Read Online Yesterday's Echo by Matt Coyle - Free Book Online Page B

make sense right now.”
    â€œThen why did you come back?”
    â€œBecause all the reasons why I shouldn’t have weren’t enough to stop me.” She rolled over on top of me and kissed me. “And I wanted to see if you felt the same way.”
    â€œAm I going to wake up tomorrow to an empty bed?”
    â€œNo, but you might wake up to breakfast in bed. I make a mean stack of pancakes.” She rolled off me and rested her head in her hand. “Now, what happened to your face?”
    I told her about my adventures with the hard boys and the cops. I left out my trip to Shell Beach Motel. My pride didn’t want her to think that I’d crawled after her when she left me behind.
    â€œRick, I’m so sorry about all this.” She ran fingers along my scalp and kissed my forehead. “You tried to protect me and look what happened. Why didn’t you just tell them what they wanted to know?”
    â€œI didn’t know where you were, so I couldn’t have told them if I wanted to.”
    â€œBut you could have least told them the truth. That you knew me. Maybe they wouldn’t have hurt you.”
    â€œWhat happens between you and me is no one’s business but our own.” I rolled up on an arm so that we were face-to-face. “But if there is going to be an ‘our,’ I need to know why these men are after you.”
    She didn’t say anything and I waited. Her face was outlined in the dark, but her features hid in shadows. Finally her voice came out of the night. “They must be working for Peter.”
    â€œStone?” I asked.
    â€œYes.”
    â€œSo, he’s more than some jilted lover. What’s going on?”
    She turned away from me and rolled onto her other side. “I don’t know.”
    â€œMelody. These guys are dangerous. If you won’t tell me what this is about, then go to the police.” I laid my hand softly on her hip. “Or I will.”
    She was silent again. Then her voice, barely above a whisper, drifted over her shoulder. “I think my source is blackmailing Peter.”
    â€œI thought he was giving you information about Mayor Albright. What’s that have to do with Stone?”
    â€œHe knows a lot of things about a lot of people. I don’t know what he has on Peter, but I don’t want to be the person who brings the police into it.” She sat up and faced me. Her eyes still pools of shadow. “Peter is a very vindictive man and knows a lot of ways to hurt people. Please stay away from him, Rick. I don’t want him to hurt you, too.”
    I didn’t want him to either. Stone had already pushed some pain my way through the restaurant before he even knew me. Now I was probably on his to-do list.
    â€œWho was the other guy?” I asked.
    â€œWhat other guy?”
    â€œRed soul patch with a prison tat on his neck. I saw you talking to him in the bar last night.”
    â€œOh.” She turned slightly, her profile shadowed by the night. “He was just some guy hitting on me.”
    At that moment Midnight banged his head against the doorfrom outside the bedroom. He had no qualms about being a third wheel. I got up and let him in and he went over to Melody’s side of the bed and sat in front of her.
    â€œMidnight has a crush,” I said.
    â€œWe bonded while I waited for you to come home.”
    â€œDo you always make your entrances through the back door or were you hiding because you’d been followed again?”
    â€œI don’t think I was followed.” She scratched Midnight behind the ear. “Midnight started barking when I knocked on the front door, so I went in the backyard to quiet him.”
    â€œIt looks like it worked.”
    â€œI’ve tamed my share of wild beasts.”
    The next morning was déjà vu of the one before. Midnight wagging his tail in front of me, empty sheets next to me. Well, most mornings started that way,