by Kyla Stone
Eli gave her the finger in return. He tensed, anticipating another altercation, but the truck kept going.
“You have no idea, Eli,” Jackson said. “No clue. You’re out there in the boonies rubbing two sticks together while things are falling apart here in the real world.”
Eli made an exaggerated show of looking around. “I don’t see anything falling apart.”
“Just because it’s happening slowly doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. The frog sits in boiling water, doesn’t he? He doesn’t realize it until he’s cooked through. People are going to need a lot of help real soon. I’m trying to figure out how to give it. How to prepare for what’s coming.”
“What’s coming, Jackson?”
Jackson gave a helpless shrug. “You know the power is out across the country, right? The entire Northern Hemisphere has gone dark. Banks are closed. The internet is down. Planes are grounded. Michelle’s usual delivery is three days late with no restock in sight. They’re reporting rioting in some of the big cities. People are already running out of food.”
“I’m good. I can live without civilization just fine.”
Jackson snorted. “No one’s worried about you. Civilization wants to live without you. It’s the rest of them I’m worried about.”
Eli looked at him steadily. When you cared so little about your own life, it was difficult to muster up sympathy for nearly eight billion faceless souls. He didn’t like the people he knew, let alone the masses he didn’t. “People will adapt. Or they won’t.”
Jackson threw up his hands. “You only see things from your own distorted perspective. That’s nothing new. I’m wasting my time. I have work to do.”
Anger flared through Eli; he tamped it down. “You’re doing such a great job with Shiloh.”
Jackson’s gaze sharpened. “How do you know anything about Shiloh?”
Eli didn’t answer. He turned on his heel and started for the Bonneville. He still held the bleach and candy bars; he’d stuck the soy sauce in his front pocket.
Jackson followed him. “Wait.”
Eli stopped short. A word had been spray-painted in dripping red across the rear window of the car: KILLER.
How long had he been in the store? Ten minutes? Fifteen? Who had seen him drive in? The two idiots in the store were gone; they had peeled out a minute ago.
His father had driven the big silver Bonneville for twenty years. Everyone knew whose it was. They would know who drove it now.
Jackson saw it but gave no indication that he cared. Fine. Eli would ignore it, too. What was one more humiliation? One more act of hatred to throw on the pile.
“Why did you say her name? Eli! Answer me.”
He moved to the passenger door and deposited the bleach, candy bars, and soy sauce in the front seat. He paused, considering. There was no way he would give up her location to Jackson. At the same time, Jackson could do his damn job if he had more information. “She was there. She saw it happen. Easton’s murder.”
“How do you know that?” Jackson demanded.
Eli turned back around to face him. “Maybe you should do a better job protecting your witnesses.”
“You’ve seen her? You’ve talked to her? What the hell? Stay away from her, Eli. So help me, if you hurt her—”
“I resent the insinuation against my character.”
Jackson sputtered. A muscle jumped in his jaw. Tendons stood out like cords against his neck. It took him a moment to regain the control to speak again. “Where is she?”
Eli stared at him, impassive.
“She’s a little girl alone in the woods. She needs help!”
“Maybe,” Eli allowed.
“Tell me where she is, or bring her to the station. That’s an order, Eli. I can arrest you. I can throw you in jail for any charge I wish. Don’t tempt me.”
“She doesn’t want to come in. Until she does, I’m not telling you a damn thing.”
Jackson took two rapid steps and jabbed his finger in Eli’s face. “You don’t get to do this!”
Instinct took over. Instinct and rage. Eli seized Jackson’s right hand, twisted it hard, and flipped it nearly backward, bending Jackson’s arm at the elbow at an unnatural angle. Jackson’s bones ground in protest beneath his grip.
He could’ve broken the man’s wrist; he stopped short.
Hurt and surprise flashed across Jackson’s face. He hadn’t expected it. He should have.
Jackson wasn’t a weakling. He was strong and fit; he knew how to shoot, how to throw a punch when he had to, but he was a poet at heart. A philosopher. No elite soldier. He hadn’t fought and bled and survived inside a cage filled with the worst kind of animals.
Grunting in pain, Jackson shoved Eli in the chest with his free hand. He did not reach for his sidearm. “Let. Me. Go.”
Eli glanced across the parking lot. Through the dusty windows, Michelle Carpenter stared at him. The blood drained from her face, repugnance in her eyes.
Jackson shoved him again. “So help me, Eli.”
Eli released Jackson’s wrist. He stepped back.
“T-t-that’s assault of an officer.” Eli hadn’t heard Jackson’s stutter in fifteen years. Maybe more. It came out in moments of great distress. Jackson was angry. He was also afraid, but not of Eli.
“If you arrest me, I’ll never tell you where Shiloh is,” Eli said flatly. “I will never help you.”
“Like you would ever help anyone but yourself.”
“You don’t know me.”
Jackson rubbed his wrist, breathing hard. He looked at Eli. “No, I don’t. I never did, did I?”
“Is that what you tell yourself so that you can sleep at night?”
Jackson blinked.
Memories flashed through Eli’s mind: the blur of the trial, the accusations, the expert testimony on strangulation, on fingerprints, and domestic violence. The faces in the courtroom, the hostility of those who had once known him, even loved him.
Sawyer’s damning words echoed in his ears.
“What did you do, Jackson?” Eli asked.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I was framed. I told you that. Someone framed me. I didn’t drink that Molson Canadian at Lily’s house that night. I didn’t leave it in my car. I did drink one three hours earlier at your house. I left it in your trash can.”
A shadow flickered behind Jackson’s eyes. A thing Eli recognized only because he knew it so intimately himself—shame.
Sawyer had been telling the truth. Jackson had done something. He’d colluded in tampering with the evidence. Had he planted the beer bottle himself?
Whatever he had done, he must have believed wholeheartedly in Eli’s guilt. He believed it still. Eli could see it written across his face.
Eli felt stripped bare. His breath like glass in his throat. His skin flayed from his bones. Jackson Cross. His brother, his best friend.
It hurt. Even now, even after all this time.
“What did you do, Jackson?” Eli whispered.
For a second, the shame was there in Jackson’s eyes. It swam black and oily beneath the surface. And then it vanished. Jackson’s face closed, his expression hardened with resolve.
With a grimace, he shook his head. Whatever secrets he carried, he would keep them close to his chest. Until Eli forced them out into the light. Until he enacted his own justice.
“I did my job.” Jackson kept his eyes straight ahead. His skin had gone pale. He was pale all the way down to his soul. “I put a murderer behind bars.”
Eli took a deep breath. The old pain burrowed inside him. A hollowness in his chest. Abandonment. Betrayal. And the anger that had served him for eight years, for his entire life.
A bitter smile carved his face. “So help me, Jackson. If you were the one who did this to me, I will kill you.”
His words were a wound between them. A wound that would not heal.
Eli left Jackson standing alone on the cracked, weedy asphalt, s
taring after him.
He returned to the Bonneville. He opened the door, sat in the driver’s seat, and inserted the key in the ignition. The engine started and he pulled out of the IGA parking lot.
The word KILLER still painted across the rear window—and seared into his soul.
41
JACKSON CROSS
DAY SIX
Jackson stood at the bow of the Risky Business as Sawyer expertly handled the yacht, motoring them through the bay out into the lake. The black and white skull flag rippled in the wind.
Grand Island rose before them, a dim shape in the fog. Mist swirled at its base, drifting across the placid surface of Superior.
Few boats were out; the boating season hadn’t started yet. With the local businesses shuttering due to lack of electricity, most of the tourists had headed home, even the aurora-watchers.
“You, me, the boat, and open water,” Sawyer said. “It’s the only way to talk.”
Sawyer’s protection team had frisked Jackson before allowing him anywhere near Sawyer. No weapons. No wires. There were six mercenaries that he could see, several more that he couldn’t. Sawyer’s mercenaries were tough, stern men, well-armed and not averse to violence.
They went over him again with an RF meter, then took his wallet, cell phone, keys, sunglasses, everything. Anything that could have a recording device implanted or tracking device to put on the boat.
Jackson knew Sawyer’s rules. It was why he’d left Devon behind. You came alone or you didn’t come at all.
It was a risk. It was dangerous. Jackson knew that. No law enforcement officer in his right mind would board a boat unarmed with a known criminal.
Jackson needed answers. And if getting them quickly meant he didn’t go through normal channels, then so be it.
He also knew that Sawyer played by his own sort of rules. They’d known each other their whole lives. They had history. And it was that history that would protect them both.
It was a risk for Sawyer, too, to speak with Jackson without a high-priced attorney present. But Sawyer had always appreciated an element of risk.
“To what do I owe this pleasurable visit? It’s been a while.” Sawyer’s dirty blond hair windblown. He wore pleated khaki shorts and a pale blue polo shirt. He looked the part of a scruffy sailor married to the sea, but they both knew he was much more than that.
“You’re a hard man to pin down, Sawyer.”
Sawyer gave a nonchalant shrug. “I’m busy. It so happened that today’s fishing charter trip was canceled. The CEO of First Northern Bank quit his job and is bugging out to his cabin in the Porcupine Mountains.”
“I’m investigating the Easton homicide.”
Sawyer turned his gaze on Jackson, his expression unreadable. Jackson had always found Sawyer’s flat eyes disconcerting. Disquieting.
Even as kids, Sawyer had been different. He could turn his charm on and off like a light switch, become your best friend or your worst enemy at the drop of a hat.
“May I ask you some questions?”
“You’re free to ask, Jackson. Whether I answer is up to me.”
“Of course. What is your connection to Easton?”
“Business associates.”
“How so?”
“That’s private.”
“Where were you on May seventeenth between the hours of three and six p.m.?”
“Out here, on my boat.”
“Can anyone confirm that?”
“You’re asking questions like I’m a suspect here, Cross.” His gray eyes narrowed. He’d never looked more shark-like. Or dangerous. “Be very careful in what you say next.”
Jackson was extremely aware of his lack of a sidearm. He felt naked, exposed. His hands hung loose at his sides, ready to curl into fists. His wrist was still sore from his altercation with Eli.
Jackson knew how to defend himself. And he would fight if necessary. He didn’t think it would come to that. “You wouldn’t try anything, Sawyer. You know better. So, let’s not pretend that you would.”
His smile faltered the tiniest fraction.
“Killing a law enforcement officer? That would be dirty, even for you. Not that you could accomplish it, if you tried.”
Sawyer studied him for a long moment, his smile pasted like a sticker onto his face. He moved back a step and raised a hand, palm out in a gesture of surrender. “Touché, old friend.”
“I am not your friend.”
“So people keep telling me. I’m starting to feel rejected, Cross. It’s not a feeling I appreciate.”
“I don’t care about your feelings.”
“You hate me, don’t you?”
Jackson started. It wasn’t a statement he’d been expecting. “That has nothing to do with it.”
“Sure, it does.” Sawyer kept his gaze on the bluffs. “You were always jealous. Of me with Lily.”
Jackson stiffened. He tamped down the surge of embarrassment mixed with anger. He hated hearing Lily’s name out of Sawyer’s mouth. That it was also the truth was a bitter pill to swallow.
Lily’s eye had always wandered to the bad boys. Eli and Sawyer. And occasionally, Gideon Crawford. She’d bobbed between them throughout their high school years, into college, and beyond.
Lily had loved Eli, but Eli’s affections were…complicated. When he rejected her, she went to Sawyer or Gideon for comfort and distraction.
Most people believed that Lily’s children were Sawyer’s, or at least Cody. Shiloh had indiginous blood in her veins; that was obvious. Sawyer hadn’t claimed either of them. Not when they were born, not after Lily’s homicide, and not now.
Jackson had hated him for it. It felt like a weakness, this jealous resentment he’d harbored for years. As much as he despised himself for it, he couldn’t help it.
“I’m here to talk about Easton’s homicide, not the past.”
Sawyer grunted. “It’s always about the past. The past never dies. When you finally figure that out, maybe you’ll become a decent cop.”
“Undersheriff.”
Sawyer only smiled.
Jackson smiled back. He was used to criminals trying to get a rise out of him. Hell, his whole family did it for sport.
“We have the phone calls. We have the logs and the texts.” They didn’t have the texts, but Sawyer didn’t need to know that. “Before the system went down, we traced the money. You created several shell accounts, but it came from you. The money Easton used to pay off his property taxes. He was going to lose the land. All of it. Then boom, in one fell swoop, he’s got the money to pay off three years of back taxes? It was you. And I want to know why.”
Sawyer gave a noncommittal grunt.
“You paid him for something. Payback. Revenge. There are a hundred reasons why criminals get into bed with each other. Maybe he didn’t do what you’d paid him for. Maybe things went badly. Or he was blackmailing you for something.”
Sawyer didn’t blink. “I thought you wanted Cody Easton for it.”
Frustrated, Jackson gritted his teeth. Somehow, Sawyer often knew things he shouldn’t know. Jackson suspected Sawyer had a paid informant on the Munising Police Department payroll or in the Sheriff’s office, but he’d never been able to prove it.
“Cody is a person of interest. That’s all.”
“And I’m the Queen of England.”
Jackson sighed. “I’m keeping my options open. You’re looking extremely good right now. You’ve got the motive. The means. How about opportunity? I’ll ask you again, where were you the afternoon of May seventeenth?”
“On my boat, like I said. Fishing.”
“By yourself, I presume.”
Sawyer laughed. A flat, empty sound that grated against Jackson’s ears. “Of course not. I was with Cyrus Lee and a few others. They’ll swear by it.”
“I’m sure they will.” Jackson rolled his eyes. Sawyer’s minions would do anything for him. “We’re going to be looking hard at you, Sawyer. Your business, your boats, your fina
ncials, your comings and goings. I imagine a man like you wouldn’t appreciate such scrutiny.”
“No, I suppose not.”
“So, it’s in your best interest to clear your name. If you’re clean, tell me so that I can move on and hunt down the real killer. That’s all I want, Sawyer. I don’t care about whatever else you’re up to.”
To the right rose the rocky cliffs of the Pictured Rocks coastline. The fog was lifting, the coastline hazy and indistinct but still spectacular.
His breath caught in his chest. Seagulls wheeled and soared above the cliffs, white specks against the iron-gray sky.
Thousands of years of wind and water had molded the shoreline into a fifteen-mile expanse of dramatic cliffs. Dozens of waterfalls splashed down the cliffs, the water mingling with minerals in the sandstone to create giant abstract works of art. Shades of browns and reds from iron, black from manganese, greens and blues from copper. Like God Himself had finger-painted the rocks in brilliant color.
“All right, Jackson,” Sawyer said finally. “You want the truth? I’ll throw you a bone, But only because I’m in a giving spirit. You want to talk? Let’s talk.”
42
JACKSON CROSS
DAY SIX
Sawyer watched the mist-shrouded cliffs. “I assume you know the DEA has a hard-on for me. They’ve been trying to nail me for years. Just like you have. Surveilling my reputable businesses. I’m not supposed to know.” Sawyer winked at him. “But I know. They’re watching the docks twenty-four-seven now. I appreciate my privacy, if you know what I mean.”
Jackson waited him out. He knew about the multi-jurisdictional task force that included the Michigan State Police and the DEA. They were under orders to stay out of it. But this was bigger than that.
“I had protection. Line certain pockets, and they’ll throw you a bone when you need it. When Samuel Anderson died in that pandemic surge last year, I was left with a…hole in my resources. I’m nothing if not resourceful, Jackson. I’m sure you know that by now.”