Dangerous Alterations Read Online Free PDF Page A

Jeff? Um … uh … it’s Tori.”
    “Tori? Oh my gosh, baby, how are you?”
    She closed her eyes against the term of endearment she’d once treasured, yet now despised as the farce their entire relationship had been. “I have some bad news.”
    “Are you okay?”
    She nodded.
    “Baby … you still there? Are you okay?”
    Realizing her mistake, she put words to her unseen action. “I’m fine. But I have something to tell you.” Inhaling every ounce of courage she could muster, she proceeded. “It’s your great-aunt. Vera. She passed away.”
    “What?”
    “They think she had a heart attack.” There. The words were out. Her duty was over.
    “Where? When? How did you find out?”
    “I—I was at a clinic in my town with a friend. Vera was there with Garrett’s wife. It happened in a matter of minutes.”
    Silence filled her ear. “You live in Lee Station?”
    “No, actually, one town over. It’s called Sweet Briar.” The words trailed from her mouth as she realized she’d given more information than she’d intended. Leona had been right. She should have stuck to the eleven-word script.
    “Sweet Briar. Sweet Briar, South Carolina,” Jeff repeated as a telltale tapping overtook his words. After a few seconds, his voice returned in her ear. “I can get a flight into Columbia first thing in the morning. Any chance you can pick me up?”
    She bolted upright in her bed. “Pick you up? Jeff, I can’t do that.”
    “C’mon, Tori. I don’t want to be trying to navigate an unfamiliar area in my grief. And Lord knows that good-for-nothing stepson of Vera’s isn’t going to offer his assistance.”
    Fisting her free hand at her side, Tori willed her head to win over her heart just this one time. Surely her great grandmother would have understood …
    “Just get me where I need to go and I won’t bother you ever again. Please, Tori. Just this once.”
    Damn.
    “What time does your flight arrive?” she asked in a voice that could only be described as wooden.
    I am an idiot.
    “Tori, you’re the best. I don’t know how I ever let you get away.”

Chapter 4
    I am an idiot …
    I am an idiot …
    I am an idiot …
    Even the roar of passenger airlines as they took off and made their approach just yards above the roof of her car couldn’t drown out the four-word mantra that had been running in a continuous loop for nearly fifteen hours. In fact, it had gotten louder and more persistent over time, peppered only by Leona’s inquiry about Jeff’s looks.
    She knew she shouldn’t have called after talking to him, but she’d been desperate. Leona, of all people, would have a way for her to get out of the biggest blunder she’d made since falling for Jeff in the first place, right?
    It had been a sound thought.
    Until Leona had learned of Jeff’s single status—a tidbit Tori hadn’t sought yet Jeff had given nonetheless. After her initial outrage that the woman could even think of pursuing her mortal enemy, she’d come to accept the notion Leona had laid out. Payback was a—
    The sound of her cell phone broke through her woolgathering and forced her thoughts back to the present. The number on the display screen merely kicked the fifteen-hour-long mantra into overdrive.
    I am an idiot …
    I am an idiot …
    I am an idiot.
    Flipping it open, she held it to her ear and simply waited, a tree-shadowed station wagon parked in a far corner of the cell phone lot providing a vague distraction from the voice in her ear.
    “Tori? My plane just landed. All I’m doing now is waiting for the horde of idiots milling in the aisle to actually locate their bags and get the hell off the plane.”
    A flash of movement pulled her focus from the station wagon to the line of trees behind it as an unidentified figure bent at the waist and ran—or, rather, shuffled—its way to the backseat. She narrowed her eyes and leaned over the steering wheel for a closer look just as a pair of binoculars, held by someone in the