Author: Chloe Lang
Category: Young Adult
Go to read content：https://readnovelfree.com/p/40558_2
“When can you tell me?” she asked.
“I don’t know the answer to that now, but I’m sure as soon as it’s determined to be safe, you’ll be told where he is.” Brown looked at her in a way that screamed pity. “Are you ready to go, Mrs. Lunceford?”
“I guess so.” God, how had this all happened?
* * * *
Eric Knight walked out of the FBI’s interrogation room with his brother, Scott.
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“I can’t believe that it’s finally over,” Scott said as they walked to the bank of elevators. “We almost lost everything.”
“We’re not out of the woods yet.” He placed his Stetson on his head, trying to reclaim a sense of normalcy. It didn’t come. “Homeland Security is still going through all our files.” His hands balled up into fists. Kip Lunceford had betrayed them.
“Bro, we’re innocent of this. This is all on Kip. We’ve cooperated in every way the government has asked us to. Our company is fine.”
“Fine? We’ll be lucky if we can turn this debacle around.”
Scott pushed the button to call the elevator. “We’ve been cleared. We should celebrate.”
“Celebrate the fact that one of our most trusted employees duped us.” Guilt and rage twisted his gut into knots. “We may not have been the traitors, Scott, but we’re not innocent in this. We should’ve seen Lunceford for who he is.”
“There’s no blood on our hands. None.”
“You don’t buy that any more than I do. Our code will be used against our brothers on the battlefield, Scott. Our code. Every medal we earned in Afghanistan should be returned.”
Scott’s face darkened. “Let it go, Eric. It will eat you alive if you don’t.”
“Take your own advice, brother. You’re as tore up about this fucking disaster as I am.”
“True. It will take time but we will turn the company and ourselves around. Trust me.”
“You’re the only one I’ll ever trust again, Scott.”
“Same here.”
The elevator doors opened and Eric stepped inside. “I swear if he had any accomplices, Scott, I’ll crush them with my bare hands.”
Chapter One
Five years later
Lofty, snow-covered peaks, tall pines, and incredible wildlife had been in view for over an hour since Megan Lunceford had left Highway 230 and turned onto Holyroyd Road. Even though the natural beauty was quite stunning, she couldn’t truly appreciate the surroundings just outside Granny Gremlin’s windshield.
She glanced at herself in the rearview mirror and frowned before sending her attention back to the road. Her hair was disheveled and her makeup was in major need of a touch-up. But even with the best cosmetics money could buy, which she definitely didn’t have, the twinkle in her eye her mother had so loved was missing. It had been gone for a very long time. She looked more like a refugee than a woman about to appear in court.
Like a ghost from the past, she recalled her husband’s silky words on their wedding night. “You’re a porcelain doll, babe. Too pretty for words.”
Unfortunately the lying bastard never tired of words. Why had she been such an idiot? She would’ve never been swept off her feet by Kip if her mother had lived. Two months after her funeral and fifteen pounds heavier, she’d bumped into the Asshole at the coffee shop down the block from her mom’s place. His toothy grin and sugary-sweet compliments had come out of the blue when her grief had drained away her reserves of logic and will. The chance to fill her days and nights with something other than her loneliness had sealed the deal. Now, she prayed for a magic wand that could transport her back to that day he’d knelt in front of her and proposed. Instead of saying “yes” with tears streaming down her cheeks, she would kick him in the balls and run for the door. Too bad the world had no magic or miracles. She could really use some right now.
Her digits gripped the steering wheel like ten tiny vises and her left foot hovered over the brake like a police helicopter. She wasn’t used to driving in the mountains, and though a normal driver would likely only use the brake going downhill, she’d kept her left foot there the entire way to calm her nerves. Since turning onto this lane, the drive had been uphill nearly the whole way. Now, it was a steep downhill trek. Even at the current fifteen-miles-per-hour pace, her ears continued to pop from the change in pressure due to the elevation. She had been ordered to appear in court in Destiny today. The way to the small town in Northern Colorado was rough, twisty, and terrifying with its narrow passages and steep drop-offs.
To get to the turnoff to Destiny, she’d actually had to drive out of Colorado and into Wyoming a few miles, since the only road to the town was there. It had only taken her a little over three hours to cover the one hundred and sixty-six miles from Denver to the turn, but the past eighteen miles had taken her over an hour. As she came over the last ridge, the grade of the road softened, dipping down into a valley with the most beautiful mountain lake
she’d ever seen. On a peninsula that nearly divided Elm Lake in half was the place she’d been journeying to for seventeen hours straight. As gorgeous as the space was, her heart sank from loneliness. Her mother’s house in Dallas was a very long way from Destiny.
She glanced at the folders in the passenger seat next to her and then once again to the road that, according to her map, wrapped around the large lake. Her whole financial life had been distilled into the pages inside those folders. The verdict? Flat broke. Destitute. Cleaned out.
Cash? The fifteen dollars and change in her purse was the extent of her personal fortune.