The Agent Next Door by Adrienne Bell Page A

sure how in the hell she was
going to spin this one. The same two FBI sedans had shadowed them
to the prison. She was pretty sure the black-suited agents would be
following her inside too. Erin didn’t want to think about how that
was going to go over with her mother. So she stopped trying.
    If there was one thing that this situation
showed her was how little control she actually had over her life.
Some things, it seemed, were inevitable. She could rail against
fate all she wanted, but she’d always end up on the losing side.
Maybe it was just better to give in and let life sweep her where it
wanted her to go.
    Erin sighed as she turned away from the
window. She had used up all her will to fight back at the range.
She’d fired off every bullet that John had given her, and her aim
hadn’t gotten any better.
    Well, that wasn’t totally true. By the end,
she had managed to fray the bottom of the paper target a couple
times. Turned out, she shouldn’t have worried so much over having
to shoot anyone in self-defense. Unless the guy was standing two
feet in front of her, she was never going to hit him.
    Not that John had given up on her. He’d kept
encouraging her throughout her attempts, telling her she could do
it. She had no idea where his confidence in her came from. Hers was
at an all-time low.
    Erin glanced over at John. His eyes were
focused on the road, his hands on the wheel. He hadn’t said a word
since they’d crested the Altamont Pass, but she hadn’t felt any
pressure in his silence.
    A wave of guilt washed over her. She’d been
so wrapped up in her own head that she hadn’t once thought about
how he was doing on this long boring drive. They only had about ten
minutes until they reached the prison gates, but that was better
than nothing.
    “Sorry. I haven’t been very good company,”
she said.
    “It’s fine.” He sounded like he meant it.
“You’ve got a lot on your mind. This is as good a time as any to
work it out.”
    She shifted her weight in the seat so she
leaned toward him. “Yeah, but I know just how boring this drive can
be when it’s quiet.”
    His lips lifted up in a slight smile. “Trust
me. I’ve been on some long, boring drives. This hasn’t been one of
them.”
    “Oh, yeah? Where?”
    John’s brow arched as he glanced over at her.
His mouth stayed shut even as his lips quirked up.
    “You can’t tell me, can you?”
    He turned his attention back to the road.
    “Should have figured,” Erin said.
    “Do you come out here every week?”
    “Every Sunday since I was ten.” Erin nodded.
“But I’m usually alone. It’s nice having company this time.”
    “Why don’t you ever ask anyone to come with
you?”
    “You’re kidding, right?” He wasn’t laughing.
She should have known. John Ryman wasn’t exactly the joking type.
“I take it you’ve been in places like where were going?”
    He nodded.
    “I’m going to bet that afterward you’ve never
thought to yourself, ‘That’s a nice place to spend a Sunday
afternoon. I think next time I’ll bring a friend.’”
    “No, I guess I never have,” he said, slowly
shaking his head. “But that doesn’t mean that your friends wouldn’t
come. You know Marianne would do just about anything for you.”
    “I would never expose Marianne to
Chowchilla.”
    John tilted his head just a notch. “She’s a
tough broad.”
    “You think I don’t know that?” Erin crossed
her arms over her chest. A few days living on Shannon Court and he
honestly thought he knew her friends better than she did? “She’s
also eighty-two.”
    John shrugged as if her age was irrelevant.
“You have other friends.”
    Erin looked down at her nails. “I don't tell
too many people about my parents.”
    “That’s a shame,” he said.
    Erin didn’t have time to ask him what he
meant. He took the turn into the prison gates and pulled up to the
gatehouse.
    She reached for her purse and rummaged for
her license as an officer she wasn’t familiar