Paradise Crime Series Box Set by Toby Neal

Author:Toby Neal [Neal, Toby]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Toby Neal

Chapter Fourteen

Connor Remarkian strode up to Sophie in the parking lot the next morning. Ginger slavishly groveled and wagged at the sight of Anubis, his stately Doberman. The only indication of Anubis’s excitement was the swiveling of his pricked, cropped ears.

“G’day!” Connor’s voice was irritatingly cheerful, as she’d known it would be. Sophie leaned over, tightening the laces of her running shoes. The smell of rain was a metallic tease on the air, along with a faint mustiness from the thick pili grass surrounding the off-limits trail area, clearly marked NO TRESPASSING. “I thought of a perk to your leaving the FBI—you’re just a regular citizen now, if we get popped for trespassing.” He pointed to the sign, smiling.

Connor had dressed for movement in running shorts and a mesh shirt that showed off a near-perfect physique. None of it did a thing for Sophie. He was as annoying as Jake Dunn, and the ragged bits of nightmare still clouded her vision.

She wasn’t in the mood to pretend this morning. The only way she could handle being with him during the hike was to shut him up. Her days of being a quiet, compliant woman were over, and if that left her alone, there were worse things.

“Listen, Connor. I’m only here because I think a run out in nature might be good for me right now. So I’ll take the lead. Not in the mood to chat.” Sophie slipped into a thin nylon daypack holding water for her and Ginger. “Let’s go.”

Connor’s face went still. He gave a stiff nod and tweaked Anubis’s leash. Sophie jumped Ginger over the large cement blocks beside the gate that supposedly kept hikers out, and hit the ground running.

The Catwalk was not a strenuous hike, fairly flat although winding through long, choking grass. At one point they had to crawl through a hole in the fence to run along a closed-off road. Sophie didn’t begin to feel a slight loosening of the darkness on her mind until they crested a rise, and the soaring view of the ocean from thousands of feet up on the ridge broke into her view. She stopped to take it in, hands on her hips. Connor came to stand beside her but said nothing.

Whatever pique he might have initially felt at her brusque words seemed to have gone, and frankly, she didn’t much care. They continued on in silence, and the famous tongue of concrete known as Dead Man’s Catwalk came too soon.

Why was she here on this hike? With him?

Because he’d asked her on the hike, and she needed to get out, interact, exercise—even if that was the last thing she wanted to do.

Because she felt a mild tingle of attraction to him now and again—objectively, he was a very attractive man—and because he was a connection to Sheldon Hamilton.

But the Ghost, Sheldon, was who she really wanted to have a connection with.

Sophie dropped Ginger’s leash at their destination. She took off her pack and poured water into a

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.