Shoulders set with determination, I move through the stacks all the way to the back of the library and push through the glass door separating it from the county clerk. “Hello,” I say brightly to the woman behind the desk. “I’m looking for property records.”
She nods, picks up a pencil. “Address?”
“There are multiple addresses.”
“Of course there are,” she sighs.
Twenty minutes later, I have my printouts. Using my hip to open the glass door, I walk back into the library and find a quiet table in the biography section, spreading Oscar Stanley’s property records out in front of me. I check my phone to make sure Jude hasn’t called or texted—and he hasn’t. Neither has Myles. Good. The menfolk are occupied.
I’m free to snoop.
I drop my phone onto the table and go through the first record, which belongs to the property where Oscar was murdered. Nothing is odd about it that I can see. His name is the only one listed as an owner. It’s when I move on to the next record that my spine begins to tingle. Under owner name, there is Oscar Stanley.
But his name isn’t the only one listed. Evergreen Corp.
It’s on the next record, as well. And the next three.
Oscar Stanley didn’t own these properties alone.
He had a business partner.
And everyone knows that business partners are the most likely to commit murders, second only to spouses. I have to tell Myles—
I’m halfway through my thought when something heavy slams into the side of my head.
Pain detonates in my temple and everything goes black.
“Taylor!”
Consciousness slowly returns, but I immediately wish I was still out cold.
My head is throbbing and I can smell blood. That’s bad enough.
But there is also a bounty hunter shouting an inch from my face.
I crack open an eyelid and he whispers a prayer at the ceiling, then gets back to shouting. “Are you okay? Where else are you hurt? Tell me you’re okay.”
“I’m okay. Stop yelling,” I command in a strangled whisper.
“Stop yelling? You’re laying here bleeding and you want me to stop yelling?” His hands race over my body and back up to my head, the brownish moss color of his eyes eclipsed by dilated pupils, sweat trickling down the sides of his face. Is he shaking? “What the fuck happened?”
“I don’t know.” When I realize there is a crowd of people around us, a lot of them on the phone to what sounds like 911, I struggle to sit up. “I was sitting here. Someone hit me. With a book, I think. It felt like leather.”
“There was a book on the ground. Over here on the floor,” calls the county clerk receptionist who helped me earlier. How long ago? How long have I been passed out on the floor of the library? “There’s some blood on it. Probably hers.”
“Christ,” Myles grits out, appearing seasick.
Someone assaulted me.
A nervous sound escapes my lips and I’m promptly pulled into Myles’s arms. The warm safety of his body makes me forget about our audience and I simply wrap myself around him, legs around his waist, arms circling his neck, desperately needing the heat. I’m cold, teeth chattering. It feels like I’ve been pulled out of an icy pond.
“Myles.”
“I’ve got you, Taylor. I’m right here.” He’s taking deep breaths, as if trying to calm himself down, but I can tell it’s not working. “Are there cameras in here? I want to know who did this. Now.”
“No cameras, sir. I’m sorry.” A male voice. There’s a pause wherein all I can hear is my heart racing along with Myles’s. “There’s an ambulance on the way.”
“I don’t want the ambulance. I just want to go home.”
“You could have a…” He swallows thickly, his Adam’s apple moving against the uninjured side of my head. “It could be a concussion. Jesus. I left the meeting as soon as I saw the ballistics report. The gun you found on the beach was not the murder weapon, Taylor. It’s still out there. And I could feel something was off. I should never have left you alone—”
I process the news about the ballistics report, a weight sinking down to my knees. “This is not your fault. I’m in a public library in the middle of the day,” I say into his shoulder. “I should have been safe.”
“But you weren’t, Taylor. You weren’t.”
My intuition is whispering that this is a bad turn of events. Not only because this is the second time I’ve been the target of violence, but in trying to help Myles, I might have inadvertently made everything worse.
“I’m okay.”
“I need a paramedic to tell me that, all right? Stay awake, all right? Eyes open.” Several seconds tick by and I slowly notice his muscles tensing beneath me. “Is that your paperwork on the table?”
Oh dear. This is not the time. “I suddenly feel woozy.”