Read Stunner for Free Online

on the cheek. “…but my nerves are shot.” She rushes up the bank and walks around near the highway’s shoulder. Frank and I watch. Warrior does, too, and then looks back at me.
    “Jules is understandably pretty shook up. We’re both shook up.” Frank uses his fingers to massage the bridge of his nose.
    “Did you see the driver of the van?” I ask again, my hands still shaking. The realization that they could have been killed is sinking in. I’ve already lost one brother more or less. I couldn’t bear losing the other. “Did you see anything, Frank?”
    “No. I was totally focused on maintaining control of the car.” Frank shakes his head. “It all happened so fast, Ronnie. We don’t know who it was.”
    Maybe you don
‘
t, Frank, I muse to myself, but I wonder if Juliana has any ideas. I hug my brother.
    “Come to think of it,” my brother adds, “I did see something, a flash of white with a blue banner on the top on the license plate. You know, Sis, it could have been a Pennsylvania plate. I’ll let the officer know when he gets here.”
    I look up the embankment and see Juliana staring at us. Her brow is furrowed, and she looks away.
    ~~~~~
    I stew. I stew while I give the police officer my report. I stew while I wait for the ambulance crew to check out Frank and Juliana to make sure they’re OK. I stew while I drive them to Meadow Farm. In the car, everybody is quiet. I drop them off, go home, and stew some more.
    I call Isabella Romano, not only my
sensei
, or teacher, but also my friend, and give her the rundown on what happened this morning. “I need to look into this…figure out who this road-rage creep is,” I say.
    “That’s for the police to investigate,” Isabella cautions.
    “I wonder if they’ll find out who the guy is,” I grumble. “Maybe having the police handle it isn’t enough. Aren’t the cops all overworked? I want to do something myself to help.”
    “Give the police a chance,” she advises. “If after a while, you still feel that way, you can always hire someone privately.”
    “Funny, that’s what my niece suggested.” But honestly, I think if you want something done, you do it yourself. Am I wrong?
    “You know Will Benson in the noon class?” Isabella asks.
    “You mean the tall, gorgeous, new guy, who started a couple of months ago?” I ask. “He’s pretty good.” His Aikido does impress me. “What is he? Thirty-five? Maybe forty?”
    “Forty, I’m pretty sure. He came out from the New York dojo,” she says. “Are you aware he’s a private investigator?”
    “I heard that. Yeah. So?” Hire someone? Really?
    “Hold it. Don’t yeah, so, me, Ronnie. I know you,” Isabella says. “You like to be in charge, and you’re probably thinking you can do this yourself, but you have zero experience as an investigator.” Her tone is stern. “You could mess it up and get in the way of the police. Plus, the road-rage guy sounds lethal, out of control.” She pauses and adds, “What you could do is hire Will to look into things.”
    “Food for thought, Isabella,” I say. “At the very least, if I hired him, I’d have an excuse to stare at him more. He’s certainly a Triple-A hunk!” We laugh and sign off.

Chapter Six
    Fewer than twenty-four hours later, I’m still processing that my brother was almost killed because of road rage. My heart pounds at the thought of how close I came to losing Frank. I get into my car and take three long, deep breaths. It helps.
    Random? Hardly. Too many coincidences have cropped up in the last several days since the mystifying Juliana arrived at Meadow Farm. I mull over the scene with Juliana and Frank immediately after the accident. Whether her nerves were really shot, who knows? Juliana is so guarded that I can’t get a read on her.
    My nervous fingers have a difficult time punching one of the hang-up-call addresses into the GPS, and I have to try several times before it comes up correctly. OK. Calm down.
    Looking