Past Sins by Debra Webb Page B

down a side road not three miles from Hamilton’s property. She didn’t like returning to the scene of her last close encounter with trouble, but she had little choice.
    Jeffrey had roused and maintained a vigil of silent fury.
    Olivia would have a lot of explaining to do. Whatever she and Jeffrey had managed to build in the way of a relationship probably wouldn’t survive this. Her whole life was shot to hell.
    Again.
    “You can get out now.” She’d waited at least a minute for Landry to be on his way, but he just kept sitting there. “I told you I’d bring you back to your vehicle. I’d like to get on the road. I have a lot of highway to cover.” She let her resolve speak for itself with the look she turned in his direction.
    He swiveled in the seat to make eye contact. Dawn was creeping across the horizon, but here in the woods it was still damn dark. She could vaguely make out the seriousness in his expression with the negligible glow from the dash lights.
    “This isn’t one of those situations where there are options, Va…” He cleared his throat. “Olivia. There’s only one way out of this situation and that’s for us to work together. If we don’t find out who started this, we can’t stop him. If we don’t stop him we’ll end up dead. You know as well as I do that they won’t stop until the job is done.”
    “Don’t listen to anything he says, Olivia,” Jeffrey interjected. “We should go directly to the nearest police station and turn him in.”
    Olivia offered Jeffrey a sympathetic look. She wanted to explain that it wasn’t that easy but now wasn’t a good time. Before she could attempt a reasonable response, Landry started talking again.
    “The players have changed,” he said, drawing her attention back to him. “Old enemies are now allies.”
    “I watch the news.” He was going to have to give her something way bigger than that. “The whole world has changed. You think I live in a cave?”
    “You don’t understand. I’m not talking about what you see on the news. I’m talking about what goes on behind the scenes. The part you used to be involved in. That has changed. The things we know are now a liability.”
    She worked hard at not letting his words affect her, but she wasn’t entirely successful. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    “It means that we have something they want.”
    Olivia was tired. Tired and frustrated. “I don’t have anything, Landry. I died, remember? I walked away with nothing but the clothes on my back and my life.”
    “What do you mean, you died?”
    She sent another plea for patience in Jeffrey’s direction.
    “Don’t say it,” he grumped, “you’ll explain everything later.”
    “We need to move,” Landry pressed, drawing her attention back to him. “You know the routine. Hang around too long in one place and you’ll get nailed to the wall.”
    “I’m not going anywhere with you, Landry.” She’d trusted him once and, as he so eloquently put it, she’d gotten nailed to the wall. It wasn’t going to happen again.
    Those anonymous calls she’d gotten in the middle of the night abruptly joined the rest of the confusing thoughts swirling in her head.
    “You’ve been watching me.” The words came out a little too limply to pass as a true accusation, but she didn’t need his confirmation. She knew it was him. On some level she’d always known.
    “Yes.” For the second time tonight he looked away, evidently fearing she would see something he didn’t want her to see.
    “Why?”
    That deep blue gaze collided with hers. “Do you have to ask?”
    A fire lit in her belly and she hated herself for the weakness he could so easily evoke deep inside her. This conversation had moved into treacherous territory. Treacherous in more ways than one.
    “Get out, Landry.” There was nothing soft or uncertain about her tone now. She wanted him gone.
    He shook his head slowly. “I’m not going anywhere without you.”
    Talk about