Murdoch had pulled out two bodies of his fellow officers himself.
When he’d woken this morning, Cam had been leaning over him.
For once, his older brother wasn’t making idiotic jokes. “Get up. Let’s go.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Here to help the girls with some repairs while their menfolk are out helping the town. Celia’s place took some damage.”
“I saw. I put plywood up over Cameron’s windows yesterday.”
“There’s more work to be done. Let’s get going. I left Celia and Cam with the Dillons. Had to drive all the way down here to get you. We’re wasting time.”
“It’s only a damned ninety minutes from Barrattville.” Murdoch grabbed his clothes and underwear. He needed a shower. He’d been too exhausted to take one last night. He’d have to change his sheets before he hit his bed again.
No doubt he’d be in the new place in Garrity by then.
Hell, he’d just grab a duffel bag and camp with one of his siblings in Value tonight. “I’m going back to Finley Creek. We’re still missing two officers.”
Cam hesitated. “They were found, Murdoch. Nothing anyone could do.”
“Shit.”
“They weren’t victims of the storm. They were both shot. Point-blank. Elliot Marshall’s Major Crimes unit is already on it.”
Murdoch felt sick when he thought about it. Those two deputies had practically been babies. Whatever had happened out there, he hoped Marshall fried the sonsofbitches responsible.
Murdoch showered quickly. He might not be able to help the TSP today, but he’d take care of his family the best he could.
Chapter 127
Charlie heard voices outside.
He grabbed his bag of supplies—he kept them packed in case he had to roll quickly—and slipped out the back door of the cabin. It was inevitable that someone would make their way out to this cabin eventually, especially after the storm. Every structure would have to be checked.
His truck was hidden behind the place in some deep brush.
If he could get to it, he might have a chance. He took a risk and looked out the window.
Men, on ATVs. Lamar’s hands, no doubt.
He could easily outrun them. Charlie slipped toward the truck.
In a matter of moments, he was out of the cabin, in his truck, and driving back to Value.
One of the hands had his cell phone to his ear.
The other one was snapping photos of Charlie’s truck with his own phone.
Charlie was screwed.
They would know he was here. He had no choice.
Charlie pointed his truck south. He’d head to the border. He had fake IDs, cash, and a new vehicle waiting for him down there.
He would be just fine. But that would leave Celia and Cameron to find their own way in this world. And Lou Moore was still out there.
And that killer was still out there.
Charlie couldn’t do it. He couldn’t just run away. He needed to check on her one more time.
Chapter 128
Celia held Cameron by the hand as they crossed the main street toward the library. She’d had to park the borrowed car—her sisters had insisted she take Ronnie’s—in the side parking lot. There were a lot of governmental-looking dark sedans and SUVs taking up space.
It was about time someone from Austin had arrived. Jake had been working himself to the point of exhaustion acting as a de facto emergency coordinator for the little town he so obviously loved.
Watching him and how much he had cared, how hard he had worked to help his neighbors, had resonated with her.
Jake was one of the best men she had ever met.
“We going to see Mr. Jake now?” Cameron asked, swinging on her hand and aiming his little rain boots straight toward the puddles she’d told him to avoid.
“Yes.”
“I like Mr. Jake.”
“Mr. Jake likes you, too.” And he did. One of Cameron’s favorite things to do was ride on Jake’s lap up and down the hallway—as fast as the wheelchair would go. The two had practically cackled when Jake had ramped it once.
It had taken a while for Celia’s heart rate to settle a bit after that one. They could have hurt themselves.
She’d just clutched Liam close and told him how crazy his daddy was.
The baby had just smiled at her, looking exactly like his father. She’d fallen completely in love—with the baby, that was—in that moment.
Then Bert and Veri had arrived.
Cameron had latched on to Bert Dillon very, very quickly. Probably because of how much he missed that grandfatherly presence in his life.
But there were still good men out there for her son to admire.
The Dillons were some of those men. She was very thankful that Cam had brought the Dillons into her life now.
“Mommy’s going to help Mr. Jake with the library business, ok?” She wasn’t exactly certain why Jake had called her and asked for help, but he had.
She owed him that much.
Even if it was just watching the baby while he did what he had to do.
The library was only two rooms, each about thirty by forty in size. There was a basement with a few offices and an elevator. That was it.
But other than the TSP building, it was where people were congregating. Emergency rescue teams were operating out of the small fire station up the road.
When she and Cameron made it inside, Liam was fussing, and Jake was trying to juggle him and speak with the officials surrounding his desk.
“Cameron, go straight to the children’s corner. Mommy’s going to take care of Liam, then put him in his playpen. Go on.”
Her son was a relatively obedient child, thank goodness.
She scooted over toward the crowd surrounding Jake’s desk. He shot her a look of sheer relief. Celia reached out and took the very angry, very hungry baby. “I’ve got him, Jake. I’m here as long as you need me.”
And she meant it.
No baggage attached.
Chapter 129
Someone from the state emergency management agency had shown up. The TSP post was too crowded. Clay had redirected them to the library after a quick call to Jake.
Jake was good with that. He had completed two ten-hour shifts coordinating fire-and-rescue in the last two days. But he could still be useful somehow.
If the bureaucrats would shut up long enough to get things going. Of course, it didn’t help that Liam hadn’t been fed yet, and his son was no doubt wet.
Liam was not a patient baby. Jake did his best.
When Celia walked in, looking like the goddess she was, Jake finally felt like things were about to get back under control.
She took Liam without him having to ask. And like the experienced mother she was, she had him clean, dry, and fed within minutes.
And then she did something with a bolt of fabric he kept in the children’s section for dress-up time that had Liam secured to her chest, where the baby could watch everything going on around him.
And it left Celia’s hands free. Hands she told him were his, however he needed them.
At this point, their job was just to babysit the Department of Emergency Management workers, however they could.
“I have a list of names of people in our county reporting storm damage, ranging in severity,” Jake told the leader of the dozen or so DEM workers. “Our town lost two people. We had forty-two injured, most in the outlying areas. I’m not sure the numbers for Barrattville. They were hit with a lot of flooding.”
“We’ll need to see each report and visually inspect before we can offer aid, according to our charts.”
Jake had his opinions on that—but it didn’t matter. Value would take care of its people the way they needed taken care of.
They always did. They always would
Chapter 130
Lou couldn’t leave Charlie lying in a pool of his own damned blood. He couldn’t do that to the only friend he’d
had since the moment Pete Holte had convinced Lou to join him in his stupid treasure quest all those months ago.
“Hell, Charlie. I didn’t mean to shoot you. I didn’t. It was a damned accident.” Charlie didn’t look good. “I’m sorry.”
He had to get out of there before someone called in those shots. But Charlie...Charlie wouldn’t be able to help him, like Lou had thought. He’d just come to Charlie for some cash; that was all.
But Charlie had told him no. Told him to leave Addy alone. Had threatened to call in an anonymous tip himself. Lou just couldn’t let him do that.
“Come on. We got to get out of here.” He wrapped his hands beneath Charlie’s back and pulled. It took some maneuvering—Charlie was a hefty guy, just like Lou—but he got him up.
Charlie coughed. It was the coughing that worried Lou the most.
Who knows what damage that .45 slug had done to him. And Charlie wasn’t exactly in the best of shape.
The best Lou could think of was that he’d take Charlie to someone who could help. He thought there was a doctor or two living out toward Bracker’s Mill Road. There was a woman who lived alone near where his parents used to live. She’d worn scrubs before. He’d seen her talking to Bailey once.
It was an idea.
After he took care of the other problem he had.
“Come on, Charlie. I have a plan.”
“Just leave me somewhere. I’ll take care of myself.”
Lou wasn’t about to do that. Charlie was his friend, and Lou had been the one to hurt him.
Lou had a responsibility to make things right. He had to.
But first...he had to deal with Glen.
And that meant he had to watch and plan.
He helped Charlie into his van and settled the man into the rear seat with a blanket. It wasn’t the most comfortable place, but it would do. He gave Charlie one of his extra shirts. He’d hit another secondhand store and get him some new shirts when he got a chance.
It was time for Bob to disappear and him become someone else.
He sacrificed the best shirt to ball up against the still bleeding wound on Charlie’s chest. “I don’t have a first aid kit. I’m sorry.”
“Just get me to Victoria, Lou. I got identification and cash there.” Charlie closed his eyes.
“I’ll do that.” As soon as he took care of his own business.
He could drive Charlie down there, but it was halfway across the state and that would take time. But he could take care of Addy after, he supposed.
But he still had to deal with Glen.
“Let me think, Charlie. Just let me think.”
Chapter 131
Charlie was going to die in Lou Moore’s filthy, disgusting van, with a bullet hole in his chest and Lou losing every bit of sanity he had.
Charlie supposed he deserved it.
All those hours he’d sat and watched little Bailey struggling with a bullet in her chest and done nothing while she died a little each minute had finally caught up to him.
The way that girl had suffered yet kept going just to survive...she was a far stronger being than Charlie could ever hope to be.
All those years he’d lived a lie with Celia ran through his head as he tried to fight the pain.
The suffering his brother’s family had endured because of his actions—suffering Charlie had had to watch, knowing he’d caused.
It was all replaying in his head. Charlie bit back the tears.
He forced his eyes to open again, to stare at the countryside as Lou drove them somewhere. He had no idea what Lou was planning. He doubted Lou, indecisive moron that he was, even knew what choices he was going to make.
Of all people to be dependent on when he had a bullet hole in his body, Lou was Charlie’s last choice.
He’d rather face prison than be in Lou’s care.
Charlie took his first good look around Lou’s van.
And that’s when he saw the other man staring at him out of terrified and resigned eyes.
“What the hell, Lou? Who is that?”
“Meet Glen Washington, my former cell mate. He’s the sonofabitch I was telling you about.”
“What are you going to do with him?” Was the man even still alive?
Charlie didn’t have a clue.
Chapter 132
Celia finally convinced Jake to let someone else take over at the library for a while. Her sister Ronnie had arrived, no kids in tow for once, and taken charge. She’d even given them a plate of cookies. To Celia’s surprise, her own mother had been with Ronnie—she’d had Ronnie’s children in her van and wanted Cameron as well.
That left Celia and Jake with a plate of cookies—and Liam. Celia carried him, still attached to her chest, out to her borrowed car, along with his car seat. He slept so peacefully. Jake had called in an order to the diner and was going to stop off and pick it up on his way to her house.
They were going to spend some time watching a movie together. Her own mother had encouraged the idea. Ronnie had acted like it was a given. Apparently, everyone had noticed she and Jake were...
She wouldn’t say they were together—it was far too early for that—but she was attracted to him. And if given half a chance, she almost thought something could develop between them.
Celia hadn’t felt this excited about being with a man in a long, long time. Funny that it took a tornado to shake things up enough for her to stop being so afraid. And that’s what it had been: fear.
Pure fear.
Well, not any longer. She was taking charge of her future now. And she liked it.
She fastened the little man in his infant carrier and slipped the seatbelt over it. It took her a moment. It had been a while since she’d dealt with an infant car seat, and she was seriously out of practice at it, but she eventually got Liam fastened in.
Jake would get the food. She’d take Liam back to her house and settle him into the travel playpen that had already been in her sister’s trunk. Her sister believed in being prepared, and always had.
Celia drove the few blocks from the library to her house—she could have walked, but Ronnie had insisted she borrow a car—and carried the baby inside. He was sleeping soundly. She didn’t like the idea of leaving him for even a moment, so she left the door open and put him—still in the car seat—where she could see him, as she got the playpen out of the trunk.
Within fifteen minutes—whoever had invented those travel playpens had been sadists—she had Liam settled in the playpen and was giving the house a last-minute cleaning. She had a four-year-old, after all. She was likely to find things in the strangest places.
She had just enough time to wipe what she thought was banana pudding off the kitchen chair when she heard Jake pull in. She’d already told him that she had better parking—and an accessible door—in the back of the house. He’d been on his feet for far too long today—and he wasn’t fooling her, after all.
He came in, the bag of takeout hanging from one handle. “They through in pie. I think they believe we have been busy or something lately and deserve it.”
Value wasn’t like where she’d grown up. They’d had a large home in a suburb of a larger city. It was far more impersonal than Value.
Celia had been in culture shock when she’d first moved there with Charlie. When he’d hired tutors for her to help her adjust to what had happened. Now she knew that was just his way of isolating her from the real world—so she couldn’t find out about his crime.
Value wasn’t like that. Everyone knew everyone else and what they were doing—and what they needed.
Jake had been working himself to the bone since the storm. And apparently everyone knew it.
“Come in, Jake. Liam’s still sleeping. I think the excitement of all those people has worn him out.”
Liam slept through most of dinner, waking toward the end. Jake had ordered him a dish of plain peas and a sweet potato that Celia blended for him. The baby sat in his carrier, propped up where he could see them. H
e babbled and laughed and enjoyed himself. Celia fell more and more in love with the little man every minute.
And felt herself falling for the man across from her even more.
She’d just cleared away the remains of dinner while Jake changed his son’s diaper when she heard tires squeal in her front yard.
Chapter 133
Charlie saw the glow of the streetlights when he opened his eyes again. He’d dosed off, he thought.
The man on the floor in front of him was sniveling. Charlie had listened to Lou talking to the other man before he’d passed out. The things Lou had said the other man had done. It sickened him. The man was getting exactly what he deserved—if Lou was telling the truth.
Charlie didn’t have the energy to even ask. He coughed again.
Blood covered his hand when he pulled it away.
Charlie looked out the window as Lou drove down a residential street. Then up and down another. Charlie didn’t have the strength to consider why.
Lou was ranting at his captive. Charlie wasn’t certain if he wasn’t a captive of the madman, too.
What Bailey would have felt back in April ran through his head. The pain. The fear. All of Charlie’s sins kept running through his head, over and over again.
Ticking off in a mental checkbox one by one, culminating with Celia and Kyra. And Bailey.
“Lou! You got to let me go somewhere.”
Lou swore and looked at him.
They both knew the truth.
“Take me to my girl, Lou. Just do that one thing to me.”
He had things he needed to say to Celia. And he wanted to make sure he had time to say them. “Just...take me to her.”
He’d tell her the truth, that he’d just been greedy and stupid and lazy. And drunk. Hell, the entire time he’d been concocting his plan, he’d been throwing back tequila after a woman he’d loved had walked out on him—because he didn’t have the money to offer her all she’d thought she’d deserved.
Holding the Truth Page 33