“That didn’t take long,” he said to Laurel.

Laurel was looking at Sam. “You don’t seem too concerned,” she said.

“Believe me,” he said, getting to his feet, “I’m very concerned.”

Laurel watched him walk toward the girl.

“That’s his niece?” she said to the bartender.

The bartender rolled her eyes. “Lady,” she said, “I don’t know who that girl is.”

“What happened?” Lance said when he reached Sam.

She was frantic. Her hands were shaking. “They were waiting for me.”

“At my place?”

“Yes.”

Lance raised an eyebrow. “Wonder how they found you.”

She looked away. “They must have followed us.”

Lance smiled. “In that snow storm? Incredible.”

Sam looked at him.

He made note of her tells. She was a good liar but no one was perfect. She spoke too fast. Tried to move things along too rapidly.

For all the trouble she caused, she was a conflict-avoider.

Attention, yes.

Drama, yes.

Real trouble, no.

A big guy like the ex, and Lance already thought of him as the ex, would have an ego to repair. That was why he was there. But that was fixable.

The complicated part was Sam. Why was she calling a man she knew would beat her? And what would it take to make her stop?

He had some idea.

In about sixty seconds, the ex would come through the door. And he’d be armed.

“Go back there,” he said to Sam, sending her to the bar where Laurel and the bartender were waiting.

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to make sure you don’t call him again.”

Sam hesitated, then warned him the guy had a gun.

“A gun doesn’t mean much if he doesn’t know how to use it,” Lance said.

He went out the door into the cold night. There was a white Range Rover on the street with tinted windows, engine running, its blue headlights shining in his face.

A gust of wind brought a flurry of snow from the mountains and Lance raised his hand in front of his eyes.

Someone was getting out of the passenger side of the Range Rover. Lance strode over and kicked the door shut. Then he held one fist in the other and heaved his elbow through the window.

The ex was inside, shattered glass all over him, his one wrist in a cast. His massive hulk filled the seat like he was a grown man sitting in a toy car. He had a Sig Sauer 9mm pistol in his good hand. Next to him was the friend with the broken nose.

The ex swung the gun and Lance knocked it from his hand and grabbed it

“Hello fellas,” he said, “fancy seeing you here.”

He grabbed the ex by the back of the head and slammed his face into the dashboard. The other guy reached for something under his seat and Lance said “uh, uh.”