Chasing Shadows (First Wives #3)(70)

“Yes.”

“Are you visiting us or moving here?”

“Visiting.” Avery kept her answers short and didn’t elaborate. Somewhere in her years of friendship with Lori, she’d heard that offering information never boded well if there was a chance you could be charged with a crime.

“Where are you staying?”

“The Ritz-Carlton, Central Park.”

He paused. “Fancy hotel.”

She shrugged. “I’m a fancy girl.”

“What are you doing down here? In the less fancy part of town.”

Avery glanced up at the sign for the club. “I was thirsty.”

He wasn’t buying it. “I think the waitress has had more to drink tonight than you.”

She was getting cold now that the heat of the bar had left her skin and the night air had dipped into the high forties. “Am I being charged with anything, Officer?”

“Let’s see . . . could be assault, battery . . . inciting a riot.”

“I didn’t realize a bar fight was considered a riot.”

The officer stared at her as if contemplating the key to a Rubik’s Cube. “No one is going to jail tonight, Miss Grant. Only because the gentleman whose hand needed reminding not to wander isn’t pressing charges on you.”

That was rich. “And if I’d like to press charges on him?”

The officer put his hands in the air before returning them to his belt full of tools and a gun. “Then we can pull you both in and put you both through the process. Your call. I assure you, the Ritz has much better accommodations.”

Avery glanced over her shoulder to the fist-bumping bouncer.

He shook his head and made a back-and-forth slicing motion at his neck.

Thirty minutes later, Avery stood in a hot shower. Even though everything but her toes was hurting, she started to laugh. “Hey, Mom . . . guess what? Your dream came true. Can you come bail me out of jail?” Adeline would have a stroke.

Avery bit her lip and continued talking to herself. “Lori, what’s up? About those lawyer services?”

Brenda would be all, How did he get close enough to punch your face?

And Liam.

Avery’s smile started to fade when she thought of him.

There wouldn’t be a Liam to call.

Oh, well. At least she wouldn’t disappoint him.

Again.





Chapter Twenty-Seven

“You’re probably deleting these messages before listening to them. That isn’t going to stop me from trying. I’m sorry I cornered you. I know you’re going through a hard time, and I want to help. Please, Avery. Let me help. I miss you and I’m worried.” Liam hung up the phone and leaned against the bed of his truck as he stared down his new project in Santa Monica.

Never in his life had he made this much of an effort to stay attached to a woman. Not that he was the one to bug out at the first sign of conflict in relationships, but Avery all but told him to go to hell by hanging up and not returning his calls.

He felt marginally better when his daily check-in with Reed told him no one had heard from her.

Liam booked a flight to New York that would leave on Sunday. He’d given her enough time alone.

He wouldn’t let her work her way into another week of this journey without him.



Avery checked three more clubs off her list.

Maybe she was going at this the wrong way. Although, there had been a few people she’d asked who said they had seen a similar tattoo but didn’t remember the face it belonged to.

“Here ya go.” A waitress slid a full plate of food in front of Avery, refilled her coffee, and scurried away.

She was starving. Her nights had been too busy for her to think about food, and her lack of a breakfast habit was making her weak.

Avery looked at the eggs, potatoes, bacon, and toast like she’d not seen such a delight.

Digging in like a trucker, she felt her energy seeping back into her veins. Her fork was halfway to her mouth when she felt a hand grab her shoulder.

She jumped, dropped her fork, and looked over her right shoulder as her elbow swung up. It stopped less than an inch from Detective Armstrong’s chest.

“Easy, tiger.” He took a step back and looked down at her.

“Not smart to sneak up on people, Detective.”

“I can see that.” He slid into the chair opposite her without invitation. His eyes found the bruise on her face. “New makeup fad?”

She didn’t dignify him with a response. “Did you find him?”

“No. Did you?”

Again, she sat silently and picked her fork back up. “Seems you had no problem finding me in this ocean of people. You should channel that energy into finding Spider.”

He leaned forward on his elbows. “Funny, it wasn’t very hard learning where you were. Would you like to guess why?”

He was here to lecture her. If there was something she’d gotten used to since she was a teenager, it was authority dominating over her. She wasn’t going to escape it, so she kept eating and let him rant.

“Apparently there was a bar fight on the East Side the other night, and guess whose name came up on the list of participants?”

The potatoes stuck in her throat. She washed them down with coffee.

The waitress stopped at the table, and Armstrong encouraged her to pour him a cup of coffee.