Gage grinned and followed Riley, knowing what was ahead.
A small room past the door acted as a mudroom and matched the exterior of the house—lilting floor and all. But through the next door lay a transformation—a small, open living area with perfectly square walls.
Maverick gestured toward a sofa and a couple of chairs. “Have a seat. Can I get you anything?”
Riley sat on one end of the sofa, still looking a bit shell-shocked.
“I’ve got it.” Gage followed Maverick to the open kitchen on the other side of the large room. “Between you and me,” Gage said in a low voice, “how bad is it?”
Maverick crossed his arms and leaned against the counter. “It’s not good. Riley is wanted for questioning in two murders.”
“Can’t say I’m surprised about that. I know she didn’t kill the sheriff, though. I was right there when it happened. Is she a suspect?”
“The body was found locked in her house. I’d say they’re pretty damn interested in her story. What about the other murder? William Lawton.”
“Billy. She didn’t do it. Have they picked him up yet?”
“They’re taking care of him. I’m sorry for your loss.”
Gage opened the fridge and managed to stop short of grabbing a beer. He swore and pressed his forehead to the cool metal. The demons he thought long buried were circling. He thought of Riley, and his arms already felt empty without her.
God help him if the truth came out now.
Turning to Maverick, he asked, “You got anything to eat? We only had a few bucks between us and spent it at the thrift store. Didn’t want to leave a plastic trail.”
Maverick raised a brow. “Yeah, go sit down and I’ll see what I can find.” He dropped a hand on Gage’s shoulder and leaned closer. “Have you talked to her about…”
Gage glanced at Riley and his heart twisted, pushing bitterness into his throat. “Assume she doesn’t know a thing, and let’s plan on keeping it that way.” Ignoring the surprise on Maverick’s face, Gage swiped a couple of water bottles from the fridge and crossed the room to join Riley on the sofa. He handed her a drink and accepted an uncertain smile in return.
Relaxing into the cushions, he propped his feet on the coffee table and rolled some of the stiffness out of his injured shoulder. Even though he sat inches from Riley, they might have been miles apart. He and Riley had been so in sync the night before, but the cold light of reality had a way of usurping passion. His part in the deaths of her parents had been hurdle enough, but now, instead of having two bodies between them, there were four.
His pity party came to an unexpected end when she reached for his hand and laced her fingers through his. “Interesting place,” she murmured.
He turned his head to look at her. “Yeah, ol’ Maverick is just full of surprises. Let’s just hope he’s about out of them for the day, because he’s about to brief us.”
“Nope, gotta admit you’ve stumped me on this one, Gage.” Maverick walked past them and dropped in a chair. “I just put a frozen pizza in the oven. Meanwhile, we’ve got some catching up to do. Your guy Colt Beckett—Riley’s brother—is laid up in an extended care rehab facility. He’s been there for about nine months following a three-month stint in the hospital. I’m not sure what you expected me to dig up on him, but it wasn’t much. He’s paralyzed from the neck down and not responding to therapy.”
Riley’s hand tightened, but her expression gave nothing away.
“As for how that fits with the rest of this, you’re going to have to help me out. The bullets they found with Billy are purported to belong to Riley’s gun—based on the rare caliber, I’m told, but they expect ballistics to be an easy match.”
Gage sat up straight. “They found the gun?”
Maverick shook his head. “Nope. They’ve got bullets on display at the Town Hall. Some heritage thing.”
Riley nodded. “I’d forgotten about that. The rifle is rare and has some significance in the town’s history. As far as anyone knows, my dad had the only one around. There is a whole display there—photographs, bullets, news clippings…it’s a big deal.”
Maverick pushed his fingers through his hair, rousing the strands to renewed attention. “That makes a little more sense. And after your father died, the gun was yours?”
Riley’s hand curled tighter. “I inherited it, yes.”
Gage cleared his throat. “When I, uh, brought the situation to her attention, we found it missing from the safe. Whoever took it had the combination.”
Maverick frowned. “Did you report it?”
“We might have mentioned it to Sheriff Burke had he not been shot dead on the doorstep,” Gage said.
Maverick’s expression took a turn toward that sorry-I-asked appearance he so often wore around Gage. “Is this the part where you ran?”
“No, this is the part where I had a close encounter with a bullet. Then we ran.”
Maverick pinched the bridge of his nose and then drew his hand over his jaw. “Well, if it’s the same gun, they’ll know it pretty fast. All they need to do is compare the bullets from the bodies to the ones on display. Proving who pulled the trigger is another story. It probably won’t surprise you to know my source with Barefoot law enforcement is a bit hard to get in touch with in light of the sheriff’s death. Everyone is riding a mean streak of paranoia, but I can’t say I blame them. I can tell you, Riley, they’re looking for you. And Gage, if you decorated the crime scene with any fingerprints, you’ll make that list as well.”
Gage went limp against the sofa cushion. Of course he had. He’d touched the safe, in fact, and knew it wouldn’t be a stretch for someone to claim he’d been the one to “borrow” the gun.
Maverick drew to his feet. “If I’m to judge anything from your expression, I’d have to say you’re screwed. Am I close?” Without waiting for an answer, he headed for the kitchen. The oven squeaked open and slammed shut, sending the smell of pizza wafting across the room. “The one thing I’m not quite following,” he called, “is what Colt Beckett has to do with this. He hasn’t moved from that bed in months. They tried physical therapy early on, but he refused to cooperate and as far as anyone can tell he hasn’t made any effort toward rehabilitation, not that they expect he’ll be able to regain use of his arms or legs. How could he possibly be involved? I mean, no one has called or visited him since he left the hospital for residential care.”
No one had called or visited Colt in the last nine months? Stunned, Gage cast a sharp look in Riley’s direction, his heart drumming in his chest. Riley had dumped him on Colt’s insistence. Because Colt knew Gage had driven the truck that ripped his world to shreds and shattered his dreams. Because she said she had no choice. She owed it to Colt. Family loyalty. A broken heart.
All the reasons she’d set Gage free. Kept him out of jail, ordered him out of her life. Let him live, even though he knew damn well she had died inside.
But to abandon Colt? He’d like to hear about that. Apparently Gage wasn’t the only one with secrets. But he could deal with her secrets. What he couldn’t live with was knowing his lies could have cost Riley her life.
Or that they might have led to murder.
Chapter Six
“I need to know what’s going on with you and Colt.”
Startled, Riley looked up to see Gage filling the doorway. His head tipped so his hair fell forward across his face, giving her the kind of view that made a girl think of sex. Or remember it. Tingles shot through her with the phantom feel of his hair brushing her face, of her fingers clutching the strands as they drifted between her thighs.
But if he shared her thoughts, there was nothing to indicate it. He leaned against the doorframe without expression, his brooding demeanor stealing half the square footage from the room.
She sighed. “You want to sit down? All of that hulking isn’t conducive to conv
ersation.”
He snorted. “And you think me joining you on a bed will be?”
She didn’t bother admitting he had a point. She was camped out for the night at Maverick’s in a room that might have been a hallway in a former life. Scarcely wider than the twin bed running its length, the space lacked everything but a place to sleep and a shelving unit. But despite outward appearances, the walls weren’t falling around her, and for that she was grateful.
For the lack of seating, less so.
She tried to swallow the bitterness in her throat, but it only seemed to spread. “What do you want to know?”
“We can start with why you haven’t been to visit him in over nine months.”
She traced an abstract line across the bed covering. “More like eleven,” she said, her voice low.
Gage shifted, but didn’t speak.
Most of the fight left in her fled. His life had changed almost as much as hers had, and he deserved to know the truth. “Where do you want me to begin?”
She raised an eyebrow, allowing a second for the response she knew wasn’t coming. “Colt fell into a coma after the accident, but not before Elizabeth dumped him.” Riley paused, still grappling with the ice-cold nerve of the woman who claimed to love her brother. Elizabeth left before he was even out of surgery. She told Riley to have Colt call her when he was back on his feet, but Riley hadn’t bothered to pass along the message. “He was devastated. He begged me to stay with him because I was all he had left.”
The moment wasn’t an easy one to relive, especially once she realized she’d never confided in anyone before. No one knew the whole story—until now, the tale existed in the bits and pieces delivered by doctors and nurses. She’d lost touch with her friends when she dropped everything to follow Colt to a trauma center outside of Barefoot and then to the hospital in Tehcotah. No one seemed to know what to say to her. Her life had been ripped from normalcy and tossed into the world of sterile halls and sympathetic looks from one medical team after another. She hadn’t blinked at the loneliness, hadn’t stopped to consider how it could have been different.
“I was angry, Gage. I blamed you because you were driving, but I knew it was an accident. I heard them at the scene. I heard them say you must have been drunk. Everyone just stood around shaking their heads, saying how you had finally gone and killed someone.”
“I remember,” he said. “And you believed in me.”
She looked at him, tears threatening. “You promised me you were done.”
He shook his head and stared at the far corner of the room. “No one ever bothered to believe my promises before.”
The sorrow in his voice hurt her more than anything had in a long time. “I loved you. Of course I believed you.”
His gazed returned to her face, something dark and terrible lurking just below the surface. “I don’t think they cared I wasn’t drunk. By the time they did the BAC and didn’t find a drop of alcohol in my system, they figured it had been too long. In fact, your buddy Dawson figured it to my face, the smug little bastard. He said all he needed was one witness to me drinking that day and I’d spend the rest of my life in jail. I didn’t need to look twice at my reputation to believe him. But I didn’t spend a minute behind bars, Riley. I’ve always wondered about that.”
Riley fumbled with the blanket, rolling the thin material between her fingers. “I guess he never found his one witness.”
Gage looked at her with an intensity that suggested he had his own opinion about that situation.
He’d just have to have it. She wasn’t ready to talk about Dawson.
She straightened. “Anyway, to answer your question, Colt came out of his coma about a month after the accident. As soon as he found out I ‘took your side’ as he put it, he demanded I leave.”
Gage raised a brow.
“I didn’t believe he meant it. I thought he just needed to cool off, but he got agitated enough to set off the machines—the ones monitoring his vitals—so I left the room to give us both some time. When I came back, the nurses stopped me. Said if I went any further, they’d call security.”
After a long moment, Gage spoke. “So that was that? You haven’t talked to him since? No communication?”
She snorted. “He couldn’t exactly pick up the phone or write a letter—”
“So you let it go? What if he wants to reconcile?”
“He doesn’t.” And the hurt hadn’t faded. She called the rehab facility every week for an update on Colt, to ask if he’d shown any improvement. Every week she asked if he would be willing to see her. Every week the news was the same: no on both counts.
“Okay,” Gage said, his voice softer. “What about the bill? How is that taken care of?”
“Life insurance. I mail them a check each month.” And I don’t know what I’ll do when the money runs out. “He really doesn’t want anything to do with me. There’s nothing—”
She stopped talking when Gage left the doorway and settled next to her on the bed. “I am so sorry you lost him. If I could change anything….” He stared deep into her eyes, his own dark and pained. “I’d change it all, you know I would.”
She opened her mouth to say it was okay, but was it? Would she ever feel whole again? But she didn’t get a chance to say a word. A booming knock echoed through the Spartan room, Maverick’s voice on its heels.
“Gage,” he said. “Get out here. Now.”
As much as Gage cherished hearing Riley say she loved him, the past tense of her declaration bothered him—to the point of distraction, a tidbit he discovered when he ran over Maverick in the hall.
“Dammit, Gage.” Maverick bounced off a closed door, glaring.
“Sorry.” Gage retreated a step and waited while Maverick punched in his security code. Then Gage followed Maverick into the basement, a sprawling room where he kept his “spy gear” as Gage called the equipment. Although Maverick’s primary business was body guarding, intelligence was a big part of keeping his high-profile clients safe. Between tracking the bad guys and keeping tabs on his own people, Maverick’s gadget inventory was much more of a necessity than Gage first thought. Time and time again, those computers and whatchamacallits had saved his ass.
“You gonna tell her the truth?” Maverick asked.
Gage cocked an eyebrow. Maverick wasn’t one to meddle, and he picked a bad time to start. “I think I’ve hurt her enough.”
“You want to move forward with this, Lawton, you’re going to have to tell her the truth.”
Gage sighed. “Who said anything about moving forward?”
“You love her. You can’t tell me you don’t want something with her if she’s willing. Tell her the truth before this goes any further. You might lose her, but you can’t keep that inside forever. Don’t hurt her more than you have to. She deserves the truth—at least give her that while she decides what to do with your sorry ass.”
Gage glared wordlessly, his jaw set.
To Maverick’s credit, he changed the subject without awaiting an answer. “Remember I told you no one had visited Colt in the rehab facility?” he asked, rounding the nearest desk. He sat in front of a computer and repositioned the monitor so Gage could see the screen.
Did he ever. “Yeah.”
“He did have a frequent guest before he left the hospital. Rigby. Uh…Tom Rigby. Know the name?”
Gage frowned, trying to force his mind back to times he’d long written off. “No, it doesn’t ring a bell. How frequent?”
“Very. Started with a phone call about six weeks after the accident.”
“They track phone calls in a hospital?” Gage asked with blatant skepticism.
Maverick shrugged. “This guy made himself memorable. Always called at the same time. Talked sweet to the desk nurse.”
The frown deepened. “So? I still don’t get why anyone would remember a few
phone calls. They must get hundreds.”
“Would you let me finish? Anyway, he wanted to go in after visiting hours. Insisted on it.”
“Which is a piss-poor way to stay under the radar.”
“Agreed. After a week, Tom had the nurse looking the other way. He visited every night—or every night she was on shift, at least—for about two weeks. Then he took a break and didn’t show up again until a couple of nights before Colt moved to rehab.”
“And?”
Maverick stretched and cupped his hands behind his head. “And it stopped. Well, obviously the hospital visits stopped, but no one contacted Colt in rehab either.”
Gage drummed his fingers on the desk, wishing Maverick would get to the point. “Any idea what the secret meetings were about?”
“All I know is they supposedly met through some sort of counseling thing. A support group, maybe?”
“Wait. What? Colt went to counseling? As a quadriplegic?” The idea struck Gage as absurd at first—insensitive ass as he was, all he could picture were rows of gurneys in a conference room—but the more he considered it, the more it made sense.
“I’m sure they can do something while they’re in the hospital. I don’t know. I imagine it’s very much tailored to the individual’s need. But in Colt’s case, they had a psychologist on board because he faced so many changes all at once, losing his parents and his mobility in one night.”
And his sister and fiancée. “Still getting this from the nurse?”
“Yeah. Apparently the psychologist introduced Tom and Colt. Sort of a survivor’s thing.”
Gage frowned. “If their meeting was on the up and up, then why the late night secrecy?”
“Good question. And here’s another one. Nothing I dig up on Tom gives any indication as to how he fits with a rehab program.”
“Meaning?”
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