Standing His Ground: Greer (Porter Brothers Trilogy 2)

Holly started to get up, but Greer was already rising from his chair.

Opening the door, he let Knox in.

“Sorry to interrupt so early, but I wanted to bring Holly’s purse to her. Diamond forgot to give it to you last night.” Knox set it down on the table in front of her.

“Thanks. Can I get you some coffee before you leave?”

“No, thanks. I need to talk to you alone.” Judging from Knox’s serious expression, whatever he wanted to say wasn’t going to be good.

Neither Dustin nor Greer made a move to leave the room.

“Go ahead, Knox. I’d just tell them after you left.”

“All right. It’ll be in the newspaper this afternoon, anyway. Have you heard about the car wreck last week?”

Holly frowned. “Diamond said you missed dinner because you were working a car wreck, but other than that, no.”

“A driver from out of town rear-ended another car outside the town limits. The driver from out of town was killed.”

Holly’s hand clenched on her coffee cup. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“The driver was burned, and it made identification difficult, but he had his license on him and the car was registered to him. His name was Brett Martin.”

“I don’t know anyone with that name.” Holly was confused as to why Knox was telling her about the man who had suffered such a terrible death.

“I didn’t think you did. When I contacted his family to notify them about his death, the man who answered the phone was actually Brett Martin. He confessed to letting a friend borrow his car.”

A sick feeling of dread had her standing up. “Who was it?

“Mitch Reynolds. He told his friend he wanted to see you.”

Overwhelming guilt had her clutching the table to keep her balance. “It’s all my fault,” she choked out. “If I’d answered his letters, he wouldn’t have been trying to see me. He knew we were over. He just wanted to know that I forgave him.”

She couldn’t bear to look at Greer. She needed to leave the room before he said something. She couldn’t deal with him right now, not while she was thinking of Mitch being burned alive.

“Thanks for coming here to tell me.” Holly started toward her room when Dustin stood up and took her arm.

“Can I do anything?” Dustin put his hands on her shoulders when she would have passed him.

Holly leaned against him weakly, pressing her head on his chest. “Can you turn back time and make me a better person? I should have answered his letters.”

“The one thing I have learned is that you can’t turn back time. I wish I could.”

Holly looked up into his eyes. Dustin lived with his own guilt for the way Logan’s mother had died.

“Logan’s still sleeping. I’m going to go lie down until he wakes up.”

She wanted to leave before she burst into tears in front of Greer.

She needed time to deal with the guilt of letting him get involved in her life. Being brutally honest with herself, she would have called Knox if Mitch had shown up here or work. Still, Mitch had his faults, but he had more heart than Greer would ever have.

A sudden thought struck her before she could leave. “Mitch doesn’t have any family. Who …? How will he be buried?”

“I’ll check with his parole officer. If no one comes to claim his body, do you want me to contact you?”

“Yes. Just let me know what I need to do.”

Knox nodded. “I’ll let you know as soon as I find anything out about Mitch and who was chasing you last night.”

“One thing is fucking sure; it wasn’t Mitch.” Greer pulled Dustin’s plate toward him. “Any other suspects?”

“Not yet. I was hoping Lucky would find something on the security footage from the back of the church, but the only thing you see is his face. It was too dark to get a good look at it, though.”

“Have there been any other assaults on women in town?”

“You know I can’t talk about pending cases, but no.”

“How about Curt Dawkins? I heard a rumor he attempted to rape someone when he was in high school.”

“It wasn’t Curt. I already looked into his alibi. He was with Luke Baxter all evening.”

“I wouldn’t take Luke Baxter’s word for shit. He damn sure wouldn’t tell the truth to anyone wearing a badge.”

“I agree, but I can’t arrest him if I can’t place him there. And, so far, there’s no evidence Curt was there. Mick vouched that they were at Rosie’s when the attack was reported.” Knox turned his attention back to her. “Can you think of anyone who would want to hurt you? Have you been seeing someone new? Made anyone mad at you lately?”

Holly tried to think, coming up blank. “No. The only one I’ve made mad lately is the cocktail waitress at King’s and Greer. Diamond said that Greer was with her, and the waitress was a woman, so I can’t think of anyone else.”