Page 83 of Sentinel's Kiss

Chapter 19

Ashley missed being with Josh, but she thought it was really sweet of him to give babies the much-needed human contact they needed to survive. She had held little Dawn against her bare skin as much as they had let her. Ashley stumbled going up the steps to the diner. She froze. This had to be the first time in twelve years she didn’t want to curl into a ball and sob or do something reckless like play chicken with a pit bull when she thought about Dawn. Taking a deep breath, she continued in to the diner. It was about time. A lot of that had to do with seeing Josh again. Maybe if she had called him two years ago, she’d be almost normal by now. Or maybe everybody grieves differently and after twelve lonely years, she was now ready to move on.

Stan wasn’t in the diner yet. Ashley slid into a window booth so he could see her from the parking lot. She ordered a pot of coffee and scrolled on her phone through the file her anonymous source had sent her this morning about Stan. Or Stanislav Petrov, which as it turned out happened to be Stan Stevens’s birth name. Ashley wasn’t sure why it was relevant to her story that Stan’s birth parents died and he was placed in a foster home, where he was eventually adopted. But her anonymous source always handed her such good things. She’d offer to take him or her to lunch or send a bottle of their favorite booze to them at Christmas, but her source never provided her with any personal details.

A dark sedan pulled into the parking lot and circled a few times before taking the closest possible space. Stan got out, wearing sunglasses and a ball cap pulled low on his forehead. He practically sprinted into the diner.

The waitress brought over a second cup when he sat down.

“Do you want lunch?” Ashley asked him.

“Yeah, I’ll have the cheeseburger platter with bacon.”

“Make it two,” Ashley said. She’d hook up with Josh later to burn it off. She might even order a chocolate shake. Feeling a silly grin coming on, she forced herself to stop daydreaming about her boyfriend. But just the thought of Josh being hers was enough for the smile to shine through.

“Thank you for meeting me,” Stan said. “And for coming alone.”

“Sure. What did you want to talk about?”

“My life is in danger.” He ripped apart six creamers and dumped them in his mug.

“And the police didn’t believe you?” she asked, sipping her coffee.

“The police.” He gave a half laugh. “My brother-in-law owns them.”

She blinked. Unless he had a married sister, Stan was talking about Josh. “What do you mean?”

“Josh and his gang are trying to kill me, and I can prove it.”

“How?”

He reached into his pockets and pulled out a bunch of metal scraps and tossed them on the table.

“What am I looking at?”

“They’re tracking devices and cameras that I destroyed. They were all over my house.”

“You showed them to the police?”

He furiously scrubbed at the table where some of the creamer had spilled. “They said it’s a bunch of junk. So I told them to come back to my house and I would show them the ones I left intact. When we got there, they were gone. I looked like an idiot.” He glared at the sugar before dumping a good tablespoon and a half into his mug.

Maybe he should have gotten a coffee milkshake.

“Why do you think it’s the SOBs?” Ashley asked.

“That bitch Ryder is a CIA spook and Evil’s a cop. They know how to bug a place.”

She hadn’t known that about Ryder. “But have there been attempts on your life?”

He slurped his coffee. “They’re playing mind games. I hear gunshots and I call the police, but there are no bullet holes or any sign of activity. I swear I lock the windows and doors and in the morning they’re unlocked.”

Ashley was beginning to think she was wasting her time. Just as Josh would never forgive Stan, Stan seemed to be focused on Josh wanting to harm him. Maybe because Josh didn’t make a secret of it.

“Have you ever thought about going down to the Blue Line and hashing this all out with him? You both loved the same woman. Surely there’s some common ground.”

He shook his head. “Maybe once. Not anymore. This morning I saw the glint of his sniper rifle. I barely made it to the car.”

“You’re saying Josh fired at you?”