Read Online No Turning Back by Helenkay Dimon - Free Book Online Page A

years later our Nanette steps in, uses the insurance money from our grandfather’s estate, and buys the house.”
    “And Marc Baron has been imploding ever since.”
    Beck sat back in his chair. “Something like that.”
    As far as Declan could see, the situation was the exact opposite of simple. It was a complex mess.
    He put his elbows on the table and dropped his forehead into his hands. “No wonder Leah is trying to get us to leave.”
    “Well, there are rumors about her family and ours.”
    Declan glanced up and stared at Beck. “That our dad ran off with her mother? Yeah, I don’t think that’s a rumor.”
    In what was the most annoying sound on the planet, Beck tapped his pen against his front teeth. “Tell me how we got on the subject of Leah.”
    Probably had something to do with her being in his thoughts all the time . . . but Declan wasn’t ready to share that little gem either. “I ran into her today.”
    “Interesting.”
    Beck’s smile begged to be punched off his face. Declan thought about doing just that. “Is it?”
    “Well, were you wearing pants when you ran into her?”
    And this came from one brother. Declan was starting to worry about the double whammy when Cal arrived. “It’s not like that.”
    “But, again, or maybe I should say still, you want it to be.”
    No kidding
. “She’s pretty.”
    “I’m thinking there might be some other pretty women in this town.”
    So why couldn’t he stop wanting this one? “She’s connected to the house, to us. For whatever reason that makes her more compelling.”
    Beck shook his head and laughed.
    “What?”
    “If you think that’s what makes her compelling then I think you spent too much time on military bases in countries with limited access to women.”
    Declan refused to analyze that comment. Still, running the idea by someone wasn’t a terrible idea. “Going out with her would be a mistake. I mean, it’s a bad idea, right?”
    “Is that what’s happening? Are you two going out?”
    In Declan’s mind, yes. In hers? He doubted it. “Not yet.”
    His baby brother grew all serious. Even sat up straight in his chair and put the beer down. “Just be smart.”
    Okay, that was too much
. “Are you giving me the condom talk, because Mom delivered that one years ago.”
    “Go slow, make sure this is about whatever you’re feeling for her and not guilt or something similar.”
    “I don’t even know if I’m going to make a move yet.” But he was. Hell, he’d already started. Every minute with her was laying the groundwork to something bigger. Just knowing she lived across town and was this close made him twitchy. He didn’t have Beck’s brains but Declan got that much. “Hell, she might not want me to make a move.”
    “From the fire I saw snapping between you two, I’m thinking you doing something and her reciprocating is inevitable.”
    That’s what Declan was starting to believe, too.
    ***
    Leah stared at the huge, freestanding whiteboard. She had pictures and notes on each of the Hanover men taped to it, along with comments she’d written to make the necessary connections between them and the victims she’d interviewed or had her investigator talk to back when she had one of those.
    Every inch of the board held a piece of information, and still she couldn’t put references to even twenty percent of Charlie’s known cons up there. But she could see it all. The wives. The children. The lies.
    Setting it out like this made Charlie’s actions so clear. But it just muddied everything about the sons. Nothing tied them to their father’s crimes. It had been that way in the files and was confirmed when she tried this method. So much destruction and sadness, but it all linked to Charlie.
    She’d hoped to find something. Maybe that one piece of information that triggered a memory or flicked on a light. At the very least, she needed a single nibble to use in her meeting with Declan. A fact she could wave around and