Dangerous Place For Love Read Free

she
argued.
    “ Look. Do you want me to
tell you or not?”
    Kelly stood and wondered if she wanted
to know what was really going on. She thought it would be a simple
and straightforward process to get rid of Arthur but every step had
been met with obstacles she wasn’t prepared to deal
with.
    “ Yes, I need to know what
my mother was doing.”

Chapter Three
     
    Erik glanced down at Kelly. She was so
smart and beautiful it took his breath away. He cursed and turned
away from the temptation she’d become.
    “ Cathy O’Donald made first
contact when a young girl by the name of Christine Thompson went
missing. A young, fresh eighteen-year-old. She told us her husband
Arthur O’Donald had brought a woman that matched her description to
the house and fucked her in front of her. She said it appeared as
if the girl had been drugged and wasn’t in her right mind. Through
investigation and with her help, we found Christine alive, drugged
and being forced to whore out her body for payment.”
    Erik paused as he saw the horror on
Kelly’s face. He gave her time to digest everything she
heard.
    “ Do you want me to
continue?” he asked.
    Kelly nodded but her eyes were glazed
over with tears.
    “ From that moment, Cathy
O’Donald helped us to save over one hundred girls who would have
been lost to the system and probably ended up dumped in some river
somewhere. Broken and dead. The problem was Cathy was so good at
getting us what we needed, we didn’t intervene. We left her with
Arthur and she would phone us with details. The only thing she
wanted from us was the promise we’d keep you safe once you left
home. The deal being once we secured enough evidence we could get
you and Cathy out of there.” He stopped as the wounds of the past
opened up and threatened to consume him.
    “ If everything was going so
well, what happened to make it all go wrong?”
    “ We were so close to having
him, Kelly. So close and then the calls stopped coming. Our
contact, who was there undercover, went missing and turned up three
weeks later dead. Arthur found out about what happened and we
believe he was instrumental in getting rid of Cathy.”
    The pain of hearing the news of
Cathy’s bizarre and life-threatening illness had sent a wave of
guilt through the entire force where he worked. All of the men in
his division had known Arthur was doing something to Cathy but
because of the laws, Cathy had died and they’d not been able to
find out what happened to the woman they’d come to care about. A
great life had been lost that day.
    “ What do you
mean?”
    “ We think your father
poisoned Cathy after learning she’d come to us. He couldn’t kill
her and tell you some made-up story, could he? He needed to make it
a clean death where nothing could stop him,” Erik said the last on
a whisper.
    The tears were falling from her eyes
and all he wanted to do was reach out and comfort her. To promise
he would keep her safe.
    “ How do you fit into
this?”
    “ The case had literally hit
bottom. Cathy was gone and dead and everything we collected pretty
much null and void with her death. Our informant was dead and so we
needed someone on the inside and after careful thought, I was the
one who drew the short straw. My name and everything associated
with the force was wiped clean. I was Erik Coldwell, a killer and
right-hand man to Arthur O’Donald. The hitch in the plan was you.
You came back when you were supposed to stay in another country far
from the death. My men worked against me, brought you on board and
didn’t inform me. I’ve been in the dark for over a
year.”
    The calls and connection to his
special division had been broken. With no choice left, Erik had
taken on the role he’d been playing in full force. No matter what
he did, he always waited for the call to reveal his next moved.
Kelly had been the one piece of the puzzle he hadn’t thought about.
She was always around, always close by.
    “ This is insane. Are