Read Online Hidden Agenda by Lisa Harris - Free Book Online Page B

police with this?”
    â€œThey were unsubstantiated accusations. I tried to trace the sender, but wasn’t able to come up with a name.” She reached for the bottled water Ivan had brought her, unscrewed the top, then took a sip. “This is crazy, isn’t it? You went to that house to prove my father’s guilt, while I went there to prove his innocence. But what I need to know is, what happens now? I’m pretty certain that by now he knows that his children just escaped with the man he’d planned to kill in the morning.”
    Michael finished the last of his energy bar, trying to sort out the information she’d just given him. “We can go to my family. Valez doesn’t know my real name, and he shouldn’t be able to connect me to them. At least we’d be safe until we can figure out what to do next.”
    â€œIvan?” Olivia asked.
    Her brother nodded.
    â€œOkay.”
    She turned off the dome light and started the car, then eased out of the rest stop, heading toward Atlanta. All he could do was hope he’d just made the right decision to trust her, knowing she was thinking the exact same thing about him.

7
    O livia grabbed a bottle of painkillers from the shelf and dumped it into the small plastic basket she carried, while Ivan put gas in the car. Thirty minutes from Atlanta, with the tank almost on empty, they’d decided they had no choice but to stop at a convenience store.
    Just like she’d had no choice but to trust the man sitting in the backseat of her car.
    She glanced down the aisle, willing her nerves to settle down. Except for some upbeat Christmas song jingling in the background, the store was quiet. Because most people were spending Christmas with their families. The only other customers in the store were a woman debating on a brand of cough syrup and an older man chatting with the cashier at the front counter about the weatherman’s prediction of snow tonight. Neither seemed interested in her.
    Michael had instructed her to drive around the block several times before pulling into the gas station, just to be sure they weren’t being followed. But even that extra precaution had done little to erase her worry. They could have missed something that would put all their lives at risk.
    She scanned the top shelf until she found the antibiotic cream she’d been searching for. No matter what doubts still lingered,she was worried about Michael. It was a gamble to not take him to an emergency room, where they could patch him up and ensure nothing was broken, but he’d insisted that doing so could leave a trail to follow.
    She grabbed a box of bandages. She’d taken a first-aid class a few years ago, and while she might not be ready to apply for a job at her local hospital, surely she could temporarily patch the guy up. Because she’d finally accepted he was right. Until they knew exactly what was going on, they couldn’t afford to take any chances.
    Handling the situation on their own still seemed foolish, but at the moment she wasn’t sure they had another choice. If he was right, she had no idea whom to trust. They needed to stay under the radar, because it wouldn’t matter anymore that Antonio Valez was her father. They’d crossed the line and there was no turning back.
    The automatic doors at the store’s entrance opened. Olivia peered around the end of the aisle as she put her last item into the basket. The older customer was on his way out the door as another man walked in out of the cold wearing a heavy coat and beanie cap. His gaze shifted from the counter to her, then back to the counter again. Her stomach tightened. The man shoved his hands into his pockets and headed for the back of the store. She didn’t recognize him as one of her father’s employees, but something didn’t feel right.
    She shook off the thought, still trying to convince herself that there was no way they could have been