Deadly Exchange. Lisa Harris

herself that everything was still somehow okay. That her father not answering didn’t mean something had happened to him. How many times over the past few weeks had she reminded him to keep his phone on so she could contact him if she needed him? For all she knew, he’d left the phone somewhere here in the house.

      Still, worry began to spread. She’d invited her father to stay with her for a couple months, praying that a change of pace would help with the pain of losing her mom eight months ago to acute kidney failure. With the loss had come the familiar signs of depression he’d experienced before, but so far, she wasn’t sure the change of pace was helping. Until recently, he’d rarely left the apartment, spending most of his time in the small room she’d fixed up for him, listening to the news on his radio or reading.

      Something creaked above her. She glanced up. It was probably just her neighbors upstairs. She quickly finished checking her bedroom and her bathroom, then peeked out onto the small balcony that was just big enough to store her bike and found the intruder’s point of entry. Someone had wedged open the balcony window. But whoever had broken in was gone.

      Her phone rang, bringing on another flood of adrenaline. She set down the broom, then glanced at the caller ID, disappointed when it wasn’t her father. Surely they couldn’t monitor her movements from inside her own apartment.

      “Hello?”

      “Kayla?”

      “Who is this?”

      “It’s Levi Cummings. Listen, I know it’s been a long time,” he rushed on, “but I really need to talk to you. It’s...it’s about Adam. He’s in Amsterdam.”

      Her head began to throb at the news. How was that possible? Adam was supposed to be in prison.

      She contemplated hanging up. Instead, she melted into the leather chair in the corner of her bedroom, wondering what else life was going to throw at her today. Almost two years had passed since she’d walked out of that busy courtroom. One year and eleven months, give or take a day or two. Not that she was counting. Because she wasn’t. But it had been enough time to send back all of the wedding and shower gifts, as well as inform the guests that there was not going to be a ceremony. Instead, she’d donated her white satin dress to charity and started a new life, determined to recover from a broken engagement.

      She hadn’t told people why the wedding had been canceled. She hadn’t had to. Adam Cummings’s arrest had been all over the news at the time: Groom Arrested for Fraud. Bride Left at the Altar.

      Not literally at the altar, but it had been close enough. Three weeks after his sentence, she’d decided to accept a position with International Freedom Operation that would expand the nonprofit she worked for into Europe. She’d taken the next flight to Amsterdam, hoping to put her past—and all the bad memories—behind her.

      “Kayla, are you still there?”

      “Yes, I’m here. Sorry. It’s just that...hearing from you caught me off guard.”

      She stood up and started pacing the small bedroom. She had enough on her plate today. Talking with her ex-fiancé’s brother really wasn’t something she had the emotional energy to deal with at the moment. Her elbow ached from the fall, and she needed to take some pain medicine. Except even pain medicine wasn’t going to be able to mask reality.

      “Levi...I’m sorry.” She ran her finger across a row of books. “I don’t understand why Adam would be here. I thought he was still in prison.”

      “He got out early for good behavior, and I have reason to believe that he’s in Amsterdam to see you.”

      She frowned. She had no desire to see Adam, though she hadn’t exactly kept up with the news. The last time her mother had sent her an article from back home it had been about Arkansas’ most eligible bachelor, Levi Cummings, who according to the magazine was also quite a ladies’ man. The up-and-coming CEO of Potterville was also known as the man who’d saved the small town from dying out.

      She shifted her mind back to the conversation.

      “How long has he been out?”

      “Five days.”

      “Why would he want to see me? We didn’t exactly part on good terms.” Unless...unless he was the one behind what was happening today.

      “Honestly, I’m not sure he would come, but that’s why I’m worried.”

      Worried that your little brother is about to cause another scandal?

      She squeezed her eyes shut for a few seconds and tried to steady her breath. “I’m still not following you.”

      There was a long pause on the line. “You heard some of the things he said about you when he left for prison. Threats he made.”

      “Like blaming me for his arrest?”

      She stared at a stain on the carpet that needed to be cleaned. The hit-and-run, the cryptic text messages... Was all of this because Adam still blamed her for his arrest? Something wasn’t adding up. She knew Adam—or at least she once had. And while she might not have any desire to see him again, she’d never believe he’d try to hurt her.

      Or would he?

      He’d spent the past two years in prison. Enough time to think about the person he blamed for putting him there and come up with a plan for revenge.

      “Kayla?”

      “I just can’t believe he’d do anything to hurt me,” she said.

      “I’ll be honest, I haven’t seen him much these past couple of years. His choice. But he believes—or at least at one time believed—that if you hadn’t gone to the police, then he wouldn’t have gotten arrested.”

      “For one,” she began, “it was the authorities who came to me. And on top of that, at the time I had no idea what Adam was involved in. But that part of my life is over, and I have no intentions of going back.”

      “Please, I’m not trying to upset you, but I do want to make sure you’re safe. Which is why I think it would be better if we spoke in person.”

      “Wait a minute. You’re in Amsterdam as well?”

      “I just arrived in the city. I thought we could discuss what’s going on, and how we’re going to resolve the situation.”

      She let out an audible sigh. Spoken like a true army intelligence officer. Like he was on a combat operation and needed information in order to protect her. But maybe she shouldn’t be surprised. Levi had always been incredibly focused. Which was why, even though he and Adam were only eleven months apart, Levi had always played the role of older brother. Even to the point that when his father had gotten sick, he’d been the one to complete his current contract with the military and then returned to rural Arkansas to run his family’s manufacturing company. And as always, he’d continued to be the glue that held the Cummings family together during a crisis.

      Like when his father had come to her, insulting her by offering fifty thousand dollars not to tell her side of the story. The whole situation had made her question—not for the first time—her whirlwind relationship with Adam that had made her miss noticing that there was nothing solid beneath his charm. It made her realize as well that she’d simply been enamored to the point where she wasn’t sure if she’d ever really loved him. Because it hadn’t been Adam who’d come to her rescue. In the end, Levi had been the one who’d stood up for her, sweeping in and cleaning up the mess.

      But none of that mattered. Not anymore.

      Kayla pressed her fingers against her temples. Her decision to come to Amsterdam and her rejection of that money had nothing to do with what was happening today. She’d always known she’d made the right decision, not letting the Cummings family buy her out. Not that she ever would have divulged what she knew about them.

      “Kayla, please...has Adam contacted you?”

      “No.”

      “Then