Stolen Heart: The Hearts of Sawyers Bend, Book One

by Layne, Ivy

  Griffen stood to shake Cole’s hand. “How did you know it was my car?”

  “Not many Maseratis in Sawyers Bend.”

  “Probably true,” Griffen agreed.

  The walk out to Cole’s Mercedes sedan was awkward, to say the least. His cool blue eyes rested on Griffen and myself for only moments, but they left me with the sense that he saw all the way to the bone.

  West was sharp and didn’t miss a detail, but underneath it, I always felt like he was on my side. On Griffen’s side. Not so with Cole Haywood. Cole was on Ford’s side. As he should be, considering he was Ford’s defense attorney. I guess I’d expected him to be comforting. He was anything but.

  We were pulling out of town when he spoke. “Harvey wouldn’t let me see all of Prentice’s will. He claimed aspects of it are confidential.” In the rearview, his glance landed on me before moving to Griffen. Again, I had the feeling he knew more than he should. More than anyone should.

  “Harvey was Prentice’s lawyer, not mine,” Griffen said, evenly. “But I can confirm that Prentice had written Ford out of the will.”

  “That’s what Harvey said. Only a few weeks before he was killed.”

  “You think he did it? Ford?” Griffen asked. I hated the tone in his voice. Distant. Cold. I couldn’t help remembering that he and Ford had once been like twins. The best of friends.

  “It’s not my job to decide if he did it. My job is to convince a jury that he didn’t.”

  “Do you think you can do that?” Griffen asked, and now his voice wasn’t cold. It was dangerous. For all his anger at his brother, Griffen believed wholeheartedly that Ford was innocent of killing Prentice.

  Cole shot a frustrated glance at Griffen before shaking his head. “I’m not a magician. West reviewed the evidence with you?”

  “He did.”

  “Then you know what we’re dealing with. Telling a jury that Ford is too smart to have hidden the murder weapon in his closet along with the shoes the murderer was wearing—that doesn’t sound like much, considering the prosecutor is going to bring up the fights, Ford being disinherited, and your father’s general assholery.”

  “And isn’t that your job?” Griffen asked tightly. “To make them believe it?”

  “Do you want to risk your brother’s life on that?”

  “Ford didn’t kill our father,” Griffen said.

  “You don’t know that,” Cole countered, annoyance breaking through his cool veneer. “Neither do I. And if we can’t know it, I can’t promise you that I can make a jury believe it. Not with the evidence stacked against him.”

  Griffen’s jaw tightened. He stared out the window in silence before saying, “Then what’s your plan? Are you just going to give up?”

  “Of course not. Not that it should matter, but I consider Ford a friend. I don’t want him rotting in prison for a crime I’m pretty sure he didn’t commit. But sometimes it’s not about innocent or guilty. Not when innocence looks like guilt. Not when insisting on that innocence could land him in prison for the rest of his life. Or worse, with a needle in his arm. My job is to look out for my client’s best interests.”

  “And those are?” The dangerous tone was back in Griffen’s voice. He didn’t like what Cole was saying any more than I did. Right and wrong, black and white, guilt or innocence. On paper, it seemed so clear-cut.

  Quietly, Cole said, “The prosecution is open to a plea.”

  “No fucking way. If he pleads guilty to murder it’ll follow him for the rest of his life.”

  “If he pleads innocent and he loses, the rest of his life will be spent behind bars. If he’s lucky and he has a rest of his life. The prosecutor is suggesting she’ll ask for the death penalty.”

  Griffen’s jaw went tight again. He focused on the trees flashing by outside the car and said nothing else. Not when we pulled into the parking lot at the county jail. Not when we went through security. Not when Cole turned to me and said, with an accusing look at Griffen, “Hope, you shouldn’t come in. Why don’t you wait here? We won’t be long.”

  I slipped my hand into Griffen’s and squeezed tight. “I’ll stay with Griffen, but thanks. Don’t worry about me.”

  Cole shook his head and turned to the visiting room. I kept my eyes straight ahead, very aware of Griffen’s fingers wrapped around mine. He hadn’t let go. He was holding onto me with everything he had. I wished I could blink my eyes and spirit us anywhere else.

  I don’t know what I expected to see when Ford walked into the room. That Ford had changed, I guess. That he was pale and thinner. Whatever I expected, it wasn’t what I got. The door to the sparse, concrete block room opened and Ford walked through, looking just like he always did, except wearing an orange jumpsuit instead of a suit.

  I definitely didn’t expect how odd it was to see him in the same room with Griffen. I’d forgotten how much they looked alike. Ford’s hair was dark brown to Griffen’s sandy blond, but otherwise, they could have been twins.

  I must have blocked out how much Ford reminded me of Griffen for all those years we worked together after Griffen left.

  Seeing them face each other across the metal table, my heart ached for all they’d lost. Ford had screwed Griffen over, no question. Griffen had a right to his anger. But I knew that Ford regretted it. Knew he’d missed his older brother. And, knowing Ford, I wasn’t surprised he had too much pride to show it now that they were face to face.

  Ford sat, resting his chained hands on the metal table in front of him. “Did you come to gloat?”

  Griffen said nothing, just stared at his brother in silence and waited. For what, I didn’t know.

  Ford turned his hard gaze to me. “Hope. What the hell are you doing here? What was Edgar thinking letting you visit the county jail?”

  “Don’t talk to her like that,” Griffen said.

  Ford leaned back, a sneer distorting his mouth. “Oh, so it’s like that. You have plenty of forgiveness for Hope, but nothing for the rest of us?”

  “Hope doesn’t need forgiveness. She didn’t do anything wrong,” Griffen said, his eyes as hard as Ford’s.

  I blinked, sure I’d misheard him. Did he have temporary amnesia? Everyone in this room knew what I’d done. Griffen most of all.

  “Right,” Ford said, giving me a look of confusion before he aimed one of disgust at Griffen. “Because I remember her torpedoing your engagement and getting you thrown out of town—”

  Griffen’s eyes were ice, but his voice was calm. “Funny you remember it that way. Because I remember you selling me out to Dad, marrying my fiancée, and cheering Dad on as he threw me out of my home. And then I remember the bunch of you blaming the whole thing on a teenager who told a secret. A big secret, sure, but Hope made one bad decision. That doesn’t stack up next to what you and Dad did. So, let’s just drop this story of Hope being the bad guy in that scenario.”

  Both Ford and I stared at Griffen in shock. When had he decided I wasn’t the bad guy?

  The idea wouldn’t fit in my brain. I’d been the villain in this story for so long. Was Griffen just trying to needle Ford, or did he really believe what he’d said? I was afraid to trust that he might have forgiven me.

  Griffen rolled a shoulder back as if shrugging off the past like an old coat. “I didn’t come here to talk about ancient history. I’m not the same boy who walked out of Sawyers Bend fifteen years ago. None of us are the same. I don’t care about all that. I care about now. What are we going to do to get you out of here?”

  I don’t think I’d seen Ford show so much emotion in years. He was usually so in control, so calm and even-tempered. Now, his eyes flared wide with shock yet again.

  Before he could speak, Cole cut in. “The judge refused to grant bail.”

  Ford shot an annoyed look at his lawyer. Eyes back on Griffen, he said, “You don’t think I did it.”

 
“I know you didn’t do it.”

  “How? Because you did?”

  At that, Griffen laughed. “I wouldn’t waste my time killing Prentice. He got all of me he was going to get years ago. And I have a rock-solid alibi.”

  “Do you have an extra? Because I could use one.”

  They shared a grin, and for a millisecond I shot back into the past when these two men had been boys who grinned at each other exactly like that ten times a day. All too soon the moment ended.

  “Don’t enter a plea,” Griffen said. “Not yet. Prentice has only been dead a week. West hasn’t been able to find anything new, but let me look around. Investigations aren’t my specialty, but I used to work with the best. I’ll get someone down here to dig up something Cole can use—”

  “The clock is ticking,” Cole said from where he leaned against the wall. “The prosecutor isn’t going to leave the plea deal open forever. And once it’s gone— The rest of your life is a lot to gamble with.”

  Ford looked away.

  “It’s been a fucking week,” Griffen growled at Cole. “A week. We need more time.”

  Cole shook his head. “You don’t get it. This is an open and shut case. It doesn’t matter if he did it. What matters is they have a mountain of evidence against Ford and this is a high-profile case. Have you thought about the optics? Ford Sawyer, heir to billions, murders his father in an attempt to take control of the Sawyer empire and gets caught in the act. It’s a miracle the town isn’t overrun with news vans right now. If your father hadn’t been so insistent on privacy, kept the Sawyer name out of the papers, they’d be here already. A case like this will make the prosecutor’s career. She can’t wait to put him on the stand and make him look like an entitled, rich asshole who thought he could get even more by killing his father.”

  “I didn’t kill my father!” Ford shouted, slamming his hands on the table, the chains clattering against the metal.

  “It doesn’t fucking matter,” Cole roared back. “She’s going to destroy you, Ford. She’ll drag up the past—you conspiring to get Griffen disinherited and stealing his fiancée. Gradually taking over more and more of the family business. It shows long-range planning. You got rid of the original heir, edged out your other siblings, and when the time was right, you took out your father so you could have it all.”

  Ford opened his mouth, but Cole cut him off. “Shut the fuck up. Unless you can hand me a single piece of evidence that disproves the prosecution’s case, then just shut the fuck up. I’m not here to defend your honor, you asshole. I’m here to save your life.”

  “They’re not going to give him the death penalty,” Griffen said.

  “And you know that for sure? You can guarantee it? Because that’s what the prosecutor wants. I’ll give it everything I have to get her to back down to life in prison, but goddamn it, Ford, is that what you want? Life in prison? Is your honor worth giving up your future?”

  Griffen took a deep breath. I wanted to take his hand again, to offer comfort, but I didn’t like the way Ford was looking at us.

  “Give me three weeks,” Griffen said, reaching across the table to his brother. “Three weeks. If my guy can’t find anything, then we can reconsider. We’ve got a lot of shit between us, but you’re my brother. I’m not going to give up on you. Don’t give up on yourself.”

  Ford stared across the table, examining Griffen for an endless minute before shrugging a shoulder. “Why the hell not? It’s not like I’m going anywhere.”

  “Ford,” Cole cautioned.

  “Three weeks,” Griffen said, ignoring Cole’s scowl.

  “Three weeks,” Ford agreed.

  Cole barely spoke to us on the ride back to town. I didn’t know anything about criminal law, but I’d always thought these things took forever to get to trial. Why was he in such a rush to get Ford to plead guilty? He was known as one of the best—Prentice had always joked that if he ever got caught he’d want Cole Haywood on his side.

  Caught at what, I didn’t want to know.

  Maybe Cole didn’t want a high-profile loss on his record. He’d said there would be media coverage. Was he trying to avoid coming out the loser?

  Cole dropped us off at the police station with only, “I’ll be in touch,” as a goodbye. That was fine; I think Griffen and I were both tired of hearing what Cole had to say.

  We retrieved the black forest cake from J.T. and headed back to Heartstone Manor. It was late afternoon, and we’d both missed lunch. I was about to suggest texting Savannah to ask for a snack when we pulled up to the end of the drive, right at the point where we could continue straight to the courtyard in front of the house or turn left to drive around through the porte-cochère to the garages.

  We’d been parking in the garage for the last few days, an easy choice, considering they were one of the only places in the house in good condition. And an easier choice just then considering the cars that crowded the front courtyard.

  It looked like Griffen’s siblings had finally come home. I glanced over at Griffen, saw the fatigue drawn on his face. “Why don’t we forget work for the rest of the day? You were saying earlier you needed to go for a run. I’ll cover for you. Go change and get out of here for a little bit. Clear your head before you have to face dinner with the family.”

  Relief washed through his eyes, but he shook his head. “I’m not abandoning you to my family.”

  “I have to live with them, Griffen, and I know your family. At this point, probably better than you do. Anyway, I wasn’t exactly going to mingle. I thought I’d see if Savannah needed any help getting everyone settled, and if she didn’t, I’d hide in our room until dinner.”

  Griffen’s green eyes warmed. He reached up and rubbed the back of his fingers across my cheek. “I’m a lucky bastard, you know that? I don’t deserve you.”

  “Maybe not, but you’re stuck with me anyway. Now go, get some fresh air. Shut your brain off for a while.”

  He leaned in and pressed a hard kiss to my mouth before parking in his spot and heading into the house. We went our separate ways, me looking for Savannah while Griffen peeled off up the back staircase to change and escape Heartstone Manor. Just for a little while.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Griffen

  My feet thudded on the gravel in a familiar rhythm that set my mind at ease. It was March in the mountains. Cold and damp, the sun already dropping in the sky though it wasn’t yet five o’clock.

  I didn’t care about the cold or the damp. How did Hope still know me so well? I’d needed this. The fresh air in my lungs, the solitude. I felt guilty leaving her at the house, though not guilty enough to stay. I hoped she didn’t regret her suggestion.

  I was still reeling from seeing Ford. It had been like looking in a mirror. All these years apart, and somehow, I’d imagined he’d changed, imagined he’d look as much like a stranger as he felt. I’d been wrong.

  I needed to call Cooper, see if he could send someone down to look into things a little more. I understood West when he said his hands were tied. I didn’t blame him, but Ford was my brother. He hadn’t killed our father.

  I couldn’t stand the idea he’d serve time for a murder he didn’t commit. Part of me hated him, but only a part. He was still my brother, and while he hadn’t looked changed by his week in jail, decades in prison would turn him into another person. I didn’t want that for him. How could I?

  At the end of the long drive to Heartstone Manor, I turned right, heading up the mountain, further away from town. My legs and lungs burned. I ran hills in Atlanta on a regular basis, but Atlanta hills had nothing on the mountains. Maybe I wouldn’t get out of shape living here after all.

  The rumble of an engine sounded behind me, growling up the mountain, drawing close faster than I would’ve expected. The turns were tight up here. Most people took it slow. I glanced over my shoulder, realizing twiligh
t had set in while I’d been focused on my burning quads. In the shadows, I’d be difficult to see. I should have grabbed my reflective jacket, but I hadn’t bothered. I’d just wanted to get the hell out of the house and clear my head.

  I slowed down and moved to the uneven gravel on the side of the road. The road opened up ahead, giving the truck a wide sightline and plenty of room to hit the gas and pass me by.

  It didn’t. The rumble of the engine slowed and the truck drifted to the edge of the road, the tires crunching gravel as it drew closer. Closer.

  Another glance over my shoulder. In the shadows of twilight, it was too dark to see who was at the wheel. Not short. Not wide. Other than that, it could have been anyone.

  When that anyone slammed their foot on the gas and barreled straight for me, the revving engine a roar in my ears, I didn’t have to think. I dove off the side of the mountain, catching myself with my hands and rolling, letting the rocks and fallen trees beat me to a pulp. Better the rocks and trees than getting flattened by a pickup truck.

  The screech of brakes penetrated through the crack of tree limbs and the thud of my head on the dirt. Deliberately, I kept my limbs loose, not fighting gravity, using my arms to protect my head and neck. The incline was steep enough to keep me moving but not so steep that I was plummeting dangerously fast.

  I weighed the risks. What was worse, slamming into a rock or tree trunk the wrong way or stopping myself while I was still in view of the truck?

  Whoever had been driving had planned to hit me. That much was clear. If they’d come with the intent to kill me, they’d be armed. The light was bad, and I was shielded by trees, but I wasn’t going to bet my life on my would-be murderer having bad aim.

  A spray of gravel, the squeal of tires, and the truck took off—as far as I could tell. I slowed my descent, rolling to a stop at the base of a narrow pine tree.

  Fuck. Once upon a time, I’d known these mountains like the back of my hand.

  Once upon a time was a long fucking time ago. I’d left my phone back at the house, just wanting quiet for my run. Stupid. Stupid and careless. My father was dead, and his killer was still out there somewhere. I couldn’t afford to be stupid and careless.