Page 261 of Things We Left Behind

But it wasn’t Nash. No, standing with dirty boots on my new welcome mat was Wylie Ogden. He was holding a box of books. A red toothpick dangled from his lower lip.

Fuckity fuck fuck.

Relax, I told myself.He doesn’t know I know. Hell, I don’t know if I know.

“Hi, Wylie,” I said, sounding suspicious as hell. “What can I do for you?”

“Picked these up at an estate sale and thought you might want them for the library. Shame about the fire.”

The fire that he could have easily set. The fire. The note. The rats on my porch. Oh God. Something tickled my nose. Was it…

“Your toothpick smells like cinnamon,” I said in a strangled voice.

“Family habit,” he said. “My dad always had cinnamon toothpicks on him when I was growing up. I wanted to be just like him from the time I could walk.”

I wasn’t sure what a normal person would say in response to that. So I just gave him my best fake smile. “Well, thank you for your generosity. I’ll be happy to take those books off your hands,” I said, reaching for the box.

“It’s a heavy one, and I’m a gentleman. I insist.”

Short of shoving him out the door and slamming it in his face, I didn’t know what my next move should be. If I did that, he’d know that I knew.

“You can set them down just here on the floor. I’ll get to them after Nash’s wedding. In fact, he should be here any minute to pick me up,” I lied brightly.

“She knows.”

The husky southern drawl behind me had the blood draining out of my face.

I spun around on my stockinged feet only to find Judge Atkins standing in the hallway, wielding a gun with what appeared to be a silencer screwed to the barrel.

“Uh, that’s not a gavel,” I joked stupidly.

“Shut the door, Ogden,” Atkins ordered.

Wylie set the books down, then obediently closed and locked the front door. “Don’t get your robes in a knot,” Wylie complained. He was nervous, shifting his weight from foot to foot, his eyes darting around. It made me even more nervous.

“She knows enough to be scared half to death of you knockin’ on her door, now doesn’t she?” the judge said, wiggling the gun in my direction.

I glanced around me, trying to come up with a plan of action. If I ran, I guessed the judge would have no qualmsabout shooting me in the back. If I tried to fight him like the rabid weasel he was, well, I’d end up with the holes in my front, and I really liked this dress. I didn’t have shoes on, so traction and kicking were problems.

I needed to at least stash the arrest report somewhere that Lucian would find it. He’d put two and two together.

My gaze snagged on one of the nearly hidden security cameras Lucian had installed in the living room. But the light wasn’t on. They’d cut the power and the Wi-­Fi, I realized with a sinking sensation in my gut.

I dropped the arrest report and slowly put my hands on my head to show them I was no threat. “What’s the plan here, guys? It’s a small town. Odds are someone saw you on my porch or climbing my fence.”

“I was just donating books,” Wylie reminded me, producing a gun of his own from the waistband of his old-­man pants. Great. Now two gun-­wielding bad guys were making a Sloane sandwich. “And you were fine when I left.”

I was going to throw up. Everywhere.

“And I’m not here. I’m with my wife enjoying a romantic anniversary dinner,” Atkins said with a mean smile. “And any evidence will be burned up in the fire.”

The man intended to shoot me and set fire to my house. I almost felt sorry for him because Lucian wouldn’t stop until he’d destroyed everything Atkins held sacred.

“Look, I don’t know why you think you have to do this. Is it really necessary? I mean, so you took some kickbacks from a prison and set fire to a public library. It’s not like you murdered someone.”

“I’m not letting some little blond destroy my legacy over a few dollars,” the judge announced. “I’ve made my life’s work putting criminals behind bars.”

Yeah, the asshole was a goddamn hero.