Hidden Sins Read Online Free

and opened the truck door, hoping to find something that would give me answers in the little amount of time before I had to hop on the plane. My sister seemed to think I liked to block out all the commotion inside my head by taking on other people’s problems. She also would follow it up by telling me I needed to deal with my own issues but that was no fun, now was it?
    I slid my hand under the driver’s seat, feeling the carpet and nothing more. I leaned over and did the same to the passenger seat, but this time my hand landed on a packet. Pulling it out quickly, I glanced at the envelope and opened it. There were several important documents, and I doubted she meant to leave them in the truck. I glanced at her car insurance, registration, and storage locker information. Definitely not something that she’d want to leave in the truck. But I certainly couldn’t show up on her doorstep with everything. She was freaked out enough without me adding to her unsettled “everyone’s a stalker” mentality. I didn’t need to add to her problems. I noticed a New Hampshire address on some of the documents and noted it in my phone. Maybe I could shoot by her old address this week when I was in New England. Or not. I shouldn’t get myself involved, but I was never one to take my own advice.
    I also spotted two different last names, Hannah Walker and Hannah Martin. Definitely a woman on the run. I shoved all the documents back into the envelope before sliding it back under the seat. I locked the door and shut it before crawling in my own car, waiting for the call from Charlie.
    Hannah had gotten under my skin. There was no doubt about it. The moment I saw her standing in line, I was fascinated, but my gut turned inside out once her card was rejected. Feeling the embarrassment ooze out of her almost killed me. I wanted to swoop in and take it away. Once her eyes connected with mine, I knew she was carrying ghosts with her. Now I just needed to find out how to release them and free her from her troubles. I’d been in the security business long enough to know that if the predator didn’t kill the person, the stress of thinking could—would.
    My phone buzzed and I glanced down at the screen. It was Charlie. I turned the key on my Tesla and backed out of the parking spot as I answered the phone on speaker.
    “What do you have, Charlie?” I asked.
    “You’re not gonna like it one bit.”
    “I was afraid of that.” I pulled onto the road, turning in the opposite direction of Hannah. I needed to grab my bags from home before I headed to the airport.
    “She lives on Hawthorne and Maple,” Charlie explained, “and I felt horrible about leaving her there. I’d bet money on it being a halfway house or maybe even a safe house of some sort.”
    “What? A halfway house? Come on. You don’t think she’s a druggie…” My voice elevated more than I realized. That wasn’t her demon.
    “No, sir. I don’t. To be perfectly candid, I think she’s in hiding and in over her head.”
    I settled a bit at his admission.
    “Agreed. Text over the address. Can you arrange for her truck to be towed to where she’s living?”
    “Absolutely.”
    “I’ll have an envelope waiting on my kitchen counter that I’d like you to get to the tow truck driver to give her. Does that work?” I asked, pulling onto the Pacific Coast Highway.
    “I’ll be sure to grab it,” he assured. “And, sir, one bit of advice.”
    “What’s that Charlie?”
    “You can’t save everyone.”
     
     

Hannah
     
    The longer we drove, the more apparent the changes in the surroundings became. Rather than manicured business parks and strip malls sprinkled in every direction, homes with chain-link fences and bars on the windows appeared. We’d only driven about fifteen minutes, but apparently, it was fifteen minutes in the wrong direction. Many of the homes were small, one-story stucco buildings; the yards overgrown with grass and weeds. Every so often there’d