Off Limits (3 page)

Chapter Four

With every step toward his squad car
Mitch’s anger fades more and more. Melissa Miller wasn’t going to stop until
she destroyed herself, and there was nothing left he could do about it. It was
all over for her, this was a thought that keep crawling through his mind the
whole entire ride back to the police station. He was just about to take the turn
into the parking lot when his cell phone started to vibrate in his pocket.
Probably the sheriff, but to Mitch’s surprise it wasn’t, it was his mother.

“Yes, mother,” Mitch brings the phone to
his ear and hits his turn signal on his side panel.

“Mitchell? You left without saying bye!”

“Sorry, mom, police duty calls, I’m just
getting back to the station now, but I’ll see you at dinner tonight.”

“No!” Her voice is loud and boss like. It
reminds Mitch of all too many situations in his life where he had been told
what to do by her, “You need to come back immediately! This is police
business!”

“What’s wrong, mom?” Mitch asks, clear by
his tone that he has no intension of taking this serious.

His mother lowers her voice, and starts
to mumble something he can’t understand from the other side of the line.

Mitch sighs into the receiver. “WHAT? I
can barely hear you, mom, you’re going to have to speak up.”

“Kenny is here,” Mrs. Manner says with a
slight strain in her tone.

Kenny? What was she talking about? Mitch
didn’t even knew a Kenny, but Mitch had long ago stopped trying to figure out
why his mother would call him to inform him of things that were of no
importance to him. Ever since he had become a cop she was calling him as soon
as she felt like something suspicious was going on, especially when it was
things that Mitch had no control over anyway.

One time she had called him to tell him
that a suspicious man was in the diner that morning, one she hadn’t seen around
town before, and she felt like he was up to no good. When Mitch had asker her
why she felt that way, his mother had told him that the man had ordered bananas
in his pancakes, and if that wasn’t suspicious she didn’t know what was since
that wasn’t even an option on the menu.

“Mom,” Mitch says gasping into the
receiver a little harder then necessary, “I’m kind of in the middle of
something…”

“Kenny!” His mother sounds exasperated
and annoyed, like she’s trying to talk to her son about a top secret mission,
and he’s just not getting the hints. “Kenny! Who works down at the copy mart!
You know Kenny!”

A vision of a small red headed boy with
freckles and a bright smile pops into Mitch’s head. He vaguely remembered
seeing the kid around town and had heard he had moved here from New York to get
a fresh start when his parents had died the year before. Sad story, one that
often left Mitch feeling sorry for him when he did see him wondering the
streets of the town like a lost puppy dog. He knew now that his aunt and uncle
owned the copy mart in town so it only made sense he would be working there,
wasn’t exactly world breaking news his mother was delivering him.

“Yes, mother, I know Kenny.” Mitch starts
yawning, beyond bored with the conversation.

“He’s in here! Talking about some papers
Melissa was in there copying this morning! And he seems to think they were
building plans or something…”

Mitch screeches on the brakes in his car,
practically sending the cup of cold coffee in his holder flying all over the
floor. Of course she had made copies of the papers, why wouldn’t she? She was
only completely and totally out of her mind. Makes perfect sense she would want
to keep proving that.

“Shouldn’t that kind of thing be
privileged, Mitch? I mean I don’t feel comfortable knowing that anyone could
know what I was copying at any moment, what if it was a medical report, or
something…”

“Mom, I have to go,” Mitch says, the
wheels in his head already starting to turn. “I’ll see you tonight, and tell
Kenny to shut his mouth.”

He clicks the end button on his cell
phone and glances at the clock on his dashboard. If he knew Melissa Miller at
all she was probably already on her way to the Morgan’s estate upstate. Then
Mitch sighed, turned his cruiser around, and set out to do the one thing he had
just promised himself he wouldn’t. Save Melissa Miller from herself again.

***
 

Melissa pressed her foot down harder and
harder on the gas. Of course she had made copies of those papers. She was no
fool. Her plan had been to sneak back in and put them back some day in the
future before anyone could know they were gone. But apparently the Morgan’s
checked on their paperwork daily. If that didn’t scream that they were hiding
something she didn’t know what did.

After Mitch left her house earlier, she
had spent a little while freaking out. Thinking about the worst thing that
could happen and what she would do if she ended up going to jail. But after the
panic wore off, she had decided to go on with her plan to sneak up to the
Morgan’s estate anyway.

I mean, what was the worst that could happen?
It’s not like anyone was going to be there anyway. She would just sneak in,
have a look around, and be on her way again. In and out, and she would be super
careful to not leave any traces of herself behind. The original papers were
destroyed. No one even knew she had even taken them; besides Mitch. But even
that would be his word against hers.

Her phone buzzes from her dashboard. She
glances at the caller Id before setting it back down without picking it up.
Mitch again. He had called at least three times in the past four minutes.
Didn’t he have anything better to do besides harass her? It was like he
couldn’t leave her alone for two seconds.

She shook her head to herself, wondering
how she could have had such a big crush on him in high school; he was clearly
the most annoying and arrogant person she had ever met.

Her phone stared buzzing again and this
time after rejecting the call, she powered the device down, she didn’t have
time for his games right now. She was off on the pursuit of justice! Justice
for her sister. The thought brought a sense of relief over her.

She turned the music up a little louder
and watched her car increase in speed as she got closer and closer to what she
was so sure was the truth she so desperately searched for.

** WANT MORE MITCH AND MELISSA? THE NEXT
INSTALMENT OF OFF LIMITS IS COMING SOON FROM NEW AUTHOR HALEY JAMES! FOLLOW HER
ON TWITTER FOR NEWS AND BOOK UPDATES AT @
haleyjamesfans
**