Redwood

by Janie Crouch

  But in every single picture, those green eyes were the same. Haunted. Sad. Tired.

  Always so tired. Not her face—she was gorgeous. But those eyes didn’t lie.

  And they were the same right up to the point where she’d lied about a stalker and destroyed her own trailer to get attention.

  Why had she done it?

  That’s what he should’ve asked her last night. Instead of losing his shit over her sitting there sipping wine, he should have lived up to his codename and stayed solid.

  So his world had been knocked off its axis yesterday? Hell, his world had been knocked off its axis the moment he’d laid eyes on her in that bar in Reddington City.

  Why had she done it?

  That had been the only thing he’d been able to think about since he’d shut the computer down and walked along the beach in the middle of the night. He argued with himself that she hadn’t offered any explanations, but the truth was he hadn’t given her much of a chance to.

  He’d done what everyone had done, especially the press: he’d told her she was guilty. Told her she was selfish. A bitch. And he’d left without ever really trying to get to the bottom of her reasoning.

  Why had she done it?

  When he stopped looking at it through a lens of betrayal, he realized he already had the answer. Anyone would if they cared enough to look.

  She’d made a stupid mistake. She’d been twenty-five years old. She’d been under the influence of drugs she didn’t know about. She’d been suffering from exhaustion, and had wanted someone to look out for her.

  Had it been selfish? Yes. Had it been reckless for innocent people? Yes, although she probably hadn’t intended it that way. Lexi didn’t have any ties with the killer. It didn’t make it all okay, but her intentions had never been to hurt anyone.

  Gavin sat down to watch the sun in its final approach to the horizon. He rubbed his eyes. God, he was tired from just one night without sleep. How did Lexi function feeling this way most of the time?

  A couple minutes later, he felt eyes on him, and turned, hoping it was her.

  Well, that told him everything he needed to know, didn’t it? He wanted to see her. Needed to see her.

  It wasn’t her.

  As a matter of fact, it was the last person he was expecting.

  “Dorian?”

  The big man gave him a smile. “Can I cut in on whatever dance you’re having here?”

  Gavin smiled back. “It’s commonly known as the I’m a dumbass in more ways than one tango.”

  Dorian chuckled and sat down beside him. “Just so happens I am quite familiar with the steps to that dance.”

  Gavin shook his hand. “I didn’t know you were here.”

  “We’re not, at least not on any official roster or registration. Ray still isn’t great with crowds, but neither of us wanted to miss this.”

  “Do Zac and Annie know you’re here?”

  “Yeah, we said hello last night after we arrived. Evidently, we missed all the excitement yesterday afternoon.”

  “Well, you made it for the most important part, that’s all that counts.”

  “My wife spent the past month researching this island, the resort, and ways on and off in case there was an emergency.”

  “How many exit strategies does she have?”

  Dorian smiled, then leaned back in the sand on his elbows. “Four that I know of. Which I assume means she has seven or eight total.”

  Dorian didn’t seem upset at all about the fact that his wife needed to have these stopgaps in place in order to feel safe. He loved her, understood her past, and was willing to give her whatever she needed in order to function.

  And Gavin hadn’t even been willing to listen to Lexi’s full side of the story.

  “Fuck.”

  “I’m assuming you finished the dumbass tango and are now moving on to the equally painful what the hell have I done mambo?”

  Definitely. “Do you remember when Ray almost shot you at the Eagle’s Nest?” Gavin could still see it as clearly as the day it happened. The arrow, shot from Ray’s crossbow, had landed inches from Dorian’s head.

  Dorian nodded. “I remember.”

  “I thought she was trying to kill you.”

  “If Ray wanted me dead . . .”

  “You’d be dead. That’s what you told me then too.”

  “Just as true today as it was with an arrow inches from my skull.”

  “But you didn’t walk away from her.”

  Dorian looked over at him. “You know Ray wasn’t responsible for—”

  Gavin held out a hand to stop his friend. “I know. Ray wasn’t responsible for any of that stuff. But I think my actual point is . . . it didn’t matter to you either way.”

  Dorian sat back up. “You think I didn’t care if my wife was a killer?”

  Gavin measured his words carefully. “I think you would’ve protected her, even if she had been a killer. You sat there looking across that table at me, and you were prepared to do whatever you had to, even if she was the bad guy and it meant you keeping her locked in your basement for the rest of her life.”

  Dorian considered it. “Yes. I’m glad it didn’t turn out that way, but Ray’s life and emotional well-being means more to me than anything she could’ve done in her past. I don’t care what it was.”

  Gavin scrubbed a hand down his face. He’d spent weeks telling Lexi he wanted to give her whatever she needed, then acted like a complete tool when it actually came time to do it. He’d always been steady, dependable—Redwood, for God’s sake. But not with Lexi when she’d needed it most.

  “Cue the I’m a self-righteous prick two-step.”

  Dorian chuckled. “Ray and I had a lot more history than you and your lady friend. I’d lost her once, and that pain wasn’t something I could live through again. So you’ll have to cut yourself some slack.”

  “Gavin, you’re a self-righteous prick!” Wavy yelled from up the beach.

  Dorian raised an eyebrow. “Sounds like Wavy knows this dance too. And I think that’s my cue to leave.”

  “Coward,” Gavin muttered.

  They both stood up. “What you call cowardice, I call good judgment,” Dorian said. Wavy stormed toward them. “That woman is pissed.”

  “Yeah. Good thing she doesn’t have a crossbow.”

  Dorian slapped him on the shoulder. “Let me tell you the most important thing. After all the dust settles, the only thing that matters is that as long as both of you are still breathing, there’s still time. Everything else can be fixed.”

  Gavin nodded and turned to look at Wavy. When he looked back at Dorian, just like his code name Ghost, he had disappeared.

  33

  “Did Lexi send you?” Probably not the smartest sentence for him to lead with, given the fire in Wavy’s eyes.

  “You had no business telling her not to come to the wedding. No matter what her real name is.”

  “You knew?”

  Wavy made a face and rolled her eyes. “It wasn’t hard to figure out. Just because most of Oak Creek is blind doesn’t mean I have to be.”

  Gavin had known Wavy for years, but mostly as Finn’s and Baby’s sister, not so much as her own person. She’d worked at the Frontier Diner for years, and he’d kind of written her off as pleasant but not particularly bright.

  Evidently, he’d been wrong. Because she’d spotted what he’d completely missed.

  “You should’ve told me, Wavy.”

  “Why should I have told you? Lexi wasn’t hurting anybody. She was only trying to find some peace. Trying to regain what she’d lost.”

  “She had a fake ID. That’s illegal.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Really, Sheriff? That’s what you’re mad about here? Are you also going to hunt down half the teenagers in town who have fake IDs like a vigilante, making our streets safe again?”

  He crossed his arms over his chest. “Lexi’s ID was much more complex than what fucking teenagers have.”


  But why?

  Why would she need one that sophisticated? One that had obviously cost her money she didn’t have. Even if he’d run her through the database and found out who she was, it wouldn’t have been a big deal.

  There was something more.

  “What do you know about her?”

  “What do you know about her?” Wavy countered.

  He shook his head. “I have no idea if anything she’s told me in the past few months has been the truth. Why is she working as a waitress and pretty much broke? ”

  “Woeful child-star tale. Her aunt and uncle had guardianship of her when she was younger, then she never took them off her accounts. When she went down, they cleaned her out. After the trial, she had nothing.”

  He’d known about the drugs they’d had her hooked on, but he hadn’t known about them taking all her money. “Jesus. I didn’t know.”

  “You told her that when she was ready to share her secrets you’d be there for her.”

  “For Christ’s sake, Wavy—”

  She held out a hand to stop him. “What you meant was you’d be there for her as long as her secrets meant you got to be the hero. The protector. Not if her secrets meant she’d fucked up in the past. Sorry if her secrets didn’t fit the narrative you created in your mind, Redwood.”

  Goddammit. “She almost got two people killed.”

  “She made a mistake. She wanted attention. She wanted someone to see her.”

  “But it’s not just then.” As soon as the words were out, he realized that was the bigger part of what had been bothering him. He hadn’t realized it until right now. “She’s still selfish. Still more concerned about herself than she is anybody else. Like yesterday.”

  “Yesterday Lexi helped save Anne’s life. That’s not exactly selfish.”

  “Yesterday Marilyn almost drowned making sure unconscious Anne had the oxygen mask over her face. Meanwhile, yeah, Lexi came to get us for help, but you should’ve seen her, Wavy. She strolled up onto the beach like she was headed for brunch.” The more he thought about it, the angrier he got. “She acted like she was all out of breath, but she couldn’t have been at the rate she was moving. She was acting to get attention. The way she had two years ago. We were ninety seconds from being too late to save Anne’s life. And Lexi didn’t give two shits. She went back to the room, had a bath and a glass of wine.”

  Wavy just stared at him. “Didn’t you talk to Lexi afterward?”

  He sure fucking had. “She sat there, all of her makeup in front of her, sipping on a glass of wine. Completely cold and shut down. She wouldn’t even deign to come after me when I told her I knew who she was and walked out. Said she wouldn’t chase me.”

  And that had bothered him most of all, hadn’t it? Not what she’d done in the past, but how she was acting in her present.

  “You don’t know, do you?” Wavy was shaking her head.

  “Know what?”

  “It hasn’t rained. I don’t think the tide would be high enough to reach it. Come here, asshole.”

  She left, not waiting to see if he was behind her. He followed.

  The sun was almost completely gone in the sky now as she walked back to the section of beach where Lexi had arrived, yelling for help. Wavy was staring at the ground, searching for something.

  She found it. “Here.” She pointed at the ground. “This was where she was when she stopped, right?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, somewhere around here.”

  “No, not somewhere around here. Right here.” She pointed down at the ground. “Why don’t you take a look and see if you can figure it out.”

  Gavin looked down at where Wavy was pointing. There was some sort of stain on the edge of the rocks where the sand smoothed out.

  “What is that?”

  “You’ve got all the answers when it comes to Lexi. You tell me.”

  It didn’t take long for him to put it together. “Blood. But I saw Lexi’s knee. Her wetsuit was torn but the scrape wasn’t bad. Could not have—” It came to him in the middle of his own sentence. “Her feet.”

  Oh God.

  “That’s right, Mr. Lexi-Is-So-Selfish. The motor on her raft broke, so she ran along these rocks for over a mile in her bare feet. So yes, I’m sure that by the time she arrived here she wasn’t quite sprinting.”

  He felt like he was choking, staring down at the bloodstained rock.

  “She didn’t tell me.” Not that he’d given her any chance.

  “I was here when two of the resort staff had to carry her back to her room. She didn’t want to go to the infirmary because, goddammit Gavin, she didn’t want you to have to pay any extra cost. A medic came back to the room and cleaned out the cuts. A few of them needed stitches. He tried to give her something for pain, but she wouldn’t take it because she said she had a bad past history with prescription drugs.”

  Gavin dragged a hand down his face. She hadn’t wanted to take them again because of all the years they’d been used against her.

  “So that glass of wine you’re so openly scorning was her only buffer against the pain of ripping up her feet while saving the life of someone she’s known less than six months.”

  His jaw clenched as he rubbed the back of his neck. “I handled it badly.”

  “You think?”

  He needed to apologize. He needed to shut his damned mouth and listen to her about the past. He might not condone it, but Lexi wasn’t the same person she’d been then.

  Wasn’t the same person he’d accused her of being now.

  “I didn’t tell her not to come to the wedding. I haven’t seen her since I left my room yesterday afternoon. I assumed she spent the night and today with you.”

  “I haven’t seen her all day.”

  “I need to apologize. You’re right. I never provided her with an atmosphere where she could tell her side of the story. That was my responsibility—one I would give any suspect, and very definitely should’ve given the woman I love.”

  “I don’t think I actually accused you of that.”

  Gavin looked down at where blood stained a flat rock. “You should have.”

  “If she’s not staying with you or with me, who would she bunk with? Almost everybody here is a couple.”

  “I’m not sure. Besides you and Anne, I’ve never really seen her—”

  His phone buzzed in his pocket. He grabbed it, hoping it could somehow be Lexi even though he knew she didn’t have a phone. It was Tristan.

  “How are you doing?” his brother asked.

  “Honestly, I’ve been better. And not just because I found out the truth about Lexi. Because of how I handled it.”

  “Well, I’m not sure if I’m about to make your life easier or harder.”

  That didn’t sound promising. “What?”

  “There’s more going on here than what I originally thought.”

  Gavin scrubbed a hand down his face. “How much more? What kind of more?”

  “The kind of more that’s going to take computer skills I don’t possess to get to the bottom of.”

  “Involving Lexi?”

  Tristan’s voice was rushed. “She filed two separate police reports, the first a month after she got out of prison and then again six weeks after that.”

  “Hang on. I’m going to put you on speakerphone. Wavy Bollinger is with me.”

  “She said someone was following her,” Tristan continued. “Stalking her. Given her history, the cops didn’t take it seriously.”

  Shit. “If someone was stalking her, that would explain why she was using a high-end fake ID.”

  “Here’s the thing, I went back to access the police reports today, and they were gone. No longer in the system. Neither of them, from two different precincts.”

  “What does that mean?” Wavy asked.

  “It means somebody’s going back and erasing any claims Lexi made about the stalker.”

  “That sounds kind of ominous,” she muttered.

  It defini
tely wasn’t good.

  “The other not good piece of this puzzle? Dashawn Cussler, the guy who sold her the ID, showed up dead this afternoon. Right about the time the police reports disappeared.”

  “Somebody’s hunting her.” Gavin rubbed at his chest. Shit. That was her other secret—her real secret. She had a stalker for real but didn’t think anyone would believe her.

  “I would say most definitely. You need to get Kendrick on this. I don’t think I can help you anymore, big brother.”

  “Thank you, Tristan.”

  “I’ll be waiting for your call if you need help on this end.”

  Gavin disconnected the call, already headed back toward the wedding reception. They needed to find Lexi. They needed to get Kendrick on this.

  “I knew there was more she wasn’t saying,” Wavy said next to him. “I knew coming to Oak Creek was about more than hiding out from the press.”

  “Wavy, can you go look for her? She may not want to talk to me, but we need to make sure she’s okay. It’s time for the real truth. If she won’t trust me enough to give that to me—which at this point I can’t blame her for—you’ve got to talk her into telling it to you.”

  It ate at him, the thought that he wouldn’t be the one she turned to after the months of desperately wanting to be that person. But it was nothing more than he deserved.

  He stopped and looked at Wavy. “I was wrong. So damned wrong. She needed me to be the most levelheaded I could be, and I did what everyone else in her life has done. I refused to look any deeper into this. Refused to look into her heart. It’s worse because I’ve spent all my time telling her she could trust me not to do that.”

  Wavy reached over and squeezed his arm. “I’m sure she’ll be willing to call it square for not giving you all her info up front.”

  They began walking again. “Just find her. The most important thing right now is keeping her safe. Once we eliminate the threat, then I can practice my groveling skills.”

  And hope it would be enough.

  34

  Lexi sat staring straight ahead on the flight from San Amado back to Reddington City. Her arms were clutched around her middle. Maybe if she held herself tight enough, the pieces of her that were shattering inside wouldn’t come flying out of her body.