A Stranger on Her Doorstep by Julie Miller

Author:Julie Miller
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2021-05-12T12:39:19+00:00

Chapter Eight

“That’s the best he can do?”

Ava hung up the phone with Gabriel Charles. Larkin had gone into full-on Marine investigator mode. He’d wanted her to call the detective in charge of her case and ask certain questions. How much of Ava’s case was common knowledge? What kind of security protocols did CPD have in place to protect victim anonymity? What specific leads, if any, did Gabriel have on her kidnapper—and were they anywhere close to finding the guy and making an arrest? Was there any way in hell this bastard had made his way to Wyoming to come after Ava again?

The news hadn’t been great.

Even though he’d listened to the call via speakerphone, Ava had sensed more than once that Larkin wanted to snatch up her cell to conduct the interrogation himself. Instead, he had to settle for pacing a circle around her kitchen, giving her hand signals she didn’t always catch and scribbling follow-up questions on the notepad where she was jotting down Detective Charles’s answers.

Ava imagined Captain Mystery Marine had been an intimidating officer and investigator when he had all his faculties and his body was at one hundred percent. He was intimidating enough as is, with his chiseled, battered body, his golden-bronze beard masking half of his face and those deceptively slitted eyes that saw far more than he let on.

Pace to the window, peek through the curtain. Pace to the back door, scrub his hand over Maxie’s head. Return to look over Ava’s shoulder, decide he was standing too close for her comfort, then back away and resume his circle around the kitchen again.

Pushing to her feet off the stool where she’d sat, Ava tucked her phone in her pocket. “Detective Charles is as angry as you and I are to find that someone sent me that note.”

Larkin propped his hands at his waist. “Am I the only one who feels the clock ticking here? You said no one but you and Detective Charles knew what your kidnapper said to you. You’re sure you trust this guy?”

“Yes.” As much as she could trust anybody. She went to the fridge to pull out two bottles of water. One of them already had too much coffee in his system. “At least he confirmed that Brandon didn’t request the police report about my kidnapping.”

“Not exactly. He confirmed that Stout didn’t request your information through standard channels.” He twisted the cap off the bottle she handed him and took a quick drink. “That doesn’t mean Sheriff Touchy-Feely didn’t access information about you by other means.” He reached across the island to take her hand, the way any normal person who wanted to offer comfort might. But at the last second, he pulled back to toy with the bottle’s plastic cap. Ava was at once touched by his consideration of her boundaries and disappointed to realize that she’d scared off the one man she didn’t seem to mind being close to. “Either your kidnapper has found you here in Wyoming,

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