Identical Threat

by Tyler Anne Snell

  Was he stalking her?

  And, if so, why was he at Second Wind? He couldn’t have known they’d show up, right?

  It was driving Desmond crazy that he couldn’t get any answers.

  If not for him, at least for Riley.

  Declan gave up after it was clear Davies wasn’t going to say a word more. He kept his composure until he was in the viewing room. There he swore before he addressed them.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t get anything. Though I’m not surprised after what we now know about him. He’s good at keeping his mouth shut.” Riley didn’t tear her eyes away from the two-way mirror but Desmond watched her expression at Declan’s words. Her jaw tightened. “We’ll keep working this whole thing to see if we can’t find our own bread crumbs that can lead us somewhere that makes sense, but as for that jerk in there? We’re waiting out his lawyer who’s supposed to be here in the morning.”

  “What happens until then?” It was the first time Riley had spoken since the big reveal of her past. Desmond couldn’t claim to know her as well as the man she so clearly despised in the room across from them but he could tell something was off with her.

  Not surprising, considering.

  She sounded different.

  “He’ll go into one of our cells downstairs,” Declan answered. “We have enough to hold him for now.” Riley nodded, curt. “As for you two, you’re free to go. I just need to talk to Des about something really quickly.”

  “Would it be okay if I wait outside?” she asked, looking up at Desmond. “I could use some air.”

  “Yeah, sure.” He gave his brother a questioning look while passing Riley his keys. “I don’t think she needs to be alone right now,” he told Declan once Riley was out of earshot.

  “I know, but I didn’t want to say this in front of her.”

  Declan moved them to the wall, away from the closest deputy’s desk.

  “This doesn’t leave the room,” he prefaced. “You understand?”

  It was the sheriff talking.

  Desmond nodded.

  “Understood.”

  Declan didn’t whisper but he didn’t have his normal volume either.

  “Brett Calder is dead.”

  “What?” Desmond felt his eyebrows go sky-high. “How? I thought he was locked up?”

  “He was,” Declan confirmed. “And that’s where he was killed, by an inmate. A fight in the yard is what I’ve been told. When you called earlier, I was talking to the warden.”

  “The warden? Of Jones Correctional?” Desmond asked, doing fast math in his head. “Isn’t that an hour away?” There was no way Declan had gone out there considering his response time to Desmond’s second call from the construction site.

  “He came here.”

  “To tell you Brett Calder was killed,” Desmond deadpanned. That didn’t seem like normal protocol.

  “It wasn’t as much that he was killed as who he was killed by and what they found after.”

  “Okay...”

  Declan sighed.

  “A man with a scorpion tattoo killed him, and while trying to save him, the doctor on call found the same scorpion tattoo on Brett.”

  Desmond understood why he was being told the news in private now.

  Scorpion tattoos meant...

  “Brett was a Fixer?”

  Fixer wasn’t the official title of the up-and-coming criminal organization that was based out of Kilwin, but it was the easiest description of what the men and women with the scorpion tattoos did. They were contractors, hired by gangs and less-than-desirables to do the too-difficult jobs or the ones that were just too messy to risk. And, when all else failed, they seemed to be the best at fixing whatever their clients had done wrong.

  The Nash family knew of their existence thanks to two Fixers who had targeted Madi the year before at the behest of one very angry man.

  “My best guess is that he was a new recruit,” Declan said. “And not a good one at that. But I do think that the man who killed him was sent into that place to do just that. I think the Fixers took a hit out on him because of how public his attack on Riley was. Not to mention he was caught, not something that group looks kindly upon.”

  “The man Riley spoke to at the construction site, the one in the nice suit, you think he’s one of them?”

  The Fixers were also known for their business ensembles. Madi had been attacked by well-dressed men.

  “I’m not ruling it out, but Riley saw his face and he let her leave. He also didn’t take or destroy her phone after she dropped it.” Declan shrugged. “As morbid as it is to say, that concerns me. If he is a Fixer, I don’t know what the current job they’re running is but it can’t be good.”

  Desmond knew his brother didn’t mean he was concerned because Riley was okay. He was concerned because none of their pieces were matching up. They took a moment to scowl at one another, both lost in their own thoughts. Desmond found another question.

  “Why did the warden come to you? Couldn’t he have just called and told you?”

  Declan’s expression softened.

  “He’s an old friend of Dad’s. He knew that Brett had pushed the family back into the spotlight and correctly assumed his death would probably do it again, especially with the mention of the Fixers. He wanted to give me a heads-up in person.”

  Desmond couldn’t help but smile a little.

  “Dad’s been gone for years and still he finds ways to help us out.”

  Declan didn’t smile but he did agree.

  The conversation ended with promises to talk more in the morning after Davies’s lawyer came in. Declan gave Desmond a quick embrace, no doubt softened by the mention of their father, and disappeared into his office.

  The night air hit Desmond’s body as he pushed outside into the cold. He was surprised to see Riley leaning against the passenger’s-side door instead of sitting inside the truck. He liked walking out into the cold but he didn’t know if he would have been lounging in it. Riley turned her head toward him as he moved into the parking lot. She made no move to open the door. Desmond redirected from the driver’s side and stopped in front of her.

  He could smell lavender. He could also see she was chewing on saying something. Her brow was creased and her eyes had a cut to them. Desmond couldn’t tell what emotion she was dancing on.

  “You okay?”

  Riley nodded. Then she shook her head. Dark, enchanting eyes found his. When she spoke, Desmond felt like it was the only sound for miles.

  “I was happy, married and had a plan for the future. Then I blinked. Suddenly I was angry, divorced and just trying to hold on to some semblance of what my normal was. Then I blinked again and I was here, in Overlook. Happier, and then, the moment I started to think about making new plans, I became a victim. Then I was someone who was saved. But, I know I was lucky. It could have been so much worse and I promise I’m not upset about any of that. It was a speed bump on an already bumpy road so it wasn’t that big of a deal. But then? I blinked.” She shrugged. Her words were raw. “My ex-husband is in there because of God knows what he did. He shouldn’t be here. This is my new life. My new normal. He’s not supposed to be in that. And, Desmond, he’s a smart man. Resourceful and cunning when needed. What was he doing at the construction site? Who was the man in the suit? How am I going to tell Jenna any of this without bringing up all the bad stuff that happened? And did Davies do that to Marty? How was I married to him? What does that say about me?”

  Her words had quickened, her chest rising with an emotional cadence. Desmond acted on instinct. Riley’s cheek was smooth and cold against the palm of his hand. The space between them all but disappeared. He tilted her head up. Those beautiful eyes were glossed over with pain, fear, confusion.

  He knew the group well.

  “It says that you’re living your life the way it
should be lived,” he said with a genuine, if not small, smile. “It means you fell in love, you trusted, you took a chance, you survived, and now you have the luxury of questioning what the future may bring. Life was never meant to be easy, just as it is never promised that it would always be hard. We’ll figure out what’s going on. Together. I promise, okay?”

  Riley’s voice was soft but she nodded.

  “Okay.”

  “Okay,” he repeated.

  Desmond dropped his hand, but he didn’t step back.

  Instead he glanced at the painted red lips of Riley Stone.

  He didn’t have time for a lot of things, but a kiss? He could make time for that.

  However, those same lips he was imaging against his turned up into a smile. She was trying not to laugh. It earned a skeptical grin from him.

  “What?”

  “I was just thinking, you asked how I was and I didn’t really give a solid answer,” she said. “What I should have said was hungry. I’m guessing the Red Oak isn’t open after midnight, huh?”

  Desmond laughed. He finally put space between them again.

  “No, it’s definitely closed.” He held up his index finger. “But. If you’re up for it, I know someone who makes the best PB&Js this side of the Mississippi.”

  Riley’s eyebrow arced up, dangerously close to playful. It made Desmond regret their bodies no longer touching. To his surprise she nodded before he explained.

  “I’m in.”

  * * *

  DECLAN, CALEB AND his wife, Desmond’s mother and Desmond all lived full-time on the ranch at the end of Winding Road. Yet as they had driven down the paved road through the ranch, Riley hadn’t been able to tell.

  Everything was quiet. Peaceful.

  Now, sitting across from Desmond at his dining-room table, that feeling of contentment had come inside with them.

  “You weren’t kidding about the best peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches,” she said after finishing hers off. Desmond was working on his second one already. He shrugged.

  “What can I say? I am a man of specific talents.” He flashed her what Riley could only describe as a “winning” smile. It brightened the man; it brightened the room. It made her feel bright.

  “You know, you have the strangest way of making me feel better,” she blurted out. Instantly she felt heat in her cheeks. She hurried on. “What I mean is I get why everyone roots for you. You help people and seem to genuinely enjoy it.”

  Desmond waved off the compliment.

  “I’m only doing what anyone would in my situation.”

  Riley scoffed.

  “You have money, enough I feel like you could do whatever you wanted. Or, at least, very close to it.” She motioned to the house around them. “But here you are. Living a stone’s throw away from your mom and in a town you could have left and never come back to. What’s more, you didn’t have to start Second Wind. But you did. You must enjoy the work or just really enjoy the attention.”

  Desmond’s smile faltered.

  It softened Riley.

  “And I don’t think you Nashes have the luxury here to crave any attention,” she added on, gentle.

  “No, we get that in spades already.”

  Riley could have turned the conversational tide. She could have complimented his house—modern rustic, white, black, gray and wood and somehow perfect for the cowboy—or asked about the assortment of books she could see, or listened to an urge that had been simmering since he’d noticeably looked down at her lips outside the sheriff’s department and fly across the table and rock his world.

  Yet, she stayed the course, her curiosity finally too loud to ignore.

  “Why did you start Second Wind?”

  Chapter Twelve

  Desmond put his half-eaten sandwich down. Riley worried she’d overstepped but then his expression turned thoughtful. A clock somewhere in the house ticked off a rhythm. The heat had turned on when they’d first stepped through the front door. Both of their jackets were draped over the couch in the living room.

  And now Riley was going to learn another answer about the illustrious Desmond Nash.

  “When I was a kid I was given the unique perspective of living through a trauma,” he started. “To say it changed me is an understatement. It changed all of us Nashes. Even the town.” Riley tried to keep her face impassive but Desmond gave her a knowing look. “I’m assuming you’ve heard about the real reason everyone knows the Nash name around Overlook?”

  “I read about it during the coverage after what happened the night of the gala,” she admitted.

  Desmond didn’t seem at all bothered, or surprised, but Riley still felt shame heating her cheeks.

  “The Nash triplet abduction carries a fame all its own around here. The greatest unsolved mystery in Overlook. The tragedy that shook a community to its core. The family who was forever broken when three eight-year-olds sneaked out to the park alone. I’ve seen and heard several versions of the story, but there’s a few things the papers and gossip mill never got quite right.” He smiled but it disappeared quickly. “Madi’s scream when the man grabbed her with a gun in his hand is the worst sound I’ve heard to this day. Sometimes I still hear it when my dreams get bad. Caleb once said it was like the trees came alive long enough to scream with her. It’s a sound that will always, always haunt us.”

  Riley wanted to reach out but held off. Desmond was ramping up to a point. She just needed to hang on for the ride and listen.

  “They also usually mess up the next part. At least, I’ve heard several versions of what happened,” he continued. “What really happened was Madi fought back against the man. She took her tiny fist and hit his throat as hard as she could. Honestly, if she had been older, bigger, I think the move would have helped us. But, we were only eight so it just ticked him off. He pistol-whipped Madi, knocked her out cold and then he shot at Caleb and me. The bullet hit Caleb’s arm.” Riley gasped. That hadn’t been in the paper. Desmond touched his biceps. “It was just a graze but at the time all I saw was blood. So much of it. I just—” Up until then his voice had been consistent. He was telling a story in a concise and even way. Now, though, there was an invisible ripple that seemed to move across him.

  Tension hardened his shoulders. His jaw tightened. His nostrils flared. He took the smallest of moments to, well, she didn’t know what. But Riley let him be. She had already pushed as much as she was going to push.

  When Desmond was ready again there was no denying the anger in his words. Deep, boundless anger.

  “I lost it. Every part of me snapped. My family was in trouble. I had to help. Or at least try.” He shifted his leg under the table. The one with the limp. “We jumped on the man’s back but it wasn’t enough to do much damage. He threw me to the ground and stomped on my leg until it nearly shattered. After that, Caleb was the only one left standing. He made a decision. He wouldn’t escape, he wouldn’t fight. He’d instead do as the man said to stay with Madi and me. So, that’s how we ended up in the basement of Well Water Cabin.”

  The name bothered him.

  It bothered her and she wasn’t even a part of it.

  “The man kept us in the basement apartment for three days. He brought us food, only spoke to threaten us and then disappeared.”

  “Your leg was broken,” Riley had to reiterate. “Did that bother him?”

  Desmond shook his head. She could tell he was caught in the memory.

  “He didn’t seem bothered by any of it, but, then we initiated our plan and he seemed to care about that.”

  Riley couldn’t help but lean a little closer. Her heart hurt for the then children. For that to happen to anyone was terrifying but to be young children too? Riley wouldn’t wish that on anyone.

  “I was really sick by the third day. We all knew I needed help. And soon. We had to do something or we ran
the very real risk of me dying there. So we decided to pretend like I’d stopped breathing since I already looked like death as it was. Caleb and Madi cried and screamed and, I think, forgot that it wasn’t actually true. That I was alive. Regardless it was convincing. The man came in, bent over me to check my pulse, and then the triplet power kicked in.”

  On that he gave a small smile.

  “Triplet power?” she had to ask.

  “It’s what Declan called it. Basically everything after that became a blur for us. We acted as a unit, as a team. We weren’t three kids anymore, we were a hive mind. We overpowered the man, managed to lock the door behind us and escaped into the woods and found help. I went to the hospital and Caleb showed everyone where we had been held.”

  “And no one found the man.”

  “And no one found the man,” he repeated. “And no one found out why he’d done it in the first place or what the endgame had been. My father, a detective at the time, tried. He ran that case into the ground for years. His determination became an obsession. One that built up years and years of stress until it finally made his heart give out.”

  Riley shook her head, sorrow ringing through her for the man sitting across the table and all that he’d endured.

  Desmond surprised her with a chuckle.

  “So I guess my answer to your original question of why I started Second Wind is less lengthy.” The strain of the story started to fall away. He relaxed into his chair again. “We survived what happened but I realized that was only one part of the battle. To find life again, to live life again, was in some ways harder. After I got lucky from investments I’d made during college, I opened a series of nonprofits but realized as well-intentioned as I was, hiring experts and others who had the degrees and training to help was more in my wheelhouse. That’s when I had the idea to start a foundation that sought out nonprofits and groups who work with helping people who have lived through trauma and tragedy find new life again. A place that could help others help others.”