Triple Dog Dare [Triple Trouble 4] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Read Online Free PDF Page A

both he and Cail could read it.
    When they finished, they looked at the picture.
    “You look so much like her,” Ain said.
    “Yeah,” Cail agreed. “Spitting image.”
    “That’s what the guy at the steakhouse said,” Elain admitted before she realized what she’d done.
    She mentally winced. Oh, fuck. Here we go.
    As one, the men asked, “ What guy?”
    Feeling a little guilty, she told them about her experience at dinner at the steakhouse. Then she grabbed the picture back from Cail and sat up. “Oh, fuck!”
    “Babe,” Ain warned. “Language.”
    She held up the picture, waving it at him. “This is him! This is the guy!” Her heart raced. “I’d swear that it’s the same man!”
    He frowned and took the picture from her again so he could study it more closely. “You’re absolutely sure?”
    “Yeah!”
    Brodey frowned. “So, he’s been in town recently. I think we need to get with Mark and find this guy.”
    Ain nodded. “First, let’s get back out there with Carla, get some alcohol in us, and hear her side of the story.”
    Elain stared at the picture again but nodded. “I like that idea,” she softly said. “The alcohol, I mean. I think I really need it tonight.”
     
    * * * *
     
    With everyone fortified by a stiff drink of their choice and comfortably settled in the living room, Ain spoke. “Carla, can you please tell us what happened? From the start?”
    Elain remained silent. She didn’t even know where to begin digesting all this new information.
    Her mom sipped her rum and Coke, which Cail said he’d mixed very heavy on the rum. “I suppose the best place to start is when Maureen and Liam showed up unexpectedly at my apartment in Tampa late one afternoon. I didn’t understand what they were saying at first. They weren’t making sense, but I could tell they were both very upset.”
    She took another sip of her drink. “Upset’s not exactly the right word. Scared. Worried. He kept saying crazy stuff about how they had to protect the baby. That someone would be after them for their baby. Then he said he had to go talk to Charles and Ellie Lyall.”
    All three Lyall men perked up at that statement. “Are you sure?” Ain asked. “He mentioned our parents by name?”
    Carla blinked, wide-eyed. “Your parents?”
    Ain nodded. “They were our parents. But you’re sure he said their names?”
    “Yes. He’d set up a meeting with them for early that evening and left to go talk with them. We never saw him again after that. He was going to stay at a hotel that night, because he was afraid to come back to the apartment any more than necessary. The original plan was that either he or the Lyalls would call to tell us where to meet them the next day. That they were going to arrange a safe place for Maureen and the baby, and he’d join them shortly thereafter once he knew they were safe.
    “He found out Charles and Ellie were killed in a car wreck the next day. He insisted someone must have murdered them. He was afraid to come back to my apartment. He called and said he didn’t want ‘them’ following him back to Maureen.” Her hands trembled. “At the time, I wasn’t exactly sure who ‘them’ was, but he was very afraid for Maureen. That was the last we heard from him, after he talked to Maureen. He said he had to disappear for their safety, for her and the baby.”
    Stunned, Elain listened but didn’t speak. She couldn’t speak. She didn’t know what she’d say anyway.
    She stared at the picture in her hand again.
    Ain’s voice sounded sad. “We suspected that it wasn’t just a car wreck. We had no idea Liam had met with them. They’d called the day before they died and wanted to come talk to us. We knew what they did, but we never openly discussed it with them. We’d let them bring people here to the ranch, usually just for a couple of days. We’re out in the middle of nowhere. It’s hard to sneak up on us here.”
    “What did they do?” Carla asked him.
    “They