Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 103552 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 518(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103552 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 518(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
Avery shot me a guilty, embarrassed look, shocking me back to reality. Damn, that kiss was hard to shove to the back of my mind, but somehow, I needed to. There would be time to deal with that later. For now, we had business to discuss.
“Ford’s getting stitched up,” Hawk said, taking a position in the open doorway, where he could keep an eye on us and the traffic in the hall at the same time.
“He’s okay?” Avery asked.
“He’s fine,” Griffen answered, standing at the foot of her bed, his arms crossed over his chest. “Ford said you hit your head pretty hard.”
“It hurts,” Avery said, “but not as bad as it did before. I was woozy. I think I passed out for a minute, but I don’t know if that was from hitting my head or just shock. It happened so fast, and there was so much blood.”
“And you had no idea who it was?” Griffen asked, his eyes glued to his sister, soaking in every detail—her pale cheeks, the bandage covering the cut on her collarbone and arm.
“No,” she whispered. “I wish I did.”
“Give me a description,” Hawk said. Before Avery could start, he looked at me.
I pulled out my phone. “I’ll take your statement now,” I said to Avery. “We might as well do it this way and save you coming in later.”
“Sure,” she said, eyeing my phone as I hit record. I added the identifying info—who I was interviewing, time, date, all that. Then I said, “Tell us what happened. Start with the altercation with Matthew.”
Her dark brows pulled together, and I knew she wanted to argue. She didn’t want to talk about Matthew, especially not in front of Griffen and Hawk. She was embarrassed and angry. I knew all of that, and still, I needed her statement. All of it. She eyed the screen of my phone, watching the stopwatch tracking the length of the recording. I squeezed her fingers. “Forget about the recording. Just tell us what happened.”
Avery nodded. “Matthew approached me while I was on the way to get dinner,” she began, telling us step by step everything that had happened from when we’d parted ways to when I found her on the ground covered in blood.
“All I saw were his eyes. Really just the whites of his eyes. I want to say they were dark brown, but they could have been hazel. It was so dark. His clothes were dark and—”
“You sure it was a man?” I asked.
She closed her eyes for a second, I thought to replay the attack in her head. Her eyes still closed, she said, “I’m pretty sure. He was tall, taller than me, almost as tall as Ford. Not bulky though. He was rangy. Lean, but strong. He had something over his head—a costume or a mask. I wish...” She let out a short laugh. “I was going to say I wish it had lasted longer so I could have gotten a good look, but if it had lasted longer, one of us would probably be dead.”
“Before,” I said, “you thought he wanted to stab Ford. What made you think that?”
“Because he had a knife, and he came at us,” she answered, her eyes wide. “It seems kind of obvious he wasn’t there to play chess or ask for my beer recipe.”
“How do you know?” I asked. I could practically hear Griffen’s teeth grinding together at the question. None of us liked the idea that the stranger with the knife had been after Avery. Ford seemed like a logical target. Someone had already tried to kill him in prison. Now that he was out, he’d stuck close to home, reluctantly putting up with the security that Griffen and Hawk assigned. Whoever wanted him dead hadn’t had a lot of opportunity to go after him. Until tonight.
“I just, I guess I just assumed they were after Ford,” Avery said, letting out a breath. “I mean, who would come after me?”
“The same person who broke into the brewery?” Hawk asked with a raised eyebrow.
“But they just stole my file and my recipe, they didn’t try to hurt me. And I don’t even know what that was really about. Maybe...”
“Did he say anything?” I asked. “Anything that indicated that Ford was the target?”
“He barely made a sound,” she said, her voice rough with frustration.
Griffen, Hawk, and I exchanged a long look.
“At this point,” Hawk said, “we need to assume either one of you could have been the target.”
“No,” Avery protested, trying to push herself into a higher sitting position. “No, it couldn’t have been me. I don’t want—”
I squeezed her hand. “Hey, I know you don’t want to think about it. I know it’s fucking scary. And I know you don’t want the added security that your brother and Hawk are definitely going to put on you after this.”