by Debra Kayn
Her biggest struggle would be fighting herself. No matter how she was raised or had lived her life up to the point of killing Cord, the line hovering between right and wrong was branded in her head.
"This is good," she said between bites.
At least the whiskey had done the trick and lessened the tight band of worry from around her middle. Getting some food in her stomach would also help her think more rationally.
He dropped his gaze to her feet. She wore a pair of the shoes he'd given her from the Lost & Found bin at headquarters.
If she was twenty-five years old, she had a lot of years left to turn her life around. That gave him hope that she wouldn't back out of their agreement.
"Are you going to be okay, until I get back?" he asked.
She nodded. "I'm fine."
She wasn't fine, but he'd take that. Standing up, he walked to the door. "I'll be back around six o'clock."
She nodded, her mouth full of the last bite of sandwich. He stepped outside and inhaled deeply. Taking the extra time, he lit a cigarette. There would be questions from his employees about why the police came looking. The memory of the employee murdered last summer fresh on everyone's mind as they began the camping season.
"Jesus Christ," he mumbled on an exhale, blowing smoke above his head. Could things get worse?
He looked around his place. He'd built it away from the campground and up next to the mountain because the area gave him security. Nobody could approach the house without going through the campground first or scaling down the mountainside. Even the trail behind his cabin was hidden. Nobody but Anders, Will and Mark knew the path was there.
Katelynn would be safe if she stayed. She had to stay. If she left, all his problems would snowball into a situation bigger than he and the others could handle.
Chapter 9
A man larger than Quint with gray hair and beard leaned against the fireplace. Katelynn looked at the two men standing by the front window. One wore a baseball cap with fishhooks stabbed into the material, and the other one's dark eyes kept glancing at her whenever a pause in the conversation happened.
A conversation about her murdering Cord.
All four men standing in the living room of the cabin suffocated Katelynn. Excusing herself from the room, she stopped in the hallway and looked behind her and found Quint's gaze following her. She nodded at his unspoken question. Nothing was wrong, per se.
Everything bothering her came about by what she'd done. She had no idea Quint would have his friends join in deceiving the police. Something wasn't right.
He'd sworn he'd protect her if she protected him. Now there were three other men who knew what she'd done. There was no way a secret could be kept with so many people involved. Someone would talk.
What bothered her the most was the fact that there were four people in the cabin who hadn't blinked an eye while going over the details of her relationship with Cord and what she'd done.
She took a few more steps, gazed over her shoulder, and breathed a little easier out of Quint and his friends' sight. Not wasting time, she slipped into Quint's bedroom and opened the closet. Her heart raced, afraid he'd catch her snooping.
Running her hands over the line of clothes hung up, she leaned over and peered on the floor to at least a half dozen pairs of boots. Straightening, she looked up on the shelf. No boxes, no safes, no hint that Quint was some kind of mumbo-jumbo crime daddy with a case of...God, she had no clue what she was looking for.
Her inner voice got louder and louder the longer she had listened to the men in the living room talking about murder as if it happened every day and they were old hands at covering the crime.
She quietly closed the bi-folding doors and turned around, eyeing the dresser. Without wasting time, she slid each drawer open. The man had a lot of clothes. Flannel shirts in only three colors—black, blue, red, and a lot of jeans.
Closing the bottom drawer, she remained squatted, trying to think of where to look next. It wasn't like he'd keep a diary of bad things he'd done in his life for her to find. Men were different than women in that regard.
For a year, she'd chatted with Cord through messenger, going from secretive to eventually leaving no details about her life out of the conversations. She'd assumed Cord was doing the same as they formed an online bond.
If she'd known Cord Miller was not who he'd claimed, she never would've come to Idaho. The guy was a sadistic asshole.
"What are you looking for?" asked Quint behind her.
She swiveled on the balls of her feet and stood. Warmth flooded her neck, creeping up to her cheeks. He'd caught her.
Approaching him to keep her voice quiet and the conversation between them, she said, "You expect me to stay here, and I don't know a thing about you. I'm freaking out a little bit."
"What do you need to know?"
Her spine straightened. "How do I know what I need to know? That's a dumb question. You could be just like Cord and tomorrow, you'll start bossing me around and taking all my possessions? I can't protect myself against you. You're like...Bigfoot."
"What do you own?" He raised his brows. "You're wearing clothes I gave you."
"You don't have to rub my face in—"
"I'm saying..." He paused. "You've got nothing I can take away."
"Then, you're dumb." She crossed her arms. "There's more than material things about me."
His gaze warmed. "You think I'm going to make you have sex as payment for helping you."
She gawked at him, hating how he set off a bomb of tingles inside of her. "No, because there's nothing about you that I find attractive. You're not my type. I don't like men who live on a mountain and have bushy beards and are old enough to be my father."
"Katelynn." His eyes narrowed. "What were you looking for?"
"If you need to know, I'm looking for anything that would tell me if this...this activity of yours is common."
He widened his stance. "You want to know if I have women running to me for help every day? Maybe, you're wondering if I go around doing favors to get into their pants?"
"I mean..." She blew out her breath.
"I know what you mean." His gaze narrowed. "Jesus..."
"I thought Cord respected me, and he turned out to be an asshole," she whispered on a hiss. "I don't know what you're going to do or how you're going to change. Sure, right now, you're nice. But you've told your friends what I did and what you did. I thought we were going to share my secret. I can't trust you."
"Lady, get this straight. I wish like hell you would've kept pulling your rig on down the road and never set foot in my campground. But, you did come to me, and now we need to deal with what happens next because I, for one, don't plan on spending the rest of my years locked behind bars for trying to help you."
A tear rolled down her cheek. Afraid to wipe it away and show any weakness, she stared into his blue eyes. His words hurt and the gruffness in his voice reminded her of Cord, except he wasn't out of control. He wasn't overly angry. If anything, he was confident and compelling.
"You don't remember, but the three men standing in the other room were there the night you murdered Cord. They helped me get rid of the body." His gaze softened. "I don't know you, but I know them. And, lady, there is nothing I wouldn't do to make sure none of this blows back on them. Instead of freaking out and worrying about what we're doing, maybe you should take a breath and be damn glad we're here to help you."
More tears fell. He balled his hands. She looked away from him.
"I'm going to walk the others out." He straightened and looked around the room, sweeping his gaze over her head. "Feel free to do all the snooping you need to feel comfortable staying with me."
He walked out of the room. In the distance, a door closed.
She dragged her feet across the hallway into the bedroom he'd given her to stay in and closed herself in. How could she judge him when two days ago, she would've sworn on a stack of bibles that she wasn't a murderer?
He'
d only taken her word for what happened, and yet he brought her into his house and lied to the police to protect her, knowing she was the reason for the dead body in his campground.
She groaned and curled up on the bed, hugging the pillow to the front of her. Two seconds of feeling sorry for herself, she still couldn't shake the feeling that she was making a huge mistake trusting him because he knew the right things to say. She'd done the same thing with Cord, and that's why she'd ended up having to defend herself against his attack.
Getting out of the bed, she walked through the cabin and out the front door. Without stopping on the porch to talk to Quint, she strolled faster into the grass and headed toward the driveway.
The three men in their cars looked her way. She kept her gaze straight ahead. Quint had told her she could walk to the campground. If he were telling the truth, she'd be able to keep going.
Out of sight of the cabin, she heard engines start. Prepared for Quint and his friends to swoop down on her, proving her intuition right, she walked faster along the side of the gravel road.
The first vehicle passed her.
The second vehicle went by.
A hand lifted from the open window of the third vehicle and kept going.
She slowed down. They weren't going to stop her?
Taking her time, giving Quint more of a chance to catch her on his ATV, she shoved her hands in the pockets of her jeans to keep from picking at her cuticles.
She couldn't understand Quint's need to help her. Because of the circumstances, they hadn't known each other past the brief moment he'd checked her into the campground. Maybe, he was right, and she had forced him to help her when she'd run to the office to use the phone.
He couldn't expect her to bend over backward and accept their living situation without questioning why he'd help her.
A tent came into view. She kept walking as the campground took shape in front of her and she spotted headquarters ahead of her on the right. His cabin was closer than she'd thought to the business he owned.
She glanced behind her. There was no sight of Quint coming after her. No sound, no yelling, no threats.
Passing the office, she continued walking around the loop. Feeling safer than she had in a long time because there were other people around. If she were brave, she'd approach any one of them and confess to what she'd done. What Quint had done. What they'd covered up together.
She swallowed hard, holding her tears back. Any rational person would freak out if she told them she'd killed a man a few days ago.
They'd fear her.
They'd be disgusted by what she'd done.
They'd lock up their children for their safety.
They'd call the cops.
A scream built up inside of her. She wasn't the woman they'd believe her to be. She wasn't bad.
QUINT FOLLOWED KATELYNN away from the cabin on foot. Part of him wanted her to keep going. Walk away from the campground. Walk away from her pain. Walk away from him.
He'd survived forty-six years, and his life wouldn't allow for any mistakes. Making sure she never spoke to anyone else about what happened wasn't what he'd planned to do that summer.
His choice to kill a man to escape Mexico, setting the whole chain reaction of people coming after him for the last thirty years wasn't what he'd wanted.
He hadn't asked for any of the shit in his life.
Katelynn slowed down at the clearing. The river only twenty feet in front of her. He looked up at the sky. Dusk rolled in, and soon it'd be dark.
She walked forward to the water's edge. He stayed back in the trees and leaned against the nearest trunk. Unlike him, she had no drive to kill Miller. It'd happened out of fright. She'd fought back, and in an instant, her life had changed directions.
Nothing he said would validate her feelings and relieve the guilt coursing through her. He stayed back because he hadn't earned a right to step into her life. Though his decision to get rid of Miller and not involve the police was on him.
She would've had a fifty/fifty chance to walk away innocent of killing Miller if she would've confessed to the crime. If she belonged to him or he had a sister, even those odds weren't good enough for him to let the courts decide.
Katelynn lifted her hands and rubbed her face. From behind her, he took in her sloped shoulders. She was a strong woman.
A weaker one would've crumbled already.
Because of that strength or maybe because he felt guilty, he removed the flashlight from his back pocket and hung it from the strap on a low branch in the middle of the trail for Katelynn to find when she decided to leave.
With one more look, to make sure she'd be okay, he turned around and left her by the river.
He closed and locked headquarters, sending his last employee home, and then he walked out of the campground and returned to the cabin alone.
Anders, Will, and Mark would torch the travel trailer for him under cover of darkness. He'd already swept the RV, making sure there was nothing to point to Katelynn. After the fire further destroyed the evidence, there would be nothing left after they cleaned up the area on the mountain.
Opening a beer, he grabbed a pack of smokes and sat out on the porch. It took him a few minutes for his vision to get used to the darkness. The longer he sat, the more he wavered between wanting Katelynn to return to him and for her to leave. She deserved to gain the freedom he'd never achieved in his own life.
Chapter 10
Quint put a plate of food in front of Katelynn. She put the meal on her lap and looked at the concoction he'd whipped together. He'd taken French bread and put pizza sauce, cheese, and some kind of thin meat slices on top.
He'd done it all acting like it was normal for her to walk into the cabin at eleven o'clock at night and sit down on his couch. He never questioned where she'd gone or what she'd done after she'd walked away.
It'd taken her hours to figure out what her best options were, and she'd decided that staying with Quint and going on with their story to the cops was in her best interest.
"We need to talk about your truck." He bit into the homemade pizza. "I'm assuming your insurance hasn't been paid unless you have automatic payments."
She picked at the edge of the bread, breaking off crumbs. Her appetite had left months ago when she discovered Cord wasn't the person he'd made himself out to be online. She simply consumed enough food to keep her energy level up.
"I paid bi-annually." She pressed her hand to her forehead. "It's paid up until...God, I don't know what month it is."
Her throat closed and she panted for breath. There were many things she forgot or couldn't recall. Things that she knew she should remember.
"It's okay." Quint softened his voice. "It's mid-June."
"It is?" She shook her head. "The time with..."
She was sick of saying his name. He'd ruined her life. If he would've let her go back to Vancouver during the first few days after arriving in Idaho when she discovered he was an abusive jerk, she could've tried to get her old job back.
She would've had her clothes, her money, her self-respect.
Counting the months since she paid the bill before she'd left town, she sighed. "I guess, the insurance ran out last month."
"Do you want me to contact the company and pay the late bill for you?" asked Quint.
She couldn't have him do any more for her. It cost him to have her stay here and eat his food and take him away from his work.
"No, don't do that. You can have the truck." She looked at him. "For how much it costs you—"
"I don't want your vehicle."
"I know it's an old truck and seen better days, but it's paid off," she said.
"Katelynn, you don't owe me anything." He tilted her chin, forcing her to look at him. "I want to do this for you."
"Why?"
He pulled his hand back. "Because when I needed help the most, I had others to lean on. Mark, Will, and Anders were there for me. I want to be here for you."
Loneliness hit h
er. She'd left everyone familiar back in Washington. Her co-workers, her neighbors. Having never been one who needed close friends, she never realized before how lonely her life was or let it bother her. Until now.
"I'm so grateful for you." She reached over and squeezed his hand. "Please, think about taking my truck. You can sell it and use the money." When he opened his mouth, she shook her head. "You don't have to say anything now. Just think about it."
Quint tucked his chin down. "Why I brought the subject up is because I'm concerned you'll try and take off, and if you get stopped by the police and get caught without insurance, you're going to get in trouble. I don't want that to happen to you."
"There's not enough gas in the truck to go more than a few miles." Her body tensed in anger. "That's how I ended up here in the first place."
"Okay, then we need to talk about today. You took off, and then you came back. I'm assuming we're okay?"
She nodded. "We're okay."
"We need to protect each other." He picked up his pizza and ate the whole thing without starting any other conversation.
She picked at the food. Once in a while, she put a pinch of bread in her mouth when Quint looked to see if she was eating. It was hard for her to understand why he'd get in trouble with the law for helping her.
He wasn't the one who murdered someone. The whole situation came about because of her, even if she was trying to save her own life. There was no excuse for what she'd done.
"You should eat more," he said.
"I'm sorry. I can't." She carried her plate to the kitchen and cleaned up after herself.
Needing fresh air despite spending time at the river, she walked out onto the porch. She physically hurt. Her chest ached with each breath. Her head pounded because of all the sleepless nights. She thrust her fingers into her hair. Even her tender scalp reminded her of how she was falling apart.