“Twenty-eight million, if you subtract what he’s paying you assholes for bringing me in,” I answered. Breathing out heavily, I added, “But I guess that’s how the rich keep getting richer. I have no idea why he would go through all of this, but what I can tell you is what I saw on that boat.”
Gage glanced at me, but didn’t comment. Gideon on the other hand, finally gave in to what I was trying to say and suggested, “Tell us everything you know, Holly. I can’t promise you that we’ll believe it, but…” He looked out the window as lightning lit up the horizon. “Looks like we’ve got nothing better to do than take part in story time for a while. Might as well hear what you have to say.”
I shrugged a shoulder. “I’m not sure I should waste my breath. All you two care about is the money. Even if I had video of the murder which proved my innocence, I doubt you’d care enough to help me.”
Gage breathed out, the force of his breath blowing the hair away from his face. Water still dripped from the tips, but his hair had dried enough to stick up like he’d just crawled out of bed.
“We’re always interested in the truth, Holly. You were right when you said we don’t need the money. To be honest with you, I didn’t believe it when they first told us you committed the murder, but unless you have proof of what happened, we have no choice but to turn you in. Family or not, we have a job to do.”
I glanced between the two men and realized that it had been years since I’d last seen them in person. Those years had been kind to them, and I found it amazing that they were even more beautiful than I last remembered them. There wasn’t a man alive who could claim better physiques than Gideon and Gage, and their boy next door smiles only added to their charm.
Angry at myself for even noticing how good looking they were, I realized I had no choice but to tell them what I knew. Regardless of whether or not they’d believe me.
“Fine. I’ll tell you what happened, but I don’t think it will make much of a difference.” Taking a deep breath, I blinked away the tears still trickling from my eyes, and I launched into the story of what happened three nights ago on Oliver’s boat.
Chapter Six
I believed her. I felt like a rube, but I really believed her. We were seated near the fire on an old threadbare sofa that smelled vaguely of raccoon. She had her hands in front of her and her ankles crossed. We’d had to bind her so she wouldn’t run away again, but I didn’t think she’d flee any time soon in this weather in the dark.
She was telling us her story, and I really did believe her sincerity.
Gage was harder to convince, he was the thinker and the plotter, his eyes were narrowed as she spoke, he was evaluating every word that fell from her full, lush lips.
She was a beautiful girl, the years had been kind to her. I could tell Gage thought so too, which made him even more suspicious of her story.
Holly had never been an ugly girl, but she’d always been knobby kneed and rail thin. Like a colt growing into herself.
And man, she had grown. She was curvy in all the right spots, had huge doe-like eyes and legs that just didn’t seem to end. Her dark hair, now that it was drying by the fire, was soft and silky, falling down her back in gentle waves.
The most startling feature about her, though, were her eyes. They were light green, a jewel tone that sparkled and shone as she talked about the good times with her friend Diana.
They darkened, like clouds passing over the moon, when she got to the part on the boat.
“He just shoved her,” Holly said, her chin scrunching up as tears sprang to her eyes. Gage was adding more wood to the fire, but Holly started to shiver uncontrollably in the cool air.
Lightning flashed outside, followed immediately by thunder. Holly jumped at this, and Gage gave her a look of disgust mixed with sympathy. He was slowly starting to believe her too.
“Have you eaten anything?” I asked, not sure what I had to offer even if she was starving. With the rain coming down in sheets now, pelting the house and the ground outside, we weren’t going anywhere any time soon.
“I had dinner,” she said, “but if you’re hungry there’s some stew in that pot on the fire though. It’s from earlier this evening, but it should be good.”
Gage leaned over and took the lid off the heavy pot. He sniffed and smiled. “Wow, that smells really good actually.”
“And we know you didn’t poison it because you didn’t know we’d be eating it,” I laughed. I immediately regretted my joke when I saw her eyes darken again.
She looked directly at me and said, “I don’t want to hurt you guys. After everything, you are my stepbrothers, right? I just hate that we’re in this situation because of somebody’s murderous greed.”
“So you’re stuck on this story with Oliver pushing her overboard?” Gage asked and swung the pot on a hook into the fire.
“It’s not a story,” she spat, “it’s the truth.”
“We’re just trying to do our jobs,” I told her, embarrassed that Gage was being so rude about the entire thing.
“I get it. You are being paid to hunt me down. I’m not a criminal, but I suppose you two would have no way of knowing that, would you? You know nothing about me.”
“I know you can make a pretty decent stew,” Gage said and offered a smile to make up for his earlier comment.
I saw Holly’s jaw twitch and I could tell she wanted to snap back at him, instead she relaxed, smiled, and said, “Thanks. My grandma taught me a lot about cooking.”
“Was this their place?” I asked, looking around at the dirty run down house, trying to imagine it in its former glory.
“No,” she said quietly and looked down at her hands. “I lived here.”
I could see teardrops glistening in the firelight, balancing on the ends of her thick lashes as she fell silent.
“You and your dad?” Gage asked, still on his haunches in front of the fire. She nodded slowly but didn’t respond.
I reached out to comfort her and she pulled away from my touch as though I were the flame. She went red afterwards and sputtered an apology.
“I’m so on edge,” she said, “I haven’t even had time to grieve my best friend. I should be planning her wedding, not running from her murderer.”
She started to cry then, wracking sobs that threatened to choke her if she didn’t slow down. She seemed to be having trouble breathing, so I edged closer to her on the couch and put my arm around her narrow shoulders.
She was all bone and muscle, I could feel her strong back as she hunched and sobbed. I was impressed. For being so curvy, she was in incredible shape.
“It’s okay,” I said in a soothing voice, “I can’t imagine what you’re going through. I’m sorry this all happened to you.”
“We’ll get you home and dad will get you a great attorney,” Gage said and put his hand on her knee. She sobbed harder and we sat like that for a few moments, listening to the wind lash the rain against the house outside, and Holly’s quiet misery inside.
“Hey, I know one good thing about all this,” I said and gave her a little shake.
“What?” she asked, sniffling and raising her head to face me. Her cheeks were streaked with mud and her eyes were red and puffy. She was still beautiful to me, in some strange way. Her beauty was an inner strength that radiated out from her.
“We get to spend some time together,” I grinned and let her know I was making a joke.
She glared at me, processed what I had said and barked a short laugh. “Yeah, I guess. We really don’t see much of each other lately, do we?”
I handed her a napkin that I’d managed to scrounge from the inside of the rental car earlier. She blew her nose loudly and took a deep shuddering breath.
“We never really saw much of each other though I guess,” I said, “We always felt like you ran as fast as you could go every time we came for a visit.”
She smiled and looked down. “I did,” she said with a smile, “you guys drove me nuts.”
“We were kind of obnoxious,” Gage said.
“Were?” she asked and laughed.
“Okay, we still are,” I replied with a grin, “but we aren’t lacking in certain charms.”
“You wouldn’t have the country eating out of your hand and making your TV show the number one watched program if you were,” she replied.
“So you do follow along,” I said with a sly smile, “I knew it.”
“I may have caught a couple episodes,” she admitted. She went quiet, lowered her gaze and wiggled her hands against the zip tie Gage had wrapped around her wrists. “With Diana actually. She was a little obsessed with you two.”
The room fell silent then as we remembered the dead girl. I was as much as convinced that Holly had nothing to do with it, I just needed to figure out how to convince Gage and how to go about proving it.
Gage took the opportunity to serve us each a little stew using some plastic cups Holly had brought with her.
We ate in near silence, only breaking it to compliment her on her culinary skills, trying to draw her out. It didn’t work, she seemed to retreat farther and farther into herself until she was drowsy by the fire, lost in her contemplation.
I set my cup on a nearby table and moved next to her. I set her down gently on the sofa, stood and moved to an armchair nearby.
Gage stoked the fire, legs crossed in front of him, watching Holly out of the corner of his eye.
She didn’t appear to be planning an escape any time soon as she was gently snoring in a deep sleep. He and I both got comfortable in matching shabby, dusty chairs, and fell into a slumber.
* * *
I woke and it was dark outside. The fire was still going, Holly was crouched in front of it, her hands together in the plastic ties, jabbing at it with the same poker she’d nailed Gage’s knee with. I wondered if he was okay, that was his one weak spot. Of course she would have known about it, we’d have to edit that out of any final footage or else every criminal in the country would know how to take down my brother.
“Are you okay?” I asked, “Do you need a jacket or something?”
“I’m good,” she said and threw a couple more logs in the fireplace, making sparks dance and jump above the flames. Her face was lit up with an orange glow and she looked fierce, like some kind of ancient warrior goddess.
Under any other circumstance, I would have hit on her in a heartbeat, but seeing her like this made me too aware of the fact that she was my stepsister, and she was a fugitive.
“I should figure something out for breakfast,” I said, standing and stretching. Gage was splayed out on the chair, snoring like a freight train. “I hope I wasn’t that noisy,” I said, nodding in his direction.
“You weren’t,” she grinned, “You were louder.”
“Oh god,” I replied with a groan, “I’m sorry.”
“I just woke up,” she said, “I slept through it all too. What time is it?”
I grabbed my phone and checked. “It’s only six in the morning, but it’s bloody dark outside.”
“The storm isn’t letting up,” she replied and moved back up to the sofa. Her wrists looked angry and red, she seemed to have a limp as well, but it was hard to tell with the zip ties around her ankles.
“Is this common around here?” I asked, sitting next to her on the musty couch.
“At this time of year, it is. I remember being terrified of them when I was a little girl. Daddy would build a big fire like this, and we would pretend we were living in the olden days. He would cook us dinner in this big dutch oven and tell me stories about the pioneers,” she said and sighed.
“I never met him, did I?” I asked.
She looked at me sharply. “No, he was dead before my mom met your dad. She might be a lot of things, but she wouldn’t get a divorce. That was her one last moral stand, she always said.”
“It’s an admirable one. Too many people treat marriage too lightly these days,” I told her, “When I’m ready to settle down, it will be forever.”
“You?” she smirked, “I didn’t think of you as the settling down type.”
“Why not?” I asked, a little hurt at her assessment of me.
“I assumed you were like your father,” she said, looking at me, scanning my face for a reaction.
“I’m nothing like him,” I growled, it was my turn for a knee jerk reaction. “I might be a player, Holly, but I’m not a cheating bastard.”
“Sorry,” she said softly, “I just assumed.”
“Yeah, well, look where assumptions get us. I assumed you were a murderer, and you assumed I was a cheating bastard.”
“He does cheat,” Gage said, waking up and rubbing his knee, “he cheats at chess. Just try playing a game with him some time.”
She laughed and the mood was lightened with his interjection. I stole a glance at her and wondered what other things she assumed about me. Or about my brother.
“There are some more cans of food,” she said pointing at the kitchen, “Also some bottles of water if the kids didn’t get into them all. We also have some oatmeal if you guys are into that.”
“Sounds good to me,” I said and jumped to my feet. “Did you happen to get any coffee?”
“No, sorry,” she said, “I’m a tea drinker.”
“Damn it,” Gage said, standing next to me, “a tea drinker and a suspected murderess? I don’t know which is worse.”
She stuck her tongue out at us and leaned back on the sofa as we headed to the kitchen, the light outside just starting to illuminate our way. The sun might have been behind huge, dark cloud banks, but it was forcing itself through slowly.
In the other room, we busied ourselves getting the supplies together to make the three of us breakfast. We planned on driving out in another hour or two.
“So what do you think, bro?” Gage asked, nodding towards the living room. “Did she do it?”
“Do you want my honest answer, or the answer I’ll give on camera?” I asked.
“Honest.”
“I don’t see it. She’s not a murderer. You and I have been around enough scumbags to know one when we see one.”
He rubbed his ear where he’d been shot just a short time ago, stretched and drew in a long breath. “I reckon I’d have to agree,” he said and grabbed a box of instant oatmeal. “I just don’t know what we’re going to do about it.”
“We’re going to do our jobs,” I said and loaded up with cups, bottles of water, and plastic spoons. “We’ll get her a team of lawyers to sort shit out after she’s behind bars.”
“That’s about the only thing we can do,” Gage said, looking as resigned to the plan as I was. It didn’t feel good, but if we let her go, we would be forfeiting our reward, aiding and abetting a fugitive, and potentially sending her into hands more dangerous than ours.
Taking her in was for her own safety.
If we could just get her to see it that way.
Gage rinsed out the big pot outside and set it back on the fire with water in it. We were waiting for it to boil so we could add the oatmeal and eat our breakfast
True to her word, there were tea bags. They would have to do, so we poured some of the hot water into plastic cups before we made oatmeal.
We talked as we waited, making small talk, catching up on what each one of us had been doing with our lives. If not for the dilapidated house, the plastic ties on her wrists and ankles, and the storm outside, we could have been three friends hanging out.
“So why exactly did we annoy you so much when we were growing up?” I asked her at one point.
“You guys were so…just…everything,” she said. She blushed and looked down at her cup of oatmeal, laughed and added, “I had a major crush on you guys at one point. Did you know that?”
“No!” Gage said leaning towards her with a grin, “Tell us more. Seriously?”
“Seriously. I was a hormonal teenager just like everybody else. And I noticed how hot you guys had gotten. I mean come on, you had muscles lik
e years before any other boys I knew. And then there was Diana, she was talking about you two so much I couldn’t help but take notice.”
“When was this though?” I asked, thinking back. “You hated us. And when you weren’t hating us, you were ignoring us or running away down here. I would have noticed if you liked us.”
“You would have never guessed,” she said with a sly smile, “I was good at hiding it.”
“You’re putting us on,” Gage insisted, “there’s no way.”
“It was around the eighth and ninth grades,” she said, “Remember? I stayed home for Christmas and summer holidays.”
“I do remember that,” I said slowly as it dawned on me. “You were extra friendly. I thought you were just trying to hook us up with Diana.”
“I was, kind of,” she replied, “I had some little school girl fantasy that the four of us would get married and live on a big ranch somewhere.”
She blushed again and I felt my chest tighten at her words. I hadn’t realized how attractive she was until she was opening up and showing us her vulnerable side.
“I guess it’s too late for that,” Gage said contemplatively. I glared at him, he looked up as he realized what he’d just said and apologized.
“No need,” Holly said, “I’m going to have to face it some time.”
I desperately searched for something to change the subject, so I looked around the house and asked, “Where was your room?”
“The one you found me in actually,” she said, “My parents took the big one at the front of the house, and the other smaller one was for younger siblings. If they ever had a chance to have them, that is.”
“What exactly happened?” Gage asked, “We always knew your dad wasn’t around, but nobody talked about it. I feel like a real heel, but I just assumed your parents were divorced.”
“He was killed,” she said, her face darkening again. I shot Gage a look to let him know he was an idiot, nice subject change…from dead friend to dead dad.
“Oh shit, murdered?” Gage asked, not catching my glare.
“No. He fell from his horse,” she said and looked at me, then Gage. “He was an amazing man,” she continued, looking down again, “He was breaking a stallion out in that field there. He was thrown and hit his head on a rock at just the right angle. Severed his spine and killed him instantly.”
Gideon & Gage, Book One Page 6