When She Wasn't Looking (22 page)

Walt swallowed hard enough to make his throat move. “Our relationship isn’t your business.”

He wasn’t just in denial. He was delusional. “You think he’s going to like hearing about all you’ve done?”

“He won’t know. You’ll be gone and everything will get back to normal.” The explanation sounded so rational. Walt acted as if he were reading a train schedule instead of planning the end of her life.

Panic gave way to numbness. She tried to blink the flatness away, but it wouldn’t go. She didn’t tremble. She felt nothing. “Can you live with all that you’ve done?”

“I have to.”

“What would your wife say?”

His face flushed a deep red. “Don’t you dare talk about her.”

Going for his love for Jonas hadn’t worked, so she tried to appeal to his ego instead. “He says you’re one of the best cops he’s ever known. He trusts you.”

“That’s enough.” The deep voice rumbled through the room as a hand landed on her shoulder.

She jumped out of the chair. When she glanced to her left the image didn’t make sense. Him, here?

“Kurt? What are—”

He walked toward her, pushing her back until the bottom of the brick fireplace hit against her ankles. The gun hovered just out of reach.

“You were supposed to stop digging,” Kurt said. “Everything was fine until you got those boxes of business documents.”

All the arguments she used with Jonas rushed back into her head. Kurt’s name had always been on the list, but everyone discounted him.

He wept at her father’s casket and cried with her as she threw the flowers and they lowered the bodies into the ground.

Nothing added up. “I don’t understand. You didn’t benefit from their deaths.”

“I was supposed to. The insurance policy should have named me. I was supposed to be the alternate beneficiary on the estate. That was our deal. Your father promised, even produced fake papers to confirm it, but he lied.”

Her father chose his family instead. If she survived this, she’d hold on to that fact for comfort. “And I was supposed to die.”

“I should have known you’d sneak out that night.” Kurt shook his head on a laugh. “You were always the troubled one.”

She’d been difficult and artsy. She’d bucked her father’s discipline and pushed boundaries. But she didn’t deserve to die and neither did they.

“You killed my family for money.” Saying the words made her chest ache.

“Your father threatened to call the prosecutor. I was going to lose everything.”

She’d studied everything and never found even a line about a prosecutor. “What are you talking about?”

“None of that matters now.” Walt stood up. “Cade will be here soon and we can end this.”

The horrible news just kept coming. Everyone she believed in turned out to want to hurt her. Everyone except Jonas.

“What does Cade have to do with this?” she asked.

Kurt took out a phone and dialed. “He’s going to finish the job his father started.”

She spun around and faced Walt. Using all her energy she tried to will him to listen to her. “This is the man you’re working with?”

“Shut up,” Kurt said without lifting his head. “Cade’s been waiting to see you.”

He doesn’t know.
The realization shot through her that Kurt missed the part where she had already talked with Cade. Where he had already saved her by getting Jonas to the bookstore in time.

She glanced at Walt, who moved his head in an almost imperceptible shake. She turned back to Kurt and had to ignore his smirk to keep from tackling him and risking a bullet. “You think Cade will come here to kill me?”

“He hates you. When I gave him your address here in Oregon, he was so grateful. He came right away and has been following you ever since.”

Not anymore.
He was working with Jonas now.

A call to Cade would tip off Jonas and bring the police crashing in. Walt had to know that, but he wasn’t talking. She didn’t know what that meant, but she wasn’t about to trust him yet.

Kurt shot her a feral smile. “If Cade doesn’t kill you, I’ll do it for him.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

Rich slapped a piece of paper on the counter. “According to Ellie, this is the guy.”

Cade studied it. His facial expression never changed. “Kurt Handler.”

Jonas had seen one photo of the guy in the case file. He’d been younger, thinner. “The business partner?”

Cade rubbed his neck. “The same guy who told me where I could find Courtney in Oregon.”

“What?” The word exploded from Rich’s mouth.

Jonas did a slow burn. “You didn’t think to tell us that?”

“It seemed to come from a good place. He talked about his love for Courtney and talked about how I needed closure and so did she.” Cade looked up at the ceiling and blew out a long breath. “I didn’t care about closing anything. I took the information and pretended I’d make up with her…but I guess Kurt was pretending, too.”

Jonas could see the regret on the other man’s face. Hear it in his voice. “You wanted to get to her and make her stop.”

“I thought Kurt was being naive, but I didn’t care because his good intentions matched with my schemes. Now I know he was planning something worse than I could imagine.”

Rich threw his hands up. “Why?”

Jonas knew enough to answer that one. “He was the business partner, so I’m guessing it will all go back to money.” His back teeth slammed together as he said the words.

“I’ll put out an APB and see if his office can tell me where he is,” Rich said.

They had to find him another way. The man was close, so close Jonas felt as if he could smell him. “They’ll say he’s somewhere else. The guy came here to cover his tracks on a mass murder. No one knows he’s here. The evidence likely points to him being somewhere else.”

Rich nodded. “So where do we find him?”

“On my cell.” Cade stared at his phone as if he didn’t know how it landed in his hand. “It’s an address.”

That nerve in Jonas’s cheek that warned him about danger started ticking. “Why would Kurt lead us to him?”

“He’s leading
me
. He doesn’t know I’m with you.” Cade smiled.

Satisfaction soared through Jonas. “And why would you be? He’d never count on a decade-long feud being in a cease-fire.”

“Let’s see where he is so we can plan a strategy.” Rich took the phone. His mouth flattened as he glanced up at Jonas. “Can’t be.”

“What?” Jonas asked.

Rich turned the display around so Jonas could read it. “It’s Walt’s house.”

“Isn’t that the guy who gave you the hospital video?” Cade clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “Interesting.”

Jonas wanted to strangle Cade and choke off that sound. “There’s no way.”

Rich cleared his throat. “Jonas—”

Icy fear spread through every inch of Jonas’s body. His chest tightened until it was hard to breathe. “He has Courtney.” Anxiety poured through him as he looked at Rich for help. “I gave her to him.”

Cade took over. “Then we need to get her out.”

“You have a plan?” Jonas asked.

“Always. I go through the back—”

Jonas’s brain rebooted. “No, you’ll go right through the front door.”

* * *

T
HE KNOCK CAME
twenty minutes later.

Kurt smiled as he motioned for Walt to get the door. “Showtime.”

Courtney prayed she wasn’t wrong, that the look she saw on Cade’s face in that parking lot and again at the bookstore had been a dawning realization that they both wanted the same thing. If he still carried the same anger he brought with him to town, she was a dead woman.

Kurt would kill Cade, too, but she didn’t stand a chance. She now knew too much. Her heart ached at the thought of not seeing Jonas again, but some peace came in knowing he wouldn’t be in the middle of this when it happened. He was safe back in Aberdeen.

And Walt remained a wild card. She stared at his back, waiting for him to turn around and shoot Kurt, but it didn’t happen. He opened the door.

Cade walked in.

Alone.

The last flicker of hope inside her blew out. He didn’t have Jonas behind him or backup ready to go. He’d actually answered Kurt’s call to come and get her.

“Cade.” Kurt nodded for the younger man to take the seat next to her. “I promised you I’d lead you to her.”

“I didn’t expect you to be here.” Cade’s face didn’t give anything away.

She didn’t see his gun but she expected he had one on him. If he was like Jonas, he had more than one weapon within reaching distance. She just didn’t understand why Kurt didn’t disarm Cade.

“I told you I wanted closure.” Kurt nodded. “This does it.”

This was what she was now? “For you,” she spit out.

“You never learn.” Hate roared out of Kurt when he talked. “Your mouth continues to get you in trouble.”

She wondered why she never saw it before. Kurt looked at her and his eyes filled with venom. She spoke and he snarled. Either he’d controlled his reactions until now or she hadn’t noticed because she hadn’t wanted to see it. She’d been too focused on Tad Willis.

Cade sat up straight with his hands steepled in front of him. “What’s the plan here?”

“There’s only one way for her to stop pinning the blame on your father.” Kurt made a tsk-tsking sound. “You know, she demanded more information and the police gave it to her. It’s only a matter of time before she concocts a new story and your father’s memory is further diminished.”

The tension exploded in her gut. She blurted out the first thing to pop into her head. “He’s going to kill you.”

Immediately, Kurt turned his gun back on her again. “I told you once to shut up. Don’t make me tell you again.”

Cade didn’t even blink as he looked at Walt. “What’s your role here?”

Kurt answered for the older man. “I needed some local talent to make security tapes disappear and plant the seeds so Courtney knew she was about to be found out.”

“Why give her the heads-up?” Cade asked.

“The point was to flush her out and make her slip up.”

She snorted. “When did that happen?”

“My first guy messed up. I admit that,” Kurt said. “Who knew a small-town deputy would step in and cause so much trouble?”

Cade nodded. “Jonas Porter.”

Kurt threw his head back and laughed. “I may kill him just for fun.”

Walt let out a battle cry and he launched his body at Kurt. Walt got halfway across the room before his body jerked back. He grabbed for his chest as blood spurted through his fingers.

The gun in his hand fell to the carpet with a soft thud. A small O formed on his lips as he dropped to his knees.

“Walt!” She tried to stand up but Cade pulled her back down.

Glass shattered all around her. The windows blew in as a rush of cold air filled the room.

Her brain struggled to make sense of what happened as Cade pushed her to the floor and folded his body over hers. He’d tucked her half under him and half under the coffee table. The weight shoved her into the carpet while his gun dug into her leg.

She heard shouts and gunfire. She looked up in time to see Jonas run through the door to the kitchen and hit Kurt in the side. The men went flying, smashing into the brick fireplace before they rolled to the floor.

Jonas got off one punch, then a second. Blood rushed from Kurt’s nose and he screamed for help. Jonas kept hitting until Rich grabbed him from behind.

She could hear heavy breathing and crashing sounds as glass and drywall fell to the floor. Cade swore in her ear but didn’t move, no matter how hard she shoved and how loudly she yelled for him to let go.

Rich’s voice broke into the chaos, ordering people to move here and there and calling for a medic. Shouts of “Officer down” filled the room. Sirens wailed around them, and uniformed officers poured in from every direction.

One second she moved her head to keep her jaw from squishing into the carpet, the next the weight lifted off her back. A hand picked her off the floor and arms gathered her against a strong chest.

Jonas.
She recognized his scent and the hard planes of his body.

“You came.” She whispered the words over and over against his chest.

“I’ll always be here.” He kissed her forehead then her eyelids.

“Walt?”

She felt a tremor run under her hands. “The crew is working on him.”

She buried her head in his neck. “I’m so sorry.”

“Not your fault.” A breath shuddered in his chest. “My fault.”

“This is not over.” Kurt issued his threat as Rich wrestled him into cuffs and forced him to stand up.

Cade walked right up to the other man. “Yeah, it is. I wanted the person who ruined my father, and now I have him. You.”

“Do you know who I am?” Disdain dripped from Kurt’s mouth and hung on his words.

Courtney couldn’t look at him. The hatred she felt threatened to spill over and ruin everything.

“I will ruin you, Jonas Porter.”

Before she could say anything, Jonas moved. He grabbed Kurt around the neck. “You are nothing more than a killer and I will tell everyone—prosecutor, reporter,
your kids
—whoever will listen. You destroyed a family for greed and now you will lose everything. I will make sure of it.”

Kurt tried to weasel out of the hold. “You can’t do this.”

Jonas nodded to Rich. “Get him out of here.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

Jonas paced the floor of the hospital. Walt had been in surgery for hours. The doctors talked about internal injuries and loss of blood. A few minutes before, a nurse had come out and said everything was fine and that the surgeon would be out soon.

Courtney still couldn’t process it all. So much destruction and uncertainty, all over money. The strain of being furious and sad at the same time sapped all of her reserves.

But when Jonas sat down next to her and grabbed for her hand, the world righted again. Staring at their linked fingers on his lap, she wondered what was going on in his head.

For her, the questions had been answered. She had the pieces from her past. Healing would come later. Now her life focused on her future. And she wanted Jonas in it.