Read Online By Hook or By Crook by Linda Morris - Free Book Online Page B

something about it. He wanted to get back on the road.”
    Screwing around. Well, that sounded like Daisy. At least if she’d been hanging all over Pock, she was probably okay.
    “One more thing. Do you remember when they were here?”
    The clerk squinted as he thought. “I guess it would have been about two, three hours ago, something like that. I didn’t really pay close attention.” The door chime behind them dinged as two men entered, and the clerk’s eyes shifted to them. “Can I have the money now?”
    “You’ve been very helpful.” Joe handed him more bills. “Twenty more for you, ten for the food, and put twenty on pump number two.” The clerk took the money without comment, sliding some into his back pocket and putting the rest in the register.
    Outside, Ivy climbed into the passenger seat, shivering in the cold desert night, while Joe filled the Jeep’s tank. She placed a quick call to her dad, bringing him up to speed on events so far.
    “Ivy, you didn’t need to accompany Joe. I’m paying him very well to take risks. You should have stayed back at the hotel, or better yet, come home.”
    “Come home? And leave Joe out here?”
    “He can handle himself.”
    “And I can’t? You must think I’m helpless, that I can’t handle a little inconvenience.”
    “Ivy, please. I’m just trying to keep you safe. Your mother wouldn’t have wanted you to be running around the desert with some security consultant you barely know.”
    His mention of Mom cut deep. Somehow, he always seemed to bring her up when he needed to manipulate Ivy. Somehow, whatever he wanted Ivy to do was always just what Mom would have wanted.
    “Dad, I’m not some ivory-tower academic who has been sheltered from the real world.” Her dad’s silence made his skepticism obvious. She took a deep breath. “Okay, maybe I have been somewhat sheltered,” she allowed, “but that doesn’t mean I can’t do anything for myself. I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to Daisy while I was back in a suite at the Bellisimo.”
    Her father didn’t see her point, she could tell, but she reassured him as best she could and then ended the call. After she hung up, she realized that she’d ended the call for once. Usually, he expected her to hang on the line until he dismissed her. She took satisfaction in the small victory. She had very few against her father.
    A movement in the parking lot snagged her attention—Joe, circling around the only other vehicle in sight, a shiny black Acura. It must belong to the men who were now in the gas station, but she couldn’t imagine why he’d be interested in it.
    As he climbed into the Jeep, bringing a cold blast of air with him, she asked him why he’d been studying the Acura.
    “Don’t know.” He tossed a bag into the back seat. They were on the highway again in a matter of moments. “But it had Clark County plates. That’s Vegas. Two guys in the middle of nowhere, who happen to be out here at the same time we are. Maybe nothing. But I thought I’d check them out, just in case.” He pulled out onto the road, eyeing the Acura in his rearview mirror.
    It reminded her—as if she needed a reminder—that they didn’t know exactly what they were getting into.
    “Do you think Daisy and Pock are in danger?” she asked.
    She sounded as uncertain as a child, but she couldn’t help herself as she voiced the fear that had been haunting her for several hours now. Oddly, saying it aloud for the first time seemed to calm her.
    He reached out and took her hand. “I don’t know for sure. But they’re both adults, and Pock sounds like a pretty tough guy who can take care of himself, and Daisy too, if he has to. There are worse guys to be on the run with than an MMA fighter.”
    Ivy recognized reassurance when she heard it. He meant to offer a truce from the running battle of verbal sniping they had engaged in since they met. She squeezed his hand in response. For a moment, they held