“I’m not your entertainment,” he said. “Get lost.”
I didn’t.
By that point I was too interested.
I followed him. To the next bar, and the one after that. Kept talking, kept asking questions he refused to answer.
Eventually he ditched me.
And then, somehow, we ran into each other again at a Reiki class.
That was the first time he chose to talk to me.
After that, things just… clicked. We talked for hours that day, enough that it felt like we’d known each other longer than we actually had.
Still, there were gaps. Things he didn’t say.
Like her.
I didn’t know about Sierra back then. Didn’t know there was someone he’d been carrying around in his head for years. Didn’t know she was real, or that she looked like that.
Just then, my phone buzzes, dragging me out of my memories.
I fumble for it in my pocket, drag it out and answer without thinking. It Sherriff Clay Dawson, of all people. I sigh inwardly. That’s all we need. More hassle from the likes of him and that Yellowbrook guy. But I try to be polite. Hopefully it’s nothing major. “Oh, it’s you Sheriff. How are you doing?”
“This isn’t a social call, Luke.”
“It’s not?”
“No. I’m calling to warn you, seeing as you’re almost a local boy now.”
There’s a hesitation before he continues, and just that is enough to put me on alert.
“You know I like you, Luke. In point of fact, I’ve come to think of you like the son I never had.”
“Oh yeah…” I draw it out, waiting.
“I was wondering how much you know about your business partner.”
“Reid? Why?”
“Because someone’s been digging into his past,” he says. “And they’re accusing him of murder.”
CHAPTER 35
Sierra
Idon’t like the way he’s sitting.
There’s something wrong in the set of his shoulders, in the way his fingers curl into his knees like he’s bracing for impact rather than just talking to me. Like whatever he’s about to say is going to cost him something.
I wait anyway, keeping still, giving him space, even though a slow, uneasy tension is already tightening in my chest.
“You know about my childhood—about my father, right?”
I nod. He told me before, on one of those drunken nights where the truth spills out whether you want it to or not, when defenses drop and the past comes rushing in whether you’re ready for it or not. An abusive father. Beatings. Fear. Until Reid got big enough—strong enough—to fight back and scare the asshole off.
One night, when his father was hitting his mother again, fourteen-year-old Reid grabbed a kitchen knife and stabbed him in the arm. When the man tried to swing at him, Reid dodged, slammed him into a wall, and told him to leave—and if he ever came back, he’d kill him.