Page 116 of Our Little Secret

“Sometimes I think I am.”

“Well, I don’t blame you.” She glanced at the clock and said with more than a hint of sarcasm, “I really hate to leave when we’re having all this fun, but I’d better go up and finish packing.” She paused. “You’re still up for driving me to the airport?”

“Of course.” Brooke planned to use the time to not only ask Leah about her deal with Neal but also to confront Gideon once she’d dropped her sister off at the airport. After all, there was no time like the present.

She was done with him.

Done with his calls.

Done with his motorcycle roaring past.

Done with his charades of cop and pizza deliveryman.

Done with his damned bracelet.

Done with his spying and threats.

Done with his dead rat left to intimidate and terrorize her.

This time, no matter what else happened, she’d make sure he got the message.

Neal’s gun would see to it.

CHAPTER 26

Two hours later Brooke was behind the wheel of her Explorer, navigating the clog of traffic near the airport, her sister in the seat next to her. Night had fallen and the storm was in full force, rain coming down so hard that the wipers could barely keep the windshield clear, cars, buses, and trucks jockeying for position, the red glare of taillights stretching in an undulating line ahead of them. Fortunately, her headlights still worked.

While Brooke tried to maneuver the Explorer through the lanes, she told herself not to think about the gun and ammo tucked under the seat, nor the spy equipment and bracelet stuffed into the pockets of her jacket. She was tense, thinking ahead, calculating how much time she would have after dropping Leah off, then driving to the marina and confronting Gideon.

How would he react?

And how far would she go?

She intended to scare the liver out of him, to turn the tables on him, but what if, God forbid, it didn’t work? White-knuckled over the steering wheel, she forced a calm she didn’t feel. Leah and her bad mood weren’t helping. She’d been spoiling for a fight ever since seeing Neal and Brooke getting along, teasing each other, assuming they were in love and their problems were only a recalcitrant teenage daughter and a dog that had wandered off.

If she only knew.

Leah kept drumming her fingers against the armrest, then checking her watch pointedly, then futzing with the radio.

“I knew we should have left earlier,” Leah complained for the third time since they left the house. She’d been snappy and tense, nervous about the flight and about her upcoming battle with Sean.

Which was nothing compared to what Brooke was dealing with.

For the dozenth time Leah switched radio channels, stopping at a song by U2.

Good.

Mouthing the words Bono was singing, Leah checked her phone as if hoping to get a text that her flight to Phoenix was delayed. It wasn’t. “Didn’t I say so? Didn’t I tell you I always have anxiety about missing my flight—that we should have left half an hour earlier?” she spat out, highly agitated and not bothering to mask it.

Brooke had seen her this way before, recognized the signs, told herself to tread carefully despite the fact that her own nerves were frayed to the breaking point. “You’ve got lots of time. Over an hour.” Brooke flipped on her blinker and aimed the crumpled nose of her Explorer toward the off-ramp, but the driver who she’d hoped would let her in ignored her signals and stared straight ahead, inching his Dodge van forward. “Come on,” she said.

As the van moved past, she eyed the driver of an older Volkswagen, a woman with puffy gray hair and a tiny dog lounging on her shoulder. The woman eased off the gas and Brooke waved as she wedged into the tight spot and exited the freeway. “See,” she said to her sister, “you’re going to make it.”

“Next time we leave earlier!” Leah huffed and Brooke tried to tamp down her irritation. “Didn’t I say so?” Leah flipped down the visor and peered into the passenger mirror, its tiny light illuminating her face. “If you’d listened to me. I said I would take an Uber, but oh no . . .”

Brooke braked as the traffic slowed to a crawl, taillights glowing in an unending stream.

“Now what?” Leah said on a disgusted sigh. She snapped the visor up again and glared out the windshield. “I don’t know why I let you bully me around.”