Read When a Secret Kills for Free Online Page B

hand to shove a lock of hair behind her ear. “The man your uncle shot was dead. At least he sure looked like it. His eyes—” She shuddered. “I’ll never forget seeing that. I freaked. And ran.” She looked him in the eye. “I looked back to make sure I was getting away, but your uncle had stood up, looked right at me. Then he lifted the gun . . .” She shivered and closed her eyes. “If I hadn’t run when I did, he would have shot me too.”
    “I don’t believe it,” he whispered.
    Jillian walked over to Serena’s mantel. Then she looked back at him. After a long pause, she said, “Yes, you do.”
    His expression hardened. She couldn’t read what lay behind his eyes. “I can’t believe it.”
    “Then help me prove it didn’t happen.”
    That stopped him. “But you just said it did.”
    “And you don’t believe me.” She lifted her chin. “So help me find the truth.”
    “Who was the man you say my uncle shot?”
    Jillian froze, then bowed her head. When she lifted it, she said, “Governor Harrison Martin.”

6
    It seemed like each time she opened her mouth she delivered a punch that left Colton breathless. And shocked. He finally found his tongue again. “Governor Martin? Are you insane? Are you sure you have the right person?”
    She snorted and crossed her arms. “I was quite sane . . . still am, thank you. And I knew exactly who it was. I voted for the man. He was my very first vote after I turned eighteen. Trust me, I recognized him.”
    Colton couldn’t sit still a minute longer. He stood and began to pace from one end of the room to the other. And back. “I don’t believe this.”
    Her sigh sounded weary and for a moment he wondered if she’d recant her crazy story. Then she said, “It really doesn’t matter if you believe it or not. I’m here to prove it, with or without your help. I happen to be very good at finding the truth.” She walked to the window facing the front of the house and parted the blinds once again.
    Colton frowned at her skittishness. She sure believed what she was saying. “And that attack in the airport? That was someone trying to shut you up before you could say anything?”
    “Yes.”
    Her simple answer made him antsy. “What is it?”
    “I don’t know.” She looked around. “Where are Serena’s animals? I didn’t think to ask her when she dropped me off.”
    “Her fish died. The cat and dog are at the vet getting their annual checkups.”
    She lifted a brow at him. “And you know this how?”
    “Serena asked if I’d pick them up when I was finished here. She and Dominic have a date.”
    Jillian looked out the window again, shut the blinds, and paced over to the glassed-in porch.
    “What are you doing?”
    “Watching. Waiting.”
    “For what?”
    “For him to strike again.”
    Her flat certainty caused the first swirls of anxiety to kick up a beat in his gut. “Jilly, hon—”
    She whirled. “Don’t call me that!”
    He flinched at the ferocity in her eyes, the flare of her nostrils—and the ready-to-fight stance. Colton held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Sorry.” He kept his tone soft, soothing. “I’m sorry.” The nickname had come easy, naturally, rolling off his tongue as though the past ten years had never happened.
    Jillian spun around, keeping her gaze away from him, but he thought he caught a flash of tears before she could hide them. Colton sighed. Whether he believed her story or not, Jillian believed it. His mind almost couldn’t process the change in her. She’d been a sweet teen, a little shy and reserved, but good-hearted. And she’d loved him with everything in her. He knew that then. He knew it now. But this woman before him wasn’t the young high school sweetheart he remembered. Jillian had changed, and grown up strong—and suspicious.
    Still facing the porch window, she asked, “What about Camille,where is she?” Camille Hughes, the teen Serena had taken under her wing.
    “Since the