by Jus Accardo
“Thanks,” I said.
“Don’t be thankin’ me. Those eyes are evil. Pure evil. Make the devil get up and dance, they could. Turn a priest to sin.”
Shaun snickered. I elbowed him hard and turned back to Gerald. “Mr. Collins, I hate to intrude, but I need your help.”
“Of course you do. And I have no desire to help you because it’ll only land me in a heap of trouble, but I will. Somehow you’ll talk me into it. That’s just the way you Morgan girls work…” He pushed the door open a bit wider and gestured us inside with a sigh. “Go ahead and take a seat—but don’t get too comfy. You’re not staying long.”
I heard the words clear as day, but the look in his eyes said differently. In that moment, I was sure we’d made the right decision coming here. He was complaining about Mom, but it was obvious he remembered her fondly. He was crotchety on the outside and totally gooey on the inside. Just what I needed.
I nodded and sank into the couch. Gerald eyed Shaun warily as he sat down beside me—ridiculously close.
“Go ahead and give the girl some room, why dontcha, boy? She ain’t goin’ nowhere.”
Shaun looked at me and I sighed. “That’s actually one of the reasons we’re here.” I pulled the hoodie aside and held up my hand. “Any chance you can help us get these off?”
At first he was amused. He snorted his coffee, sending droplets splattering across the coffee table between us, and laughed so hard he began to wheeze. It got to the point where he was turning bright red and gasping for air. For a minute I was sure he’d give himself a heart attack, or at the very least, pass out from lack of oxygen. Slapping a hand against his paint-covered overalls, he hooted. After he got himself under control though, his expression faltered and all the humor drained away.
“Wait! You on the run from the cops? Don’t be tellin’ me you dragged trouble to my door, girlie.”
I jumped to my feet, inadvertently yanking Shaun along with me. “No! These cuffs aren’t from the police, I swear.” I nodded to Shaun. “He put them on me and then lost the keys.”
Gerald’s face paled. “Girlie, how old are you?” He shot Shaun a death glare. “Does her mamma know what you’ve been up to?”
It took a second, but when I realized what he meant, heat rushed to my cheeks. “Oh my God, no. Trust me it’s not like that. At all.” I hoped Shaun knew enough to follow my lead and not come clean about who he really was. I was pretty sure old Gerald would just about freak if he knew I’d walked a hunter into his house. He’d been out of the game a while now, but I bet he still had people looking for him. “It was kind of a joke that backfired.”
He narrowed his eyes and I was sure we were busted. What a lame excuse. A joke? Really, Kayla? What the hell was wrong with me? I was an excellent liar. I needed to be. It was all part of the life. I could come up with a prize-winning excuse on the spot. I could sell ice to Eskimos, Mom said time after time. A joke that had backfired? I wanted to kick myself.
Apparently though, Gerald bought it. After a short stare-down, he simply nodded. “You said that was one of the reasons…”
“The other reason is Mick.”
And just like that, the atmosphere changed.
Gerald had either been a horrible con man, or he was seriously out of practice, because his poker face was nonexistent. His right eye twitched, and all of a sudden, he started fidgeting like he had fleas. Tapping his knee and shifting in his seat. “Who?”
“You don’t know the name?” Shaun asked. He didn’t even try hiding his disbelief. I couldn’t blame him. Gerald’s reaction made it so painfully obvious that it was almost funny. “You sure about that?”
“I think I’d know,” Gerald snapped. He stopped tapping his knee and slipped his hand beneath his leg. “Why don’t you ask your mamma?”
I hated when people lied to me—ironic considering I’d spent my life lying to others. It made me cranky. I bit back a snide remark. “My mom is dead. Almost a year now.”
His face fell. He bowed his head and said, “I’m sorry to hear that, girlie. Your mamma was a pain in the ass and trouble on two long legs, but she was a good egg.” He winked. “Mostly.”
That he was telling the truth about. He hadn’t known she was gone and seemed genuinely sorry. But he was lying about Mick—and that bugged me.
“So you can’t tell us anything about Mick?” Shaun said, steering the conversation back to focus. I was thankful.
“Mick who? Do ya got a last name? Description? Why are you lookin’ for this Mick character?”
“Just someone I heard knew my mom.” I shook my head, watching him. His eye still twitched, and since he’d stuffed his hand beneath his leg, he’d started tapping both feet. The guy was a walking poster child for suspicious behavior. “All I’ve got is a first name.”
“Wish I could help, but nope.” He stood, smoothing out his overalls. “I think I can help ya with those cuffs, though.”
Getting the shackles off was better than nothing. We couldn’t make him talk. Well, Shaun probably could, but I wasn’t about to stoop to violence. At least not yet. “That would be fantastic. Thank you!”
“Just sit tight. Lemme go find my handsaw. I’ll have those binds off in a jiffy.”
“We’d appreciate it,” Shaun replied as Gerald left to get his saw. He finished with, “You fucking liar,” just as soon as the old man was out of earshot.
“You caught that, too, huh?”
“Like a neon billboard.” He stood and gently tugged me toward the hall. “Any idea why he’d lie?”
“No clue.” He knew exactly who Mick was—but why lie? “Unless…”
“Unless what?”
“The old guy seems to have a soft spot for Mom. What if Gerald knows Mick is bad news? Maybe he wouldn’t tell me where to find the guy if he thought I might get hurt.” A knot formed in the pit of my stomach as the wheels inside my head began to turn.
“You told me you went back to the cabin, hoping for a name. You didn’t see the whole letter, but maybe you found what you needed… Maybe it’s not Jaffe. It could be this Mick guy.”
“Maybe,” I said, excited. “Think about it. Mom said in the letter that she’d trusted the wrong people. That someone had betrayed her. It makes sense that it could have been one of her partners!”
“Betrayed her?” Shaun asked, eyebrows shooting up. “Partners?”
Oops. I hadn’t mentioned that part to him yet. Deep breath. It was time to come clean. “Mick and this T person… My mom knew them because they were her partners.”
He blinked. For a minute all he did was stare. Mouth open, eyes wide, and fists balled. My previous concern about him going apeshit, like he had in the junkyard, lingered on the edge of my subconscious. Since I was cuffed to the guy, escape was a pretty moot thought.
“Are you shitting me? You gave me that speech about how I needed to look at this as a joint problem and you’re withholding info?” He stomped his foot. “That’s bullshit. This is my life you’re playing with now. Full fucking disclosure is a given.”
He was furious and I shouldn’t have cared—I’d done what I’d done to protect myself—but I did. I actually felt bad. About keeping a secret to protect myself. He was a hunter, for fuck’s sake. He’d handcuffed himself to me so I couldn’t escape, and here I was feeling guilty.
The world was coming to an end.
I wanted to be pissed that he was making such a big deal about this, but I couldn’t. He hadn’t been anything other than honest with me so far and I’d lied to him. And really, it wasn’t so much the lie that bothered me, but the double standard I’d imposed. I’d told him we were in this together, yet I’d withheld information that technically could have gotten him killed.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I should have told you.”
His eyes blazed, and he ran a hand through his dark hair. “Why the hell didn’t you?”
I didn’t know what to say. For the first time in as long as I could remember, I didn’t have a
n excuse ready and waiting. For the first time, the truth seemed like a better answer. “I don’t know you, Shaun. Think about it from my perspective, for a second, because in case you missed it, I have justifiable trust issues. Patrick has hunted my mom and me my entire life. You come along—his mini-me—and chain us together. Does that sound like an act that screams trust me to you?”
Some of the tension faded. “I need to know everything. You asked for my help. I can’t give it to you if I don’t have all the damned facts.”
He was right, of course, but that didn’t make it any easier. I took a deep breath, determined to get the whole thing out. If I wanted free of this in one piece, and the chance to have a normal life some day, I couldn’t do it on my own. “What I said about not seeing the whole letter was the truth, but I did get a little more than I told you. There was something about someone getting hurt—killed—and she was the main suspect. Aside from that, the only other thing I saw when I skimmed the letter was something about information. She had something and wanted it to get to the ‘right people’… I think the information has to do with the murder she was wanted for—which I also think is what got her killed. Find the information, and I find the killer.”
“Information…” He held my gaze, then grabbed the chain and tugged lightly. “And that’s it? You’re sure?”
“I swear, other than the partner thing, that’s the last of it. You know everything I do now.”
He watched me for a moment, and I couldn’t tell from his expression if he believed me or not. After a minute, he set the chain down and said, “If she had information that would clear her name and save her life, why wouldn’t she bring it to the authorities herself?”
“Maybe she was afraid it wouldn’t matter. Mom wasn’t a saint. She might not have killed anyone, but she’d done other things. Just because she cleared her name of murder didn’t mean she’d be free. She had me to think about. No,” I said. “She would never have gone to the police unless there was no other option.”
“That makes sense…but you’re not considering all the facts here.”
“Yes I am,” I insisted. What else was there?
“No. You’re not,” he said. “Didn’t you say Mick and T were her partners?”
“So?”
“Your theory is actually great. Her partner would be in the perfect position to set her up for murder—but remember there were two of them. Maybe it was the other one. The one whose name begins with a T.”
I’d never even thought about that. “Shit.”
Shaun crossed the room and peered around the corner, inadvertently dragging me along. “Without anything more than a first letter, we have no way to search. We don’t even know if T is a he”—he whirled around, face inches from mine, and froze—“or she,” he finished slowly, backing away.
I swallowed and backed off as well. “The second partner could be a woman…” I couldn’t put my finger on it, but it felt right.
Holding a finger up, he listened for a moment, then made a beeline for the phone.
“What are you doing?” I hissed.
He lifted the receiver to his ear. “Calling Pat.”
“Now?”
“There’s a phone. We have a minute to kill while we wait for the old man. Why not? I bet he knows who Mick is—and this T person.”
I pressed up close and listened as the phone rang. Once. Twice. On the third ring, Patrick answered. “Yeah?”
“It’s me.”
“Shaun? What the hell is going on? Where—”
“No time. We got to the mall and there were cops waiting for us.” There was an accusatory edge to his voice. “Like they knew we were coming.”
There was a moment of silence, and then a curse. “Don’t let her do this, kid. She’ll have you convinced I killed Lincoln if you let her.”
“She does think you called them,” Shaun said, glaring at me. “But I don’t. Still, something’s not right about this one, Pat. We don’t think they were real cops, either. Did you find out anything about this Jaffe guy? What’s his interest in her?”
“He says he’s family. An uncle on her mother’s side.”
“He’s lying,” I said, not bothering to keep my voice down. I didn’t care if Patrick knew I was listening.
Patrick sighed. “I know he’s lying.”
“You do?” both Shaun and I said in unison.
“Mel had no family. It was just her and the kid.”
“How do you—”
Shaun balanced the receiver between his head and shoulder, and covered my mouth. “We don’t have a lot of time, Pat. Does the name Mick mean anything to you?”
There was another pause. “Mick? Where did you hear that name?”
“You know who he is, don’t you?” I wrestled the receiver away from Shaun. “We think he was one of Mom’s partners. Him—and someone whose name begins with the letter T. We need to know what you know, Patrick. Was he the one who killed her?”
“Mick is—”
And the line went dead.
Chapter Eleven
I stared at Shaun, horrified. “You just hung up on him! Why would you—”
He clamped his free hand over my mouth again. “Kayla, we need to leave.”
I lifted my left hand and shook it, rattling the chain. “Are you ins—”
He jerked his right arm, pulling the chain taut. “Forget about the cuffs. This guy’s been gone too long. Something’s not right.”
Holy shit. I was an idiot. Shaun was right. How long did it take to grab a saw and come back? “Let’s get out of here.”
Shaun nodded and we rounded the corner and cut through the kitchen. The back door was a few feet ahead. When I took a closer look around, I realized how run-down everything was. The floor was peeling up in the kitchen, and when I peered out the window, I noticed the roof on the barn had caved in on one side, not to mention that there were no cows in sight.
“Pat knows who Mick is. I’m betting he knows T, too,” Shaun whispered, reaching for the door.
“And he was about to tell us—but you hung up on him.” I cried, and checked behind us. Still no sign of Gerald. We were in the clear.
Shaun shrugged. “You sure you don’t remember seeing anything else in that letter? Something you’re conveniently forgetting to tell me about?”
I shook my head, glaring at him pointedly. “Someone interrupted me while I was reading it, then people started shooting at me. I only got a chance to skim it. I promise. I’ve told you everything now. There was a bit about a murder, the two names—one I didn’t see—and that someone betrayed her. And then the bit about the information she wanted me to find…”
Shaun eased open the door. We took a step outside, then froze. Gerald appeared in front of us, blocking our path with a gun in his hands. “I’m sorry, girlie. You have to know that. I had no choice and I’m sorry.”
I looked from the gun to Shaun, who was as pale as paper. He backed up a step, gaze trained on Gerald, and pushed me behind him as if to protect me.
A wash of cold rushed through me and settled in the pit of my stomach. All of a sudden it was nearly impossible to breathe. “What did you do?”
“I’m losing my farm. It’s falling apart and I’ve got no way to earn the money to fix it. This place is my life… The price on you is more than enough to set things right again.” He lifted the gun and aimed it at us, taking a step forward. “Ya gotta know I feel awful about it. Your mamma really was a good egg, but like I said, I ain’t got no choice.”
“No choice?” I whispered. This wasn’t happening. How could I have made such a big mistake? “That’s bullshit…”
“Who?” Shaun growled. “Someone’s paying you to hand her off, right? You sick fuck, who is it?”
Gerald laughed. “I’m a sick fuck? Aren’t you trying to do the same thing?”
Shaun’s expression darkened. He glared at Gerald, but said nothing.
“That’s right, boy,” Gerald said, holding the gun steady. “I k
now who you are and why you’re with her. You’re just mad I bested you. I beat you to the prize.”
“Who?” I demanded, trying hard to ignore the truth in Gerald’s words. “Who is paying you the money?”
Gerald didn’t flinch. He just stood there watching me, gun drawn and silent.
“Answer me,” I screamed. A part of my brain knew we should try to run, but I couldn’t make my feet move. I needed to know. Was it Jaffe? Mick or T? Or was it an entirely new player? “Who was it? Who paid you to kill me?”
“Kill you? I ain’t gonna hurt you so long as you don’t move,” Gerald wheezed defensively.
“No? What do you think they’re going to do to me when they get here, Gerald? Buy me dinner?” I stepped around Shaun and grabbed the barrel of his gun, jamming it over my heart. I felt the cold steel of the barrel through the thin material of my T-shirt. “Let us go or pull the trigger!”
He stared, eyes wide and mouth slightly agape. “I didn’t—”
Shaun tensed and shot me a sidelong glance. His gaze alternated between Gerald and the gun still braced against my chest. “Who paid you?”
The old man sighed. His aim didn’t waver, but he said, “Jaffe.”
At least that ruled out Mick and T. “Who is he? Who is Jaffe?”
“If what you say is true and he plans to kill you, what’s it matter?” the old man said. He flicked off the safety and bobbed the gun. “Back in the house. They’ll be here soon.”
I took a step backward, over the threshold of the house, but Shaun didn’t move.
Gerald jabbed the barrel of the gun at him. “Git movin’, boy. Ain’t gonna ask again.”
“If I don’t?” Shaun asked, voice low. He had that look in his eyes. The same one I’d seen at the junkyard. “See, I don’t think you have the balls to pull the trigger, Gerald.”
The old man’s lips twisted into a cruel grin. He lifted the weapon higher, in line with Shaun’s head, and said, “She’s the one with the pretty penny on her head. Makes no difference to me if you’re around when they get here.”
Shaun’s jaw clenched, and he balled his fists tight. He turned to me, slowly, and said, “I meant what I said. I keep my promises.”