Jo watched him drive away, her pulse still hammering.
Then she got in her truck and headed for home.
Tonight, everything would change.
One way or another.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Jo’s cottage felt even smaller with everyone in it.
Bridget had laid out a spread of appetizers on the kitchen counter—bruschetta, stuffed mushrooms, something with phyllo dough. Nervous baking taken to the extreme. No one had touched any of it.
Kevin arrived first, stomping mud off his boots on the porch before slipping inside. He crossed straight to Bridget, who was rearranging the appetizers for the third time, and squeezed her shoulder.
Sam came next, Lucy trotting at his heels. The dog made her usual rounds—sniffing corners, checking windows, avoiding Pickles—before settling near the door with a huff, like she understood this wasn’t a social call.
Wyatt was last.
He stood in the doorway for a moment, the evidence box tucked under his arm, looking at the faces gathered in Jo’s living room. These were the people he’d been lying to for weeks. The people he’d been trying to protect by keeping them in the dark.
Now they knew everything.
And somehow, impossibly, they were still here.
“Come in,” Jo said quietly. “Close the door.”
He did.
Bridget was on the couch, hands wrapped around a mug of tea she hadn’t touched. Her face was pale but composed—Kevin had warned her what was coming, given her time to absorb the worst of it. But hearing it secondhand wasn’t the same as sitting in the same room with the man who’d been protecting her from the shadows.
“Wyatt.” Her voice was steady, but Jo could see the tremor in her hands. “Kevin told me... what you did. The files you changed. The searches you deleted.”
Wyatt set the evidence box on the coffee table and lowered himself into the armchair across from her. He couldn’t quite meet her eyes.
“I didn’t know it was you at first,” he said. “Just a description on a list. Female, late teens at the time, involved with disposal—“ He stopped, swallowed. “When the pieces started fitting together, when I realized Kevin was searching for information that could lead them right to you... I couldn’t let that happen.”
“You risked everything.” Bridget’s voice cracked. “Your job. Your freedom. You didn’t even know me.”
“I knew enough.” Wyatt finally looked at her. “I knew what these people do to loose ends. And I knew you’d built a life here. A real one. I wasn’t going to let them take that from you.”
The room was quiet. Pickles jumped onto the back of the couch and settled behind Bridget’s head, his orange tail swishing slowly. Finn circled his tank in lazy loops, oblivious to the tension.
Kevin reached over and took Bridget’s hand. She gripped it tight.
“So what happens now?” Bridget asked.
Sam stepped forward, his presence filling the room in that steady way he had. “Now we set a trap. Wyatt’s been stalling his father’s people, but they’re out of patience. They want thatevidence.” He nodded toward the box on the table. “Tonight, Wyatt’s going to tell them he has it. He’s going to offer to hand it over.”
Bridget’s eyes widened. “You’re using him as bait.”
“I’m volunteering,” Wyatt said quietly. “This is my mess. My father. It has to be me.”
“It’s dangerous,” Kevin added. “But it’s also our best shot at catching whoever shows up. We get them on tape, we get evidence we can use. We start unraveling this thing from the inside.”
Bridget looked around the room—at Jo, at Sam, at Kevin, at Wyatt. Her jaw tightened.
“I want to help.”