Page 80 of Shattered By the Currents

When she pulled up outside the community center, a crowd of a dozen women lingered around the doors.

Great.

She rushed out of her car and raced toward them. “I’m so sorry I’m late. There was an emergency.” What a lie. “And I—” She stopped, scanning the crowd. “Where’s Lottie?”

“Not here yet, it appears,” Maureen said, before anyone else could. “Which is very unlike her.”

Thank God. Obviously, the stars had aligned, and the one time the older woman was late was the time Raven desperately needed her to be.

She jogged up the steps and slipped her key into the door…but it wasn’t locked.

Not again.

Her shoulders sagged, because ofcourseLottie wasn’t late. She was already here.

With a groan, Raven stepped inside. And yep, there was Lottie’s bag by the door. Because why miss a perfectly good opportunity to get one up on Raven?

She scanned the hall. Where was she? Probably in the storage room. Either that or snooping in the office.

It was fine. She wouldn’t lose her mind today. She’d stay very calm while she repeated to the woman that she had to stop breaking in like this.

Raven could manage that.

As the women filtered in, she crossed to the storage room, already mentally preparing herself for the battle the other woman would put up. There’d be threats, as usual. To call Ferris. To have her fired.

But Raven would keep her cool.

She opened the storage room door. Empty.

The office? Really? Was she trying to find more incriminating items?

She walked—well, half stormed—to the office.

If the woman thought Raven was going down without a fight, she was wrong. She would not, under any circumstances, let Lottie walk all?—

She pulled the door open—and froze.

For a second, her mind couldn’t comprehend what she was looking at. Then it started to sink in.

A body.Lottie’sbody.

She stumbled back, a buzzing sounding between her ears, so loud it was all she could hear. The black dots in her vision were so intense they almost blinded her.

Footsteps sounded behind her. “Raven, is?—”

A scream sounded. More footsteps. More screams.

Maybe Raven should be screaming. But at that exact moment, her stomach rolled. She lunged toward the trash can and threw up, the sight of Lottie’s dead, open eyes and the blood on her shirt bringing up all of Raven’s breakfast.

19

“You ready?”

Connor dropped into the seat beside Ethan. They were in his home office, and honestly, Connor wasn’t sure he’d ever be ready. “What did you find?”

“I took a deep dive into Xander’s business in North Dakota. I pulled public records and financials. I noticed a few things. Firstly, that the shop reports far higher revenue than a small mechanic’s business like his should. There are also spikes in income when the shop should have had few customers, like when Xander was out of town. And some of these fleet repair contracts appear to be for companies that don’t exist.”

Shit. “He’s laundering money.” They were classic signs of money being washed through fake or inflated services.