by Jillian Neal
“Twelfth birthday?”
“Holy fuck.”
“If my brother molested my kid I’d do a whole fucking lot more than throw him off my ranch,” Griff snarled.
“You and me both.”
“So, that’s what happened. This is the land they took away. Is he who we’re looking for?”
“Seems like it. Sketchy details on everything but the dates though. They didn’t exactly take land from anyone. It already belonged to the Camdens.”
“It makes sense though. Ev gave Brock back the land that was originally willed to his sperm donor a few years ago. Who knows if Michael is even still alive?”
“I can find that out from Lincoln.”
“A’s gonna want harder evidence than this. You know how he is about taking shaky intel.”
“Yeah, but this is it. I can feel it.”
“I’d feel better if we had something more substantial.”
The sound of a siren outside had both men standing and making their way to the front windows. T’s heart hammered out a frantic warning. A police car from the next town over flew past the courthouse, never even slowing down. He let himself breathe again. Before he returned to the paperwork, something caught his eyes. “We’re both from small towns, right?”
“Don’t remind me.” Griff rolled his eyes.
“Someday, I want to know what the fuck happened to you that made you so surly. Right now, think back. If anything of any significance happened where you grew up, where’s the first place people went to find out about it?”
Griff began methodically placing papers back into the files they’d come from. “The newspaper,” he finally stated.
T pointed to a diminutive office beside the library across the street labeled The Pleasant Glen Gazette. “Don’t you think the wealthiest family in town, the one with the most land and, hell, probably the most kids, being broken up would’ve made the papers?”
“I’d say it’s a safe bet. Guess it’s too much to hope there’s an online archive.”
“You’re dreaming. Google News is not saving stories from the Pleasant Glen Gazette. Trust me. But I’ll bet they’re on film in that newspaper office and I know there will be a microfiche machine in the library.”
“They don’t have metal detectors in their courthouse but they have a microfiche.”
“The ways of the small town, my friend. It’s kind of nice.”
“We clearly have different definitions of nice and you know my rule. I only break into two buildings in one night,” Griff chuckled.
“But you’ll bend that for Triple A.”
“Yeah, all right let’s clean this up and I’ll figure out how to get into the library and the newspaper office.”
Fifteen minutes later, T was keeping watch while Griff silently picked the lock on the library door. It was a safe bet there was an interior door between the library and the newspaper offices, but there was only one entrance into the Pleasant Glen Library and it was front and center on Main Street.
T gave two low deliberate whistles. Their sign for hurry it the fuck up. Griff huffed in response. When he coughed, T left his position, stuck to the shadows outside the streetlights, and met Griff on the porch.
Griff pointed to a sign beside the door as they eased inside. Pleasant Glen Library Hours 9:00–7:00 Wednesdays and Saturdays Head Librarian: Hope Camden.
“Brock’s wife is the librarian? Maybe we should do a little more checking in here besides just making use of the microfiche.”
“I love how you seem to think the sun isn’t coming up in a few hours. I keep telling you we don’t have all night.” Griff stalked quickly to a door on the side wall between shelves lined with books.
“Hey, I was right about there being an interior door to the newspaper office,” T reminded him. “So, in a way, you are only breaking into two buildings in one night.”
“Want me to get you a Skittle?”
“Red’s my favorite,” T goaded.
“Dude, shut the fuck up and hand me my jack knife. Everyone knows purple’s the best.”
A half-second later, the door to the newspaper office gave a loud pop and opened. T and Griff both cringed and stood deathly still to make certain no one had heard the door. The seconds ticked by. Nothing happened.
Griff eased inside the office and gestured for T to follow.
T shook his head. “You pull the archives for the month of September 2000. I’m going to find the machine.”
Twenty long minutes later, Griff returned. His hands were full of film. “I don’t think there’s anything on these. I tried looking at them with the light on my phone.”
“You can’t see anything that way. I put the microfiche in the bathroom. Only place where we can turn it on without lighting the whole place up.”
“There aren’t windows in the bathroom?” Griff tilted his head right and left, popping an imaginary crick out of his neck. Something T had seen him do dozens of times, always when he was nervous. T knew Griff had been taken once, before he was with Team Seven. He didn’t know what had happened to him, but he knew Griff didn’t care for being in tight places with no way out.
“There are windows against the ceilings. If we keep the microfiche on the floor the little bit of light will blend in with the moonlight.”
“Let’s just get this done. I don’t like this place.”
They made quick work of setting up and started going through film. The Camden name would pop up often, but nothing of any significance. Natalie had won a horseback riding competition. Austin was calf riding at a local rodeo. Brock and Luke were working on some kind of 4-H project.
They moved on to the week of Natalie’s birthday. The Camden name was oddly missing from every paper published that week. The following week was the same.
“Something not being here isn’t evidence,” Griff sighed.
“Nope. It isn’t. Weird though.”
“Agreed. Hang on I want to grab a few more rolls. I want to know when the Camdens returned to the papers.” Griff slipped the rolls they’d been through back into their canisters and headed toward the newspaper file room.
T slipped back into the library. Heading to what had to have been Hope Camden’s desk, he picked up a picture of two toddlers in a silver frame. There was a wedding photo of Brock and Hope’s wedding and another of Brock with one of their sons on his shoulders. Looked like a stand-up guy but pictures could be deceiving.
He slid open the desk drawer and extracted a few file folders. Book orders and paperwork on some kind of book donation drive. Nothing out of the ordinary for a library. But there under the folders was a letter.
“I knew there’d be something in here,” T spoke to the ether. There was no return address but the postmark was from Wilmington, North Carolina.
The envelope had already been opened, the letter already read. Keeping his Taclight between this teeth, T opened the letter.
Boisterous laughter filled the silent night. “Fuck.” T slipped the letter in his jacket and darted for the bathroom. The front door banged against its casing. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” Hoisting the microfiche into his arms, he bolted through the library and shoved it back on the low shelf where he’d found it.
Griff knew the protocol if they were ever interrupted. Quickest means of escape. Phone call an hour later.
Returning to the bathroom, T climbed up on a toilet and slid one of the ancient windows lining the low ceiling to the side. Using his massive upper body strength, he hoisted himself up to the ledge and wiggled back and forth trying to squeeze himself through the small opening.
The front door of the library burst open and another round of female laughter made its way to his ears. Whoever she was she had male accompaniment.
Fuck. The glass panel of the window popped. Glass shattered.
“What was that?” The male asked.
Double fuck.
It was already broken. Maneuvering his knee upward, T kicked it out giving himself ample room to escape. His boo
ts hit the hard dry dirt a second later. The shock of his calf trying to absorb the impact brought him to his knees.
Pain seared up his leg all the way to his groin. Bile shot to his throat. You’re a fucking Green Beret. Get up. Gripping the brick building, he tried to pull himself upright. His leg protested. Clenching his jaw, T took two deep breaths and tried again. This time his managed to stand. Steadying himself, he knew running wasn’t going to be an option so he limped toward the tree line twenty yards away.
Sirens blared. Red and blue lights were far too close for comfort. Not running was no longer an option. Gasping through the pain, he raced farther into the woods praying Griff had gotten out.
CHAPTER TWENTY
“This was so much fun. Thank you for bringing me out here.” Natalie knew she was gushing but it had been the most perfect date she could ever have fathomed. She’d dreamed so many times about being a normal woman who went on dates with Aaron Weber like it was no big deal. Tonight, she’d done just that.
He was having fun too. She could tell.
“You’re so damned beautiful.” Intensity was once again alive in his eyes as he stared at her in the lights of the Midway. His right hand gently cradled her face. His thumb traced along her cheekbone. She loved when he did that and couldn’t quite catch her breath. Her stomach leapt to her throat and then bottomed out and tumbled toward her feet. His touch was better than every single roller coaster they’d ridden.
“I am not,” she scoffed. “I don’t even wear makeup, just Chapstick.”
“You don’t need makeup. And I know you’re not ready for all of this but if you keep saying shit like that the first kinky thing we try out will be me paddling your ass,” he whispered in her ear.
With all of her stubborn might, Natalie tried not to be intrigued. Another rush of wet heat soaked the crotch of her panties. Her nipples puckered against the lace of her bra.
The lift of his right eyebrow said he’d noticed. Great. “Do people really do that?”
“Lot of people really like it.” He wrapped his arm over her shoulder and pointed to the cotton candy booth. She’d said she wanted some.
“My sister likes it when Dec does it.”
“That’s more info than I needed, babe, but why’d you ask if people really do that if you know they do?”
“I thought maybe they did it because they’re both sex therapists. I figured they do a lot of stuff other couples don’t do. They’re… adventurous.”
“Nothing wrong with being adventurous as long as you’re both in agreement on what’s going to happen. Pain and pleasure run very close together. Enjoying a little of one and a lot of the other makes the whole experience better for most people.”
“So, you are a masochist,” she teased.
“I won’t lie to you. There’s definitely a high that comes when you get inked. That’s not why I do it, but it’s there.”
“You do it because there are things you want to remember don’t you?”
“I’d say it’s more like there are things I refuse to forget.”
Biting her tongue to keep from asking what it was he refused to forget, Natalie inhaled the sweet, sticky air surrounding them and memorized the feeling of this night. He wanted to remember. She wished she could forget. Maybe those two things were like pleasure and pain. They ran oddly close together.
Not wanting their pasts to interfere with this date, she debated.
“What are you thinking about, sweetness?”
“Reading my mind again?”
“Trying my damnedest.”
“What happens if I end up liking being sp—?”
Before she could quite get that last word out his lips were on hers. She gasped as his tongue dove past her lips. A soft moan slipped out next as she allowed her body to melt into his. When he pulled back, he gave her that half-smirk. “Let’s maybe not ask that surrounded by kids at a fair.”
White hot embarrassment, singed through her. She covered her face. Sweat broke out across her forehead. How had she forgotten where they were? There was a family with four kids all under the age of ten in front of them and a line of preteens clutching dollar bills tight in their fists behind them. Aaron was chuckling.
“I’m an idiot.”
“You are sexy as hell. Griff and T-Byrd keep telling me I’m falling hard.”
“Are you?”
“Oh yeah, baby.”
“Me too.”
“You can ask me anything you want once we’re back in the truck. Want to skip the cotton candy and get out of here?”
“Definitely.”
Guiding Natalie away from the innocent ears of children, Aaron wrapped his arm over her shoulder and tucked her against his side. Her warmth spread through him, easing him, healing him.
“I can’t believe I almost said that back there. I really should see a doctor. I left my jacket at the Hi-Way last night. I think you’re making me crazy.”
Aaron vowed to himself that someday soon he would tell her T had lifted her jacket. He hated lying to her. “I thought it was my job to drive you crazy.”
She stared up at him with her lips pursed and the light in her eyes more alive than he’d felt in a decade. He tried to memorize their exact color and the glow, her full pink lips, the teasing look stamped on her features. Lifting his phone from his pocket, he snapped a picture instead.
“Why did you do that?” She laughed.
“I told you, you’re beautiful.”
Pops of gunfire crackled behind them. “Shit. Get down.” Aaron wrapped his arms over Natalie and pulled them behind a ticket booth. Pushing her head down he kept her surrounded by his body as another round sizzled closer this time.
The orange flares of the machine guns lit in his mind.
“Aaron,” she whimpered.
“Shh, I’ve got you.”
I’ve got you. The words wrapped around his neck, strangling him and dragging him backward in time. “I’ve got you, Josh. Just fucking stay with me. Don’t you die on me. Not you, too! You stay with me. You hear me?” He grabbed his own gut. Blood filled his hands.
“Aaron!” Another voice shattered through the sand-drenched wind. His body shook. Shit was he hit again? His stomach clenched. Reaching, his hands encountered soft flesh. The world morphed around him. His vision blurred.
“Aaron! It’s me! Please!” she shouted. “You’re okay.”
She? His eyes blinked rapidly.
“Aaron?” Her voice wavered. Was she crying? He held her tighter. Who was she?
“Aaron, it’s Natalie. It’s okay. Open your eyes.”
Her hand touched his cheek. His fist closed around her fingers, a lifeline.
“Aaron? It’s me.”
She came into focus. He gasped for breath.
“Nat?” Why was she there? She shouldn’t be there. He had to keep her safe. He had to get her out of there.
“It’s okay. We’re okay. Stupid fireworks. I’m right here. We’re okay.”
He nodded though he didn’t fully understand.
“We’re getting out of here,” she vowed. When she tried to stand, he moved with her. Keeping her safe was the only thing that made sense to him.
She grabbed his hand and started to run. Running was good. Running made sense. He caught up with her.
Another round of pops shattered the darkened sky. Something inside him shook. He couldn’t make it stop.
“Faster,” she shouted over the crackle in the sky overhead. “Fly with me.” She took off. He’d follow her anywhere. His boots pounded against the ground until he’d overtaken her. Scooping her up into his arms, he flew with them both.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“Hey, you know I’ve had flashbacks before. I know how awful they are.” The silence in the truck cab ate at Natalie. Why wouldn’t he talk to her? He just kept sitting there staring at the pumps in the gas station parking lot.
“I know. I’m sorry. I’m…” He shook his head.
“Angry, sad, embarrass
ed?” She listed all of the things she knew were the results of a flashback. “Your muscles and your brain ache like you’ve gone ten rounds with a prize bull?”
“Yeah. All of that.”
Bile singed the base of her throat but she forced herself to go back to the last flashback she could recall. It had been a few years ago. Brock had grasped her hand to keep her back from a snake she hadn’t seen in the grass. His hands looked so much like his father’s. She’d screamed. Everyone thought it was because of the snake. It was a snake she supposed just not the one in the prairie.
Luke had understood what was actually happening. He’d taken her back to her parents’ house. Holly and her mother had talked her through it. She remembered what had finally helped her grasp reality.
“I mean it’s just such a stupid fucking thing. Fireworks. Who thought that was a good idea? It’s basically colored gunpowder. So stupid. Literally no one needs that in their lives.” She gave him a place to start. She gave him an out. Something to hate, somewhere to place all of the anger he refused to forget. She threw a life preserver out in the freezing sea where he was sinking before she jumped in herself. She wouldn’t let him drown. Being angry at something that should never have happened was a step toward accepting it. She knew.
He stared at her with pain and hope fighting for placement in the haze of confusion in his eyes. “Yeah, they are really stupid. People get hurt fucking around with them, too.”
“I know. I read that kids get burned every summer. It’s ridiculous.”
“Houses and barns go up in flames with them, too.”
“Oh, I know. You know the farm near the Kilroys? Their kids were messing with them and caught an entire field of corn on fire. Do you know how much money they probably lost?” Natalie let the adrenaline she’d felt drive her.
“Stupid fucking things.”
He gripped her hand again, clinging to her. If he needed a lighthouse, or someone to hold on to in this life, she would be that for him. Leaning across the bench seat, she brushed a gentle kiss on his cheek. There was a gash there. She’d noticed it the night she’d missed his lips and gotten his cheek instead. Every wound he’d endured she would find a way to heal. Every scar he clung to she would find some way to help him accept.