But he was already pretty fucking sure.
The town wasn’t that big and whoever owned that house had scratch. Successful attorney type of scratch.
And the way she looked, acted and dressed screamed successful. It wasn’t an act, but the real deal.
Tucking his phone back into his pocket, he tried the door handle. But as expected, it was locked. And from what he could see between a slight gap in the blinds, the front office was dark.
Which meant she went somewhere toward the back. Alone.
Right now she was probably kicking off her heels, pulling the pins from her hair, and removing her jacket. Maybe even unbuttoning the first few buttons on her blouse.
He dropped his head. “Fuck,” he muttered. What he thought would be a random stranger, now might not be. She might be connected to the victim of the fugitive he was looking for.
That could be good. Or bad. Apparently, he hadn’t made the best impression. Or any impression at all.
She had been immune to his charms. Hell, he hadn’t even had a chance to fully turn on his charms. She had shut him down and out immediately.
But having a common goal—which was helping Reilly Porter stay safe by catching Warren—could get his boot in her door.
Door. Sure.
But for now, she was locked inside her office and he was locked outside. He needed to figure out a way to approach her if she really was the one living up on that mountain. Even if she wasn’t, it seemed she would know who was, unless there was another R. Ackerson in the area.
He needed to decide his next step. Wait for her until she comes back out and try talking to her? Or go get his truck and follow her home to make sure the house on the mountain belonged to her?
The way she responded to him inside the bar made that an easy decision.
Keep his distance until he no longer could.
Reese glanced in the rearview mirror. It was after eleven and the mountain road she lived off of normally didn’t get a lot of traffic, even during daylight hours. To have someone following her, not only in town, but out of it, wasn’t a normal occurrence.
And right now, anything out of the ordinary in her life shouldn’t be taken lightly.
Once the victim advocate had contacted Reilly about her abusive ex-boyfriend skipping bail and disappearing, Reese’s life became a whirlwind. While she went and “saved” her sister—again—she had her administrative assistant cancel all her appointments and delay all her court appearances since Reilly’s well-being became priority number one.
She rushed down to Philly and picked up her sister from a friend’s house, where she’d been hiding out.
She told Reilly to only bring a couple of bags because they didn’t have time to pack up her whole apartment and get her moved. Instead, Reese paid a moving company to box what little Reilly had and put it in a storage unit, rented under her corporation’s name.
Reese tried to think of every connection that would link her and Reilly as sisters. Having different last names helped. But still, she had hoped she hadn’t missed anything so that abusive asshole could find her younger sister and finish the job he had started. Which was her being almost beaten to death.
But now, being followed late at night made the tiny hairs on the back of Reese’s neck stand. The last thing she wanted to do was draw Billy Warren right to where she lived. Which was Reese’s home and Reilly’s current safe haven.
Instead of pulling into her driveway and opening the electric gate, she drove right past her own property with her heart thumping in her throat.
All she could see of the vehicle, which stayed about a quarter mile behind her, were headlights. That left her with no description to even give police.
In reality, she could simply be feeling a little paranoid.
More like a lot.
However, Billy Warren was not just an asshole, but one of epic proportions. He used his bad boy charms to suck women in and then took advantage of them by stealing their money before abusing them.
That made her think of the man she met earlier. Nick could be cut from similar cloth and Reese wasn’t interested in finding out. It had been best just to ignore him earlier.
Both she and Reilly really needed to swear off men for a while. Apparently, they both sucked at picking good ones.
She pressed her foot harder on the accelerator, giving the BMW X6 a boost of speed. Unless she did a U-turn, there really wasn’t much in the area where she was headed, except for state game land. No lights. No help. Nowhere to lose a tail. And worse, spotty cell phone coverage.
Civilization was behind her and the dark, uninhabited woods in front of her. Again, a reason why she was suspicious of someone driving behind her.