front door and kissing me the way I’d always dreamed of being kissed.

But I couldn’t. No matter how much I wanted to, I couldn’t.

As a therapist, I should be able to say the fear I held on to was irrational, and that it shouldn’t stand in the way of something I truly wanted. Yet, I had evidence—over and over and over again—of bad things happening to people I cared about.

Hell, anyone in my general vicinity seemed to have a general disposition toward danger. All you had to do was look at Garnet Bend the last few years. Granted, I wasn’t arrogant enough to believe all the things that had happened to my group of friends were my fault. But given my own history, it felt personal.

And for my own sanity, I couldn’t let any more bad things happen. I had a good life, and I was happy enough. This was something I could live with. The grief of another person in close proximity being hurt?

I couldn’t live with that.

No matter if it was irrational, it was my shit to deal with, and I was still in the process of it.

Shaking my head, I grabbed eggs from the fridge and started cooking, listening to the news in the background. The scent of coffee began to permeate the kitchen, the routine of a normal breakfast centering me.

“Now, for a bit of news we don’t normally see. It almost seems as if it’s out of a movie. After all, we don’t talk about the mafia much anymore.” The male anchor’s voice penetrated my thoughts.

“I agree,” the woman took over. “It’s definitely not a story you hear every day. The body of a woman was found in the Chicago River over the weekend, and the police have finally released her details. We’re told it’s a suspected mafia killing in relation to the ongoing trial of Thomas Peretti. While we don’t have many details yet, Chicago police and the FBI are asking anyone who might have information about this woman, Susan White, to come forward.”

I glanced at the TV quickly and did a double take. The kitchen was warm from my cooking, but my entire body went cold.

It was her.

The woman who ran into me in the hotel lobby. It had been clear she was in distress, but she’d entirely disappeared, and the men following her had been forced to leave. Where had she gone? And how long after I saw her was she killed?

Nausea rose in my stomach. I turned off the eggs and leaned over the sink, afraid I was going to throw up. It could be a coincidence. But given the line of thoughts that had plagued me all morning?

Hell.

All I had were my instincts guiding me, but if anything those anchors said was true about it being mafia-related? I was seen with a murder victim shortly before her death. That wasn’t small.

I turned off the coffee and tossed the eggs before grabbing my purse and following my gut. If any people might know what to do in this situation, it was the guys at Resting Warrior.

Almost everyone at the ranch had been my client at one time or another, but once it became clear the personal lines were blurring, I had gently shifted them away to other professionals I trusted. Not even Mara was with me now. It was better this way since I didn’t have to trip over rules of ethics.

Nothing they shared would ever be public, but I was grateful I could go to them as a friend and not a colleague right now.

I called one of the few cabs in town. This would be the perfect time to pick up my car as well. Daniel had texted earlier that they’d been able to get it started, something about a loose cable.

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