“I should be goin’. Bye, Jane.”
“Wait. Can I see you tomorrow?” She stepped closer, more than anything wanting a hug from him, but he kept his distance.
“I got a business meetin’ tomorrow mornin’.”
She bit her lip. “What’s going on?”
“I’m glad you’re both safe, but we’ve concluded our…time together. I know you’ve been re-thinkin’ your law practice, so I’ll be findin’ another lawyer. You can move on with your life, mobster-free.”
“What if I don’t want to be?” The prospect of not having Byron around was unacceptable. “We need to discuss this.”
“Nothin’ to talk about, darlin’. I said this would be a short affair, and it was.”
“Tell me why, at least.”
Something about his half-hearted smile broke her heart. “Because you’re a lady and I’m no gentleman. Rhett and Scarlett don’t end up together. Remember?”
And then he walked out the door, leaving Jane standing there alone.
The only sound was sirens howling in the distance.
Chapter Twenty-One
“Good morning, Brady.”
Jane leaned down to kiss Brady on the cheek.
It’d been three weeks since she’d killed Oscar Valentine. Jane had made the right decision and she didn’t regret it.
“Morning, Aunt Jane,” she mumbled around a mouthful of Cheerios.
She was a shadow of her formal self—somber, and subdued. Brady had been having nightmares, waking up crying for her mother, and Jane hadn’t been able to do anything to soothe her. She’d made Brady an appointment with a trauma therapist. Hopefully, the counselor could help her work through this ordeal.
After the funeral, Jane had tried to make Brady’s life as normal as possible, but it would be a process. Her world had shattered in the space of one terrible night.
Mansfield lay curled at the girl’s feet. Since Brady had moved in, the cat had become her constant companion—sleeping on the end of her bed, following her from room to room. Maybe the feline sensed Brady’s grief and was trying to comfort her.
Jane was adjusting to the role of caregiver, which was a strange but satisfying new role. She’d also quit her job at the firm. She was beginning a new chapter in her life. Jane intended to live her life with passion.
There was a knock at the door.
Jane’s breath caught.
Is it Byron?
Now that things had settled down, it was time to talk some sense into him—if he’d let her. Maybe he’d come over here to reconcile.
Another knock.
“Be there in a second!” she called. “Brady, why don’t you take your cereal into the living room and watch some TV, okay?”
This time the knocking was more impatient.
“Okay.” Brady walked into the living room with her bowl.
Mansfield trotted off after her, meowing.
Jane squinted through the peephole.
Not Byron. A stab of disappointment shot through her.
Enough is enough. If he was too stubborn to seek her out, she’d go after him. At the very least, he owed her a more coherent explanation. She wasn’t emotionally savvy enough to guess.
But she had a more pressing issue at the moment. She didn’t recognize the man standing at her door.
“Jane Hunter? I’m Special Agent Jim Hawthorne.” He held up his badge so she could see it. “May I come in?”
A knot formed in her stomach. She hoped he was here about one of her former clients.
“Sure, provided you have a warrant or a prior appointment.”
“I don’t have either.”
“Than you can be on your way.”
Jane had been on the receiving end of high-handed tactics from the FBI before, as they pressed for privileged information from her.
“This isn’t a formal meetin’. I brought over some coffee. I’m hopin’ we can have a casual chat. The local PD kicked your case to us since Oscar Valentine was a person of interest in one of our other investigations. I believe you’re familiar with it.”
Well, she’d expected the case to go federal—no surprise there. Although, there was no such thing as a “casual chat” with the FBI, but she wanted to know what they were up to.
“Fine, you can come in. You’ve got fifteen minutes, so I’d talk fast if I were you.”
“Thank you kindly, ma’am.”
After she had unlatched the door, the agent walked in with two tall Starbucks coffee cups in a carrier. She added cream and sugar to hers. Agent Hawthorne took his black.
While she doctored her coffee, he perused the kitchen and even glanced through the doorway into the living room in a law enforcement scanning for contraband kind of way.