by Melissa Tagg
“Probably most of the shops along the street were already closed when this happened, but it wouldn’t hurt to ask if anybody saw anything.” Dad shook his head. “First time I’ve ever wished security cameras were a thing in Maple Valley.”
A car door slammed behind them. Raegan turned.
Bear stalked across the road.
Shoot, he didn’t have to come. She’d purposely not told him before leaving the house with Dad. He had enough to deal with. “Bear, you didn’t need to—”
“Do you know who did it?”
She shrugged. “Bored teenagers?” Which would make this a case of meaningless vandalism. But that kind of thing just didn’t happen in Maple Valley.
Except . . . there had been that incident in front of Baker’s Antiques. The one poor Jamie had been pulled into.
“Left my phone in the car,” Dad said. “Gonna go grab it so I can call the police.”
She’d never seen Bear so eerily severe—fists flexing, rigid posture, eyes mere slits. “This is not happening again.”
“Again? But—”
He wrenched his phone from his pocket, apparently not patient enough for Dad to retrieve his own.
But then, as if on cue, it rang.
Unbelievable. Unidentified Number. Of course. Bear whipped the phone to his ear. “Rio?” His gaze swerved to the ruined mural once again.
“You can’t take them back to Atlanta.”
All the air bolted from his lungs. Rio’s voice. No question. “Where are you, Rio?”
“I don’t want Jamie and Erin in Atlanta. Please, keep them with you.”
Raegan and Case were both staring at him, questions playing over their faces. But he could barely make his mind fasten on Rio’s words, on the possible implication . . .
Did Rio know he’d been planning to leave the next day. If so, how? “Believe me, I wish I could keep them here. But there’s a court order. Maybe if both you and your wife hadn’t gone AWOL—”
“You don’t understand, Bear. There’s more . . .”
An overpowering, aging muffler from the truck grumbling over the Archway Bridge muted Rio’s voice. But wait . . .
Wait, he hadn’t just heard the truck in the distance. He’d heard it through the phone, too. Which meant . . .
He spun on his heels, alarm mounting. There! A shadow under the bridge.
“Bear?”
He ignored Raegan’s call as he burst into a run. The shadow didn’t move. Bear’s feet pounded over pavement that eventually gave way to grass that sloped down and then up again. Anger propelled him under the shade of the bridge to where Rio waited.
His brother. Just standing there. Gaping.
“It was you the whole time, wasn’t it? The phone calls. The blue Taurus—”
“Blue Taurus? What are you talking—?”
Rio hadn’t finished sputtering the questions before Bear sprang, both hands grabbing for his brother’s collar. “Why the mural? What does Raegan have to do with any of this?”
Rio attempted to yank free, but Bear only held tighter. “That wasn’t me—”
“We’re going to the police now.” He should call Rollins.
Rio pushed both hands against Bear’s chest—just enough force to break away. “You don’t know what’s happening here, Bear. If you’d just let me explain—”
“Explain how you could abandon your wife and kids? Explain how nothing has changed in ten years? I have to get on a plane and deliver Jamie and Erin to a social worker’s office by the day after tomorrow. I have no idea what’s going to happen then. But maybe we can stop that if you turn yourself in. For once in your life, have the decency to put them first.”
Rio just stared at him, eyes the same shade as his own burning with intensity. His shaved head, his cheeks and chin, were all shadowed by stubble. His wedding ring glinted in the slanting sun. “You think I don’t care about Jamie and Erin?”
“If you did, you wouldn’t be hiding under a bridge and making cryptic phone calls. If you did, you’d do the right thing.”
“They’re my kids, Bear. I decide what the right—”
Bear couldn’t do it, couldn’t hold back any longer. He lunged at his brother, all the force of all the warring emotions inside him spilling as they fell to the ground. Rio hit the dirt with a grunt but threw an elbow the moment he’d freed his arm. The impact on Bear’s cheek was nowhere close to a deterrent. Dust clouded around him as they scuffled, flying fists and angry thrusts until Bear had Rio flat underneath him, his younger brother’s angry panting and split lip only inches away, Bear’s knuckles clenched and raised.
“Go ahead,” Rio spat. “You’ve been waiting for a decade.”
Bear’s fist landed in the dirt beside Rio’s head, the blunt contact breaking his skin and shooting pain up his arm. He heaved himself to his feet, lungs stinging.
Rio stared at him for a moment before slowly pulling himself up, his chest rising and falling. “Did you ever stop to think . . .” He winced, surely because of his bleeding lip. “That maybe what I’m doing, I’m doing for Jamie and Erin? And Rosa. And you.”
Bear’s cheek throbbed. “Why would I think that? When have you ever—”
Rio whirled away, his shoes scuffing the dirt. When he turned back, genuine anguish bellowed from his expression. “So you’re the only one who can do the right thing? The only one who can make a sacrifice?” Both palms clenched his almost-bald head. “Nobody but Bear McKinley can save the day?”
Bear finally caught his breath. “I don’t understand.”
“Of course you don’t because you walked away. You played hero and it didn’t work the way you wanted, so you left. I’ve never blamed you for that. Not once. I know it took me too long to see what I’d cost you. I know that.”
“Not just me.”
Rio stilled. “I know that, too.”
Bear had to turn away, too much confusion rushing through him. Stifling air waved over him, the rusty smell of river water mixing with diesel fumes wafting from the bridge.
“I can’t go to the police,” Rio said slowly, evenly from behind him, “because my FBI contact went silent two months ago.”
Bear turned. “What?”
“They’re trying to smoke me out—Inez and his men. You mentioned a car. If you’re being followed, then it means they gave up on using Rosa to find me and now they’re using you. Maybe your girlfriend, too.”
His girlfriend. If Rio knew about Raegan . . . “How long have you been in town?”
“Only a couple days. I just wanted to see the kids, see you, before . . .” Rio turned away.
“Before what?” Bear’s pulse pounded.
“Of course, it’s possible that mural doesn’t have anything to do with me. Might just be a message for you.”
Bear tramped around his brother to face him. “Rio.”
“Surely you know he’s kept an eye on you.” Rio touched his split lip.
Rosa’s words came back to him. “If they could find you in South America . . .”
“When you confessed in my place, you didn’t just incriminate yourself, Bear. You took a bunch of men with you. You shut down an entire warehouse.”
“At least something good came of it.” His tone was as dark as the dirt beneath their feet, the shadow of the bridge, the night sky. Too many jagged-edged pieces tried to cram together. FBI . . . Inez . . . Raegan . . .
Misery masked every other emotion on Rio’s face. “Bear—”
A crack split through the night air.
A gunshot.
Raegan!
The blue Taurus. She’d known the moment she’d seen it.
Bear had just disappeared under the bridge. Dad was scrounging in his car for his phone. And the blue Taurus had pulled up.
Indecision had rooted her feet to the grass. Should she call for Bear? Would he even hear her with the river and the wind and a car motoring over the bridge? She reached into her back pocket, expecting to find her phone, but no. She’d left
the house in too much of a hurry with Dad.
The Taurus’s driver’s-side door opened.
Dad. Had Bear mentioned the Taurus to Dad? Would he look over and realize . . .
“Raegan Walker?”
The figure striding toward her knew her name. That fact didn’t do a thing to aid her mental paralysis.
The man stopped in front of her. “I’m Detective Rollins. I spoke to your friend the other day.”
For a moment, her apprehension ceased. Rollins. The one who’d questioned Bear. No, she didn’t like the way he’d treated Bear, but at least he was law enforcement. At least he wasn’t—
But no. The blue Taurus. Bear had said the detective had only come to town after Chief Ross called the Atlanta P.D. But Bear had spotted the Taurus multiple times before that.
Which meant . . . she didn’t know what it meant. Only that whatever momentary solace had trickled in seconds ago now dried up completely.
And Rollins saw it all. His hand moved to his hip. “Just tell me where they are.”
Fear climbed her throat. Don’t look at Dad. Don’t look at the bridge. A blast of wind knocked into her, rattling the metal scaffolding behind her. “Where who are?”
His fingers closed over the handle of a pistol. “I’d rather not make a big scene here.”
“Like my ruined mural isn’t enough of one already?” Her livid counter surprised even her.
“Trust me, you don’t want to be in the middle of this.”
Trust him? If not for that blue Taurus, she might have. She crossed her arms.
He lifted the pistol free of its holster.
“Raegan!”
Dad. No.
Rollins jerked at the sound of Dad’s voice.
Strangling panic kept her from calling out. No breathing or counting, not even a prayer—
The shot sounded.
Leaden terror weighed Bear’s every step even as he forced his mind to work, to process what he was seeing.
The blue Taurus. Raegan. Case.
Detective Rollins with his gun raised to the sky.
A warning shot. Thank God, only a warning shot.
The relief fled as quickly as it’d swept in. There was still a man with a gun standing in between Bear and the woman he loved. There was still an artillery of unanswered questions and hounding dread.
There was still Rio running behind him.
And Raegan—shaking, trying to breathe.
“Rollins!” He shouted through gritted teeth and winded lungs, stride widening. Almost there.
Rollins whirled, gun trained for the barest moment on Bear, and then, with a baleful sneer, behind him.
Bear came to a jarring stop, panting. Rio must’ve halted too because there were no steps sounding behind him. Nothing sounding at all, save a hissing squall that shook the scaffolding.
“All right, then,” Rollins said. “We’re all here.”
Rio stepped up beside Bear. “This doesn’t have anything to do with the rest of them.”
“Except that now it does.”
“Bear.”
How he even heard Raegan’s panicked whisper through the raging gale and the clattering metal, through his own distress, he didn’t even know. He took a step forward.
Rollins instantly shifted his aim.
Raegan dropped to her knees. Oh, Lord . . . just as he’d feared. She was having an attack. Right now, while his two worlds collided.
“Bear, the scaffolding.” Rio’s voice was low. “I don’t think it was only the mural they messed with.”
His attention darted to the wavering structure and hooked on what Rio had seen. The guardrail, ready to topple—Raegan underneath.
Frantic, he tried to catch Case’s eye. Tried to relay the warning. But Case’s focus was trained solely on Raegan.
Rio stepped forward. Rollins shifted again. Somewhere behind them, a car door slammed.
“Go to her,” Rio called.
“But—”
Rio took another step. “Just do it.”
But Rollins, the gun . . .
Raegan. His brother.
Another thrust of the wind. Another clamor from the scaffolding.
He lunged toward Raegan.
Another gunshot.
17
Bear couldn’t breathe. Why couldn’t he breathe?
Fluorescent light strangled his vision and too many smells assaulted him at once—pungent disinfectant, stale coffee, someone’s cologne.
“Drink it, Bear. You’ll feel better.”
Sam Ross. His cologne. His coffee. Or, no, apparently Bear’s coffee, steaming from a Styrofoam cup in front of him. He willed his focus to scan his surroundings—a small, family waiting room in the Maple Valley hospital. Glass windows and a muted TV on one wall. Leather furniture and a lone table.
The table where he sat now, hunched and dazed, splatters of blood on his shirt and dirt under his fingernails and hazy images refusing to form a solid picture in his mind. Rollins . . . Rio . . .
Raegan. He breathed her name out loud.
The police chief scooted his chair up to the table across from Bear. “She’s with a doc now. And her Dad. And Jimmy.”
“Jimmy?” His trembling fingers closed around the Styrofoam.
“Another officer. She’s okay—thanks to you and that knot on your head.”
Knot on his head? Of its own accord, his right hand found the spot that he didn’t even realize until now throbbed. He squeezed his eyes closed, trying to remember.
Rio had told him to go to Raegan. He’d sprung toward her. The gunshot.
And then?
Nothing. Blackness. Except . . .
He lifted the coffee cup, guzzled the thick, acrid drink, winced as coffee grounds scraped down his throat.
Scraping . . .
The scrape and clash of metal. There it was. The memory.
He’d charged toward Raegan, reaching her trembling form on the ground, no time to pull her away before the scaffolding’s railing came toppling down. He’d covered her body with his own, his frantic gaze scouring for sight of his brother.
He’d seen the blood just before the impact.
His stomach lurched now, jerking his whole body.
“Oh, no.” Ross ejected from his seat. “Garbage can. Now.”
Someone thrust a plastic bin in front of Bear just in time for his first heave.
It was over thirty seconds later—his stomach empty and his throat scuffed raw. His head still pounded, but his gasping stilled.
“I’m sorry, Bear.” Sam lifted the bin from Bear’s hands, replaced it with a water bottle. “I had a feeling you were in shock. We can do this later. You should be the one in with an ER doc.”
“Rio.” He sputtered his brother’s name. Now the picture in his head was too clear. Rio’s sprawled body, the scarlet wound in his chest. Too many feet of grass in between them. Wait, how had his blood ended up on Bear? His sight slid down his stained shirt. That was Rio’s blood, wasn’t it?
He swallowed a drink of water.
“You rode in the ambulance with him.” Sam must have sensed his confusion. “The scaffolding knocked you out. You came to before the EMTs arrived, but you were pretty dazed.”
Still was. “Is he . . . ?”
Sam stood behind his own chair, fingers gripping its back. “He was alive when he arrived here.”
Was. His stomach clenched again.
“It’s been about ten minutes since I got here. The doctor hasn’t been out for an update yet.”
Ten minutes. Had he been sitting here in this chair that long? Ten minutes that he could’ve been with Raegan. Or calling to check in on the kids. Rosa, someone needed to call Rosa. Oh, God, please let her answer for once.
He tried to stand, but the wooziness immediately forced him down. Another drink of water.
“We’re taking care of things, Bear. I sent an officer to Case’s house. Both Beckett and Kate are with the kids. We’ve called your sister-in-law. She’s on
her way.”
On her way? Already? But how—?
FBI. Rollins. Inez.
Why couldn’t he make his brain work? Why couldn’t he piece any of this together?
Because of that picture of Rio’s body in his mind. The image of Raegan, terrified, falling to her knees. The echo of the gunshot.
“I need to see Rio.” This time when he stood, he refused to give in to the shock still wobbling his limbs. He finished off the water bottle, then dropped it onto the table.
“You can’t. Not just yet. Who you need to see is a doctor. Come on, I’ll go with you.”
“No—”
“You look like a zombie, your head is swelling, you can’t hardly remember the past hour, and you just barfed into a garbage can. I’m insisting.”
“Bear!” Raegan burst into the room. “There you are. I tried the main ER waiting room first and when I didn’t see you—” She crashed into him, the impact enough to push him back into his chair. She landed on his lap, arms immediately circling his neck as she repeated his name too many times to count.
“Rae—”
“I’m sorry.” She buried her face against his cheek. “I’m so sorry.”
He could feel his heart stop. Rio?
“Of all the times to have a stupid panic attack. I tried to stop it, but it just . . . it wouldn’t let go and . . .”
Not Rio.
With his hands on her arms, he held her back just far enough to look at her face. Other than the scrape on her chin, the pallid tone to her skin, she didn’t appear hurt. But those tears in her eyes, the guilt in her voice . . . “You don’t have a thing to apologize for. Not a single thing.”
Whereas he—he’d brought this mess he didn’t even understand into her world. The truth of it collided against him, thudding even harder than the aching pulse in his head.
Raegan brought her hands to his face, her fingers skimming over his swollen skin. She leaned forward to kiss his injuries, her soft lips attempting to soothe. “You need to see the doctor.”
Sam harrumphed behind her. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell him.”
Raegan blinked and pulled back as if just remembering they weren’t alone, but she didn’t move from his lap. “You could have a concussion.”