I chew on my lip until I taste iron. “Right. So what do I do? I ain’t taking the fall for this shit. I didn’t kill her.”
Reese stops tapping and sets the pen down flat. “Let us use our resources to help you find the real killer,” he says. “We offer them the real murderer. Clear Hunter’s name.”
Dawson clears his throat. “I don’t have the resources to launch a full manhunt.”
I lean in closer. Close enough that he can see exactly what’s behind my eyes. “But I fuckin’ do, Dawson. I’ve got contacts around the world that can locate the fucker trying to set me up.”
His eyes go wide. “Set you up?”
I shrug. “Seems like it, don’t you think? Ashley had no reason to be murdered. Yeah, she was a drunk. But she didn’t cause anyone harm.”
Reese nods. “She was stabbed in her own home. Nothing was stolen. It wasn’t a random attack. It was planned.” He holds up two fingers. “Let us prove it. Ninety days.”
Dawson takes a shaky breath. His eyes move between us. He’s nervous, and that ain’t good for me. “If I agree to this, Hunter, you don’t leave New Falls. Don’t step foot in Red Creek. Don’t breathe a fucking word of this.” He holds my gaze. “Do your investigations quietly. Don’t cause me a scene. If you can do that, I’ll get you that ninety days. I’ll keep them off your backs.”
I close my eyes.
This should be a relief. Ninety days. Time to find whoever did this and hand them over on a silver platter.
But it’s not a relief. Not really. Because even when I do hand them the real suspect, the truth remains that someone is out to get me. Someone planned this. Someone murdered the mother of my child and pointed the finger at me with enough precision to make it stick.
That war we’ve been anticipating might not be what we think.
Perhaps they play dirty.
We can play dirtier.
“And I mean it,” Dawson continues, and there’s a tremor in his voice he’s trying to hide. “If I find out you’ve left this town, for any reason, I will throw your ass in jail and send you over to Red Creek. Understood? Because you’ll need a fucking army to get you out of their holding cells.”
I arch a brow.
He knows exactly who he’s speaking to. And he knows damn well it’s my money that keeps his pockets fat enough to turn a blind eye when it matters. But this is out of his jurisdiction. I’m lucky he stepped in at all. So I’ll let him have this little power trip for now. Go along with it. Nod when he needs me to nod.
Because I need my freedom.
My son just lost his mom.
He isn’t losing me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
LOLA
I’ve spentall morning refreshing the local news website.
Scroll. Refresh. Nothing. Scroll. Refresh. Nothing.
Part of me wants to jump in my car and drive to him. I’m aching for him in a way that doesn’t make sense. Not for a man I’ve slept with once, not for a man who told me to forget he exists. But I know in my gut, in that deep and stubborn place that hasn’t often steered me wrong, that he didn’t do this.
That same part of me led me to New Falls.
This pull between us is real. It was real in the truck. It was real when he pressed his forehead to mine and said he’d come back. And it’s real now, sitting on this couch in my pajamas while I try to refresh my newsfeed.
I bite my lip and watch Violet pour her coffee into her takeaway mug. She’s going to her kitchen to clean up after the party. She and Luke left her unit in a state, and the van half unpacked.
With her out of the house, this leaves me on my own all day, with nothing but my phone and a very bad idea forming atthe back of my brain. I’ve spent years behaving and doing what everyone tells me to do.
That is the Lola I want to leave in New York.