Circumstantial Marriage Read Online Free PDF

in a small town in Virginia called Barrett’s Mill, the same town where Bridges was holding his campaign kickoff event in just three days. The family owned a horse farm there where Richard Bridges had spent his early years before being sent to a fancy prep school, then the University of Virginia, then Harvard Law. Audrey had never heard rumors of anything untoward in those early years. But then, that was the point. Whatever Hal had found, whatever was worth killing him over, was something no one had heard about before.
    “What else did Hal tell you?” she asked.
    “He wanted to know if I knew anyone who knew Bridges when he was younger who might be willing to talk to him,” Stone said. “I told him to contact Gabe Franklin.”
    Audrey frowned. “Who’s that?”
    “He’s a lawyer, a big name when it comes to constitutional law. He lives here in D.C. and teaches at Georgetown. Most important, he went to prep school with Bridges. I don’t know if Franklin gave him anything. We should talk to him and find out. If he did give Hal something, it might be something we should know.”
    “Sounds good.” It sounded more than good. It was exactly what she’d hoped for, that Stone could provide the knowledge and contacts she lacked to get to the bottom of this.
    “Of course, there’s the matter of how Bridges and his people found out that Hal had found anything, given how secretive he was being.”
    “Maybe there was a leak in his agent’s or publisher’s office.”
    “Maybe,” he said, leaving the possibility up in the air. Because there was no way to know for sure. Audrey shook her head with a sigh. So many questions, and after three days she wasn’t any closer to answers.
    The thought made her uneasy, and she couldn’t help but do another check of the windows.
    And then she saw him, a man standing on the other side of the glass, staring right at her.
    He was a big man, forty-something, with a buzz cut and blunt features. She must have glanced in his direction at just the right moment. Their eyes met across the distance. He almost immediately looked away, but not before she saw the hard edge in his stare and knew without the slightest doubt who he was.
    It was just as she’d thought. They’d been found.
    With some effort, she forced her throat to move, to make sounds. “Jason—”
    “I saw him,” he said before she could say anything. “Let’s go.”
    “What—” She looked at him in surprise to find that he was already sliding out of the booth, tossing a few bills on the table to cover the coffees.
    She didn’t even have a chance to ask where he expected them to go before Stone was on his feet and standing beside the booth with his hand, encased in its glove again, extended. He kept his eyes on the window. She followed his gaze. The window was empty, the man she’d seen there now nowhere in sight. But she had no doubt he was out there, just waiting for them to emerge.
    “Come on,” Stone said with a trace of impatience.
    The urgency in the order propelled her into motion. She grabbed her bag and moved to the end of the booth. As soon as she was standing, he took her arm and pulled her forward. He didn’t head to the front door as she expected, walking instead to the back of the diner.
    A hallway in the rear of the building led to some restrooms and what appeared to be an emergency exit. Bright red letters affixed to the door indicated that an alarm would go off if it was opened.
    She started to ask if it was a good idea to use the door, but before she could get a word out, he turned abruptly, plowing through a swinging door to their left, pulling her with him.
    Then they were in the kitchen. “Are we allowed back here?” she asked without thinking.
    “Who cares?” he said shortly, hurrying through the room toward a door in the back, this one with no warning on it.
    Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a cook behind a counter glance up as they passed, his mouth falling open slightly. Judging