Intercepting Love (Second Chances #5)(50)

“If you want my advice, I’d stay away from him until we get to the bottom of this. We don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

Before getting into his car, he turned to Cooper and smiled. “Good game, by the way. I would’ve told you earlier, but I didn’t think it was appropriate while surveying your damaged car. Glad to have you in our city, though.”

Cooper chuckled. “Thank you, Officer. I’m glad to be here.”

As soon as he left, Lara threw her hands up in the air, her eyes wide. “Please tell me you don’t think Luke did this,” she argued.

Clueless, I shrugged and leaned into Cooper’s body for comfort. I didn’t like what was going on one bit. “Lara, I honestly don’t know what to think. It doesn’t make sense, that’s for sure.”

“And as much as I don’t like the guy,” Cooper stated, “I don’t think he’d be stupid enough to leave a knife with his initials on it. Something’s not right here.”

I nodded. “Agreed, but what’s going to happen if something worse happens next week?”

Cooper rubbed his hands down my arms to warm away the chills before holding me tight against him. “And that, love, is what I’m worried about.”





I barely slept once everything was said and done, and now that it was midday I thought we would’ve heard something from the police. My brother hadn’t called, which was a shock since I was sure Luke would’ve called him to tell him what was going on.

“What do you think is taking so long?” I asked.

Cooper sighed and joined me on the couch while I impatiently flipped through every channel. “It takes time to find people, and they probably had a lot of questions to ask him.”

I had a lot of questions to ask him. It took all I had not to pick up my phone and call him myself.

“What if it wasn’t him? Is there anyone on the team that doesn’t like you or would want to play a cruel joke like this?” I asked.

“I can’t think of anyone. The only person that really makes sense is Luke, but then again given the circumstances I’m starting to doubt it’s him.”

Ring … ring … ring.

My heart thumped in my chest, and when I looked at my phone it was a number I didn’t recognize. “Hello,” I answered nervously.

“Ms. Townsend?”

Immediately, I recognized the deep, baritone voice from last night; it was Officer Stilwell.

“Yes, this is she.”

“This is Officer Stilwell. I wanted to call and give you an update. Unfortunately, we have yet to find Mr. Collins. No one seems to know where he’s located, not even his family. Do you know when the last time you spoke to him was?”

“It was last Saturday,” I told him, “when he dropped me off at my house after our date. He had tried calling this week, but I never answered.”

“Okay, thanks. We’re still trying to hunt him down, but in the meantime, if you see or hear from him we need to know. Also, there were several fingerprints we detected on the knife and right now they’re being examined. We should have the results of those by tomorrow morning.”

“Thank you. I’ll let you know if we hear anything.”

As soon as we hung up the phone, I called my brother since he was Luke’s best friend; surely he had to know where he was. “Kate, what’s up,” he answered, yawning into the phone.

“Hey, do you know where Luke is? Have you talked to him or the police for that matter?”

“The police? Why would I have talked to them?”

“It’s because they’re looking for Luke. We’re not sure, but we think he might have slashed Cooper’s tires last night. The knife I gave him was stuck in one of the tires.”

Evan fumbled with the phone. “You can’t be serious? This is a joke, right?”

I sighed. “I wish it was. Have you talked to him?”

“No, I haven’t talked to him in a couple of days. He said he was leaving to get away from everything and that’s the last I heard from him. He’s probably at his cabin. If I can’t get in touch with him I’ll drive up there.”

“Thanks, Evan. I just want to find out what’s going on,” I said.

“Yeah, me too,” he said before hanging up the phone.

Cooper put his arm around me and squeezed. “Anything?”

“Not yet. The police can’t find Luke, but they also said they found other prints on the knife. I’m sure I have a set on there, but there could also be a ton of other prints as well. I don’t see how that’s going to help. Evan’s going to try and find him; however, in the meantime all we can do is wait.”

“I can think of something we can do while we wait,” Cooper teased, burying his nose in my hair.

“You’re insatiable. Is that all you think about?”

Chuckling, he grabbed me around the waist and tossed me on the couch, covering me with his body. “Actually, I was referring to unpacking my house, love. However, if you want to do something else, I’m pretty sure I can rise to the occasion.”

Already he was hard and ready between my legs, but there was so much on my mind I couldn’t begin to think about sex. “I tell you what,” I began, “why don’t we unpack some of your boxes, and tonight you can rise as much as you want. How does that sound?”