After a second of hesitation, the weight around her middle eased. She didn’t wait. She bolted to Jonas’s side and slipped her body half behind his.
She could see Cade now. The photos in her file didn’t highlight his size. He’d gone from a skinny college kid screaming at her in the courthouse to a man in a Kevlar vest with dark patches under his eyes.
“What do you want from me?” The question ripped out of her, the words tumbling out before she could stop them.
“The truth.”
Jonas didn’t lower his gun or relax his muscles. She knew because she had a death grip on the back of his shirt. Every part of him was on high alert.
“What the hell does that mean?” he asked. “Answer her question.”
“She won’t let it drop, won’t accept what her father did. She keeps on going and accusing my dad. She harasses the cops and insists on meetings with the prosecutors.”
“How dare you—”
“You’ve made my life hell.” Cade’s words thundered over the pounding rain.
“I did what I had to do. And I don’t regret it.”
“My father is dead because of you.” Cade’s anguished cry drowned out the sounds of the cars honking as they passed.
The noise, so primal and lost, battered against her wall of hatred. She recognized the mind-numbing pain because she’d heard it in her own voice. The mouth twisted with rage and the hands clenched as if to fight off the thoughts that constantly assailed him. She’d lived through it all.
To keep strong, she let her mind flood with the memories of the shocking crime-scene photos. Blood splashed everywhere. Her sister hunted down and shot in the back of the head in her girlie-pink bedroom.
Then there was the fear that had wrapped around her every day, everything Courtney did since then, as she waited for her family’s killer to come and get her, too. She’d slept in her closet for weeks. She moved across the country to hide while she investigated.
She lost everything—her family, her security and her future.
From behind the safety of Jonas’s shoulders, she shouted all that built-up rage at Cade, letting it spew and engulf her. “Your father killed my family. He tried before and failed to hurt a woman, but he succeeded with the people I loved.”
The gun shook in Cade’s hands. “That’s not true. That other woman lied. My father never touched her.”
The shout caught in her throat let go. “Wake up, Cade.”
Cade tapped the side of his gun against his chest. “I was there. I saw that woman rip my family apart with her lies and all because my father sued her. Her claims were discredited and the prosecutor refused to file charges.”
“Your dad got lucky that time. Once he got away with it, he had the taste.” And her family paid the price for that series of poor decisions.
“No.” Cade shook his head and mumbled as if lost in his own thoughts. “My dad liked your family. Your father gave him a chance.”
“And look what happened.”
“Your father killed them all and you wouldn’t accept it.”
“No.” She covered her ears. “No. It was Tad Willis. He was there that day and tried to cover it up. The police found his fingerprints in the house.”
“He feared he’d be blamed, so he lied at first. He’d used a bathroom and left while everyone was still alive and fine. How could he make people believe that?”
Cade had an answer for everything. He said the facts as if he believed them.
“Then why did he kill himself?” The roaring in her ears blinked off, replaced with a sudden, shocking silence. “Why would an innocent man do that?”
“Because he couldn’t take it.” Cade shook his gun at her as his face crumbled.
Jonas shifted his weight until his body blocked her view of Cade. “And you followed your father’s lead and came here and killed Paul Eckert. Did he get in your way or were you afraid he’d uncover your past?”
Cade’s shoulders fell as his mouth dropped open. “What?”
In the split second when Cade’s gun wavered, Jonas sprang into action. She screamed his name as he lunged over the front edge of the car and hit Cade square in the chest. The gun skittered across the pavement and under Cade’s car as the men went down.
They rolled across the wet pavement, rain on them as they punched and kicked. Cade landed a shot to Jonas’s jaw that sent his head flying back.
“Jonas!” She turned and called out to the manager for help but the door never opened. Two men stood across the street at the station but didn’t come over.
They were on their own.
She stopped watching the fight long enough to search the ground for one of the guns. A flash of metal by her feet had her bending down and picking it up. Even in the cold, the metal pressed warm against her skin.
When she looked up again, arms and legs flailed. She saw Cade’s back then Jonas’s stomach. They switched positions as they grunted and their clothing rustled. Water poured on them in a steady, unforgiving flow. Their elbows splashed in the deep puddles of the pockmarked lot.
The heavy weapon weighed down her arms as she followed the men’s movements. She wanted to shoot a warning shot but worried she’d distract Jonas or hit a bystander. Shooting into the pile risked killing Jonas, and the thought of that made her stomach heave.
With a roaring shout, Jonas wrestled Cade to his back. Cade reared up, lifting his body off the ground, but Jonas shoved him back down again. From that position, with his hands on Cade’s shoulders, Jonas smacked Cade’s head against the pavement.
Cade turned and avoided most of the blow. He kicked out and bucked. But when Jonas leaned down and pressed an elbow into Cade’s throat, the man stopped squirming. He looked up at Jonas with eyes glazed with fear as a choke strangled out of him.
Both men panted. Jonas’s chest rose as he pushed out his words. “I’m going to kill you now.”
She heard the comment and reached for Jonas. She tugged on his shoulders but it would have been easier to move a building. “No, he needs to pay for Eckert’s death.”
Cade coughed and sputtered. It took three tries for him to get the words out. “I didn’t do it.”
Jonas used his weight to press Cade even deeper into the pavement. “We have it on tape.”
Cade put his hands on Jonas’s arm. “He was my friend.”
“As if you know what that means.”
“He was alive.”
“When?”
“When I left the room.” Frantic now, his eyes darting from side to side, Cade looked at Courtney. “Ask the guard.”
“He’s dead.” Jonas delivered the news as he stumbled to his feet, half-bent over and wheezing every few breaths.
Before she could react, he grabbed the gun out of her hands and aimed it at Cade’s still form. “So is the guy you sent to kill Courtney earlier. I killed him and left him in the forest.”
Cade’s forehead wrinkled as his hands dropped to his sides against the hard ground. “Who are you talking about?”
The manager chose that moment to come outside. He shouted from the safety of his office. “I’ve called the police.”
“I
am
the police,” Jonas yelled back. Then he looked at Cade again. “Who else did you send after her? How many more are coming?”
Cade’s chest rose on harsh breaths. “No one. Paul wasn’t supposed to get hurt. I thought…”
Jonas lowered the gun, but only slightly. “What?”
“You killed Paul to protect her.” Cade closed his eyes. When he opened them again, some of the daze had disappeared.
“Why would I do that?” Jonas asked.
“I don’t know.” Cade shook his head against the ground. “That’s why I watched you when you drove up and sat across the street. I waited for you to drive over here to make a move and when you did—”
“You grabbed me.” Courtney didn’t want Cade’s story to make sense. She wanted to keep him in the hatred column and write off everything he said as a lie to cover his father’s murders. But as he talked, she felt their twisted connection over that horrible day.
Cade wiped the water from his face and the rain pelted him again. “I only came here to scare her.”
“Congratulations,” she mumbled.
“I have to get you to stop. My family has paid enough for your lies,” he whispered.
Sirens wailed as flashing lights appeared over the slight hill down the road. Jonas wiped blood from the corner of his mouth. “You’re going to jail.”
But Cade wasn’t listening. “If you didn’t kill Paul, who did?”
Jonas glanced at her. “And why?”
Courtney wondered the same thing.
Chapter Twenty
Ellie came around the counter when the bell above her shop’s front door dinged. “Can I help you?”
Kurt waved her off as he secretly locked the door and slipped into the high stacks lined with books. “Just looking.”
She smiled at him as she returned to her stool by the cash register. “Enjoy.”
He intended to savor but probably wouldn’t enjoy. He’d never expected to start down this road. He’d been trying to save his family all those years ago. Allen had threatened to shut the partnership down over a simple bookkeeping issue. He wanted out, which meant refunding his investment and stopping contracts in midbid.
Kurt would have paid back the loan as soon as the money rolled in. Not taking an advance, limiting his draw to the bare minimum, had put his family’s future at risk. But losing the partnership would have meant bankruptcy and likely the end of his marriage.
Allen wouldn’t listen to reason or give him time, so Kurt didn’t have a choice. If he got rid of Allen, the business would come to him. Taking out Allen’s family ensured there wouldn’t be any lengthy legal battles or annoying questions. Allen had to go out and take the blame, then Kurt could step in as the grieving partner.
And it all would have worked, all would have ended, if Courtney had just shut up and gotten a life. Her being alive when she should have been dead was a huge problem and cost Kurt millions. Her playing amateur detective was a nightmare that could cost him his freedom.
For years she’d pushed and he’d begged her to move on. More than once she went to the police and he walked in behind her to clean up the mess and drop hints about her competency.
Then in an email a month ago she’d mentioned getting her dad’s old business boxes, and Kurt knew he couldn’t wait. The final Peters daughter needed to meet her end. She’d never been the good one, anyway. She was the artsy one. The waste.
All it had taken was a well-placed rumor about Courtney going after Cade’s father again and getting the press to help her clear her father’s name this time around. Kurt had tracked her down through their infrequent emails and made sure Cade had the information to go after her on his own.
It was the perfect ending. The son of the “real” killer, driven mad and desperate, would finish his father’s most horrid work.
But bringing Courtney and Cade together proved more difficult than Kurt anticipated. Which led him to this bookstore. He glanced over at the shop owner. Thirty and divorced, she was the only friend of Courtney’s that Kurt could find. Ellie was his last hope. He hoped Courtney’s loyalty to her friend would lure her away from the deputy.
Kurt had seen what Porter did to the first man Kurt sent to grab Courtney. Thanks to back channels and cash payments, nothing could trace the dead man back to Kurt, but the death was a nuisance.
All Porter had to do that first time was make contact so Courtney would know to be afraid and try to run. Kurt’s man had been ready to grab her, but no one had expected the deputy to hover, let alone run after her into the forest and shoot.
With Porter around, the plan would shudder to a halt. Kurt understood that now. It was either dispose of Porter, which would only raise questions and risk alienating Kurt’s paid-for police help, or separate the deputy from Courtney and handle it that way. Kurt chose the latter.
And it had to happen fast. He’d killed the FBI agent to bring the authorities running and start the unraveling of Cade’s careful world. Kurt had set up the tape to make sure Cade was implicated. That meant it was time to finish the job and get back home to work.
Kurt dragged his finger along the spines of a group of hardcover books lined on the shelves. “This is an impressive collection.”
He didn’t read the titles because he didn’t care. He only picked them because they sat on the shelf closest to the woman he needed. Ellie.
“Are you searching for something special?” she asked.
“Definitely.”
“If you have the title, I can look it up. If it’s not here, I can order it.” She clicked on her keyboard and left her hands poised, ready to type in whatever he said.
“I don’t live around here.”
She dropped her hands but her smile remained. “Are you on vacation?”
“A business trip.”
“It’s always nice to have something to read while you’re away from home. We have commercial fiction and literary fiction.” She pointed at different aisles as she spoke. “Do you have a preference?”
He’d had about enough with the walk through the makeshift library. Anyone could come in, and he wanted to take advantage of a break in the rain while he had the chance. Why anyone would ever choose to live in a water-drenched area like this was a mystery to him.
Ellie slid off her seat and walked around to stand next to him. “I can show you whatever you need.”
“I’d like you to get Courtney to come here. Now.”
Ellie’s smile faltered. “What?”
“Your friend Courtney.” Kurt grabbed Ellie’s arm in a tight grip to keep her from running. “Her real name is Ann Peters, but I don’t really care what she calls herself. I just need to talk with her.”
“I don’t understand.”
He dragged Ellie to the opposite side of the counter. She dug in her heels. When she started to scream, he slapped a hand over her mouth and pulled her into the back office. The police station was not far away, and the last thing he needed was for some Good Samaritan with a gun to come running.
“Your dear friend is being difficult.” He whispered the words against the woman’s hair as he rounded her desk. Ellie trembled and winced at each syllable as he spoke.
“You could just call her.” Ellie stuttered over the comment.
Ah, but that’s not the plan.
“No, but you will.”