Had no way of proving whether the man in Kacey’s photos was Jerome.

  He had to know what the white powder was in those movie cases.

  He wasn’t going to call in local police until he had to do so. Wasn’t going to let some two-bit thugs undo almost a year of undercover work. Not now that Alexopoulos was in the picture, selling Rachel the drugs they’d been looking for. Authorities had known they were there.

  Local police had been able to trace small buys.

  He and Rachel getting to know the local kids hanging out at the marina had been key to finding Belen. If she was able to pull off the larger buy later in the week, things could start to tumble in their favor very quickly.

  After months of establishing his identity, becoming known as a water lover with no real ambition, Devon would move into the picture, want in on the action, come up with money to make a huge buy, but only be willing to deal if he got in on a bigger piece of the organization. The higher up he went, the more heads would topple.

  Assuming they hadn’t been made, it could all be done within the week.

  “It’s a bit frightening to me that these guys show up on your property the day I do, that I subsequently find a movie, then what seems likely to be one of them shows up dead in a crate with part of the same type of movie label in the bottom of it. And then some guy with one of my abductors says they’re looking for a crate of supplies they lost.”

  Driving, with an eye on his phone screen showing him areas of his property, Devon nodded. It concerned him, too. Hugely. He knew that one of the trespassers was dead.

  And he couldn’t be sure she wasn’t more involved than she let on.

  He wasn’t really Devon Miller. If someone knew that...

  Rachel wasn’t really Rachel Wallace, either.

  He knew that Kacey Ashland really was a first-grade teacher from Bullhead City, but that didn’t mean that she couldn’t also have a secret life.

  Maybe a summertime job making a load of extra money on the side? He’d heard teachers were grossly underpaid.

  Or even a worried twin attempting to help her brother out of something he fell into. Hometown football hero, getting offers from top universities based on old Boulder City news reports, who’s forced by family tragedy to skip his entire future to work at a sawmill for the rest of his life? Devon could see the man being tempted by the big money he’d been headed to make.

  What if her whole near-drowning had been a setup to specifically reel him in and he played right into it?

  Would a woman who’d been left for dead, who’d been through as many life-threatening situations as Kacey had in the past few days, really go barreling out into the desert alone, alerting no one, unless she knew she had little to fear?

  Except perhaps an unexpected pack of coyotes woken from their naps?

  Would a decorated detective, intent on spending his life being the best cop he could be, really be so easily taken in?

  Was Tommy Grainger as much like his father as he’d thought, growing up? Falling for a beautiful woman on the job to the exclusion of everything else he held dear?

  Not that Devon was falling for Kacey.

  And he wasn’t being taken in by her either, hence the doubts. If anything, in the event it turned out she was playing him, he’d be the guy turning the tables and taking advantage of the situation.

  Because he was keeping all doors open, all possibilities on the table, he’d be prepared for whatever came at him.

  And because he had Sierra’s Web, Rachel and the rest of his handpicked team on board, ready to notice any inconsistencies they saw, even if he was the one exhibiting them.

  Which was why he needed to get Devon’s butt back to town and into the bar. With a call to Sierra’s Web on the way.

  Feeling better, he followed Kacey into the air-conditioned comfort of the cabin, changed the bandages on her ankles, checked that everything was secure, and then told her he had to head back to the marina for a bit.

  She nodded. Didn’t complain. Asked if he had anything particular in mind for dinner.

  Almost like they were a couple.

  Which had him heading faster toward the door as he told her he liked all the food in the place so anything there would be fine, silently thinking maybe he’d eat at the bar. He was almost out the door, pulling it closed behind him, when he turned back.

  “You did a great job out there today,” he told her. Meaning every word. No matter what life she was living, the woman was pretty incredible.

  * * *

  Stay gone. Kyle had told her.

  For how long?

  Were more dead people going to turn up? Possible thieves?

  How would she know when it was safe to return? It wasn’t like Kyle had any way of getting in touch with her.

  More than twenty-four hours had passed since she’d spoken with him. For all she knew, Kyle could be hurt.

  Or worse.

  And yet she felt compelled to heed her twin’s advice. To give him time.

  Based on the likelihood that it was the trespasser in the trunk, there was a good chance what she’d seen that afternoon, taken photos of, had been something illegal. She didn’t trust Bullhead City Police, but down by Quartzite, she should maybe go to the police.

  Doing so would most definitely bring her back to life.

  Which could endanger Devon, since her abductors might very well be onto him.

  To his truck, obviously. He’d been followed to his property, with a probable dead trespasser and likely the other back again.

  But maybe it was just his truck that had been exposed, not his person, yet, or he wouldn’t be doing his job and coming home without mishap, right? Unless she went to the police. She’d have to expose Devon, too, as the pictures she took were on and near his property.

  So was she to think that whatever Kyle was into had to do with adult movies?

  She couldn’t imagine it.

  But if there was one topic she and her twin didn’t share, ever, it would be their sex lives.

  Maybe Devon was going to the police without implicating her, which should keep him safer from her kidnappers. Saying he took the photos. The timeline would be a little off, depending on how long he’d been home, following her that afternoon.

  Had he seen her with her shirt off?

  Like it mattered under the circumstances.

  Still, it kind of did. Privately. To her. She just wasn’t sure if she wanted him to have had the view, or not.

  Checking the laundry closet screens every fifteen minutes, scrolling back to see all that had gone on during that time, she put together a baked, bacon-wrapped chicken dish for dinner. Figured she’d serve it with steamed broccoli and cauliflower.

  Surely Devon would inform her if he was taking her evidence to the police. At least give her a heads-up.

  When she saw his vehicle enter the property, she put the foil-wrapped pan of chicken and mushroom-soup-based sauce in the oven. Telling herself it was good news that he was back so soon.

  But knew it wasn’t.

  Trembling, she was kind of watching for police to arrive with him, ridiculously fearing that he was having them take her away, when he came in and asked her to have a seat.

  He looked her in the eye as he made the request, his expression serious, but not hard as it had been earlier that afternoon.

  She chose the couch. Needing what comfort she could provide for herself.

  When he sat, too, Kacey drew a slightly easier breath.

  She knew that, ultimately, she was completely on her own. Would have to accept, would be completely accountable to, whatever consequences ended upon her for the actions she’d taken. But Devon’s nearness calmed her.

  Gave her some kind of odd strength. Because he’d saved her life? Offered her refuge?

  Because she’d taken him into her body the night before, as though he was a part of her soul?

  Because he hadn’t ditched her when her advent into his life had created major difficulties for him?

  A full minute passed and he hadn’t said anything. She glanced over to find him watching her. Oh, Lord, was he getting ready to tell her she had to go?

  Not that she blamed him, but... “Just tell me,” she blurted.

  “The dead man in the crate was a man named Antonio Hardy. You know the name?”

  Frowning, her stomach in knots, she shook her head.

  “The man you saw today is his brother, Jerome. They were the trespassers the first day you were here. Jerome’s body was just discovered floating in the river ten miles from here. He had a bullet in his stomach. Please tell me you did not put it there.”

  “Of course I didn’t!” How could he...

  “I need to see the gun I gave you, Kacey. I need to know whether my bullet could turn up in a ballistic report.”

  Shaking inside, but with steady hand movements, she removed the gun from her waist and handed it over to him.

  Watched as he systematically checked the gun. Counted bullets.

  Had he gone to the police already then?

  Implicated her?

  Before she’d had a chance to talk to them herself?

  If her twin brother was in trouble, it stood to reason that she was involved? Guilty by association?

  “It hasn’t been fired,” he said, as though imparting some big news.

  “I told you that.”

  He nodded. Gave the gun back to her.

  Shocking her.

  She took it as though she’d expected it to happen. Slid it back into her waistband.

  His doubt—him thinking there was even a chance she’d have shot and killed a man and tried to cover it up or lie about it—angered her. For starters. The rest she wasn’t going to think about.

  The fact that he’d handed the gun back emboldened her.

  “How did you hear about this so quickly?” she demanded more than asked. He could tell her to go to hell.

  At the moment, she didn’t much care.

  “I stopped in at the bar. The police were there, questioning Rachel again.”

  “Did this Jerome have the bar’s address in his pocket, too?”

  “No. But because he was Antonio’s brother, they came back to talk to the employees a second time. Rachel was on duty.”

  Right.

  Was Rachel the reason he’d gone back?

  It shouldn’t matter to her one way or the other.

  Once she had her life back, had some control of her destiny, it wouldn’t matter.

  “Had she seen either of them before?”

  “No, and from what I understand, bar surveillance tape doesn’t show them there.”

  “Did you tell the police that I’d seen Jerome? Show them the pictures? Did you tell them I have a gun in my possession?” He wouldn’t have been wrong to do so. She had to know what she was facing.

  “No. I think, after this latest development, for your safety and mine, it’s best that you stay missing...”

  She glanced at him. Met his gaze. Felt the silent communication that passed between them, a return to some kind of “them.”

  “If my gun had been shot, and because you hadn’t mentioned shooting it, we’d be heading into them right now,” he told her softly.

  “I wouldn’t expect any less,” she shot right back at him. With complete sincerity.

  He sat another minute. Studying her. As though assessing.

  “Is there more? Did they find the container?” Had it been full of the same adult movies as the one she’d found? Had Kyle gotten mixed up with someone dealing illegal contraband? Maybe by purchasing a movie?

  “They didn’t,” Devon said, more thoughtful than tense, an arm along the back of the couch. Not touching her. But close. “Which kind of makes you think that whoever shot Jerome has it.”

  “It kind of does.” It made her nervous, how much she was thinking it. “The guys in the bar last night...missing a crate...you think it’s Jerome’s container?” Say no. Say no. Say no.

  “I think it’s possible.”

  She needed there to be some other explanation.

  “While I was at the bar, I saw another photo of Antonio in the crate,” Devon dropped almost casually into the room. “The police were showing it around to a few people.”

  That had to have been hard to look at. She almost said so. Something held her quiet.

  “The crate could have been any of the photos you took of that container today,” he said then.

  “The brothers were dealing with stolen goods,” she said slowly, and from that drew the painfully obvious conclusion. “The three men last night...they wanted those movies.”

  Devon’s fingertips touched her shoulder. Not in a sexy way.

  More like he was just making her aware he was there.

  With her.

  She wondered if he had any idea how badly she’d needed to know that.

  Chapter 21

  He’d shown Rachel the photos of Jerome Hardy hiding the crate just yards from Devon’s land. Hadn’t said who’d taken them. She’d naturally assumed he had.

  If he was making the wrong call, maintaining silence about his houseguest, he would be the only one going down for the information.

  He was the lead detective on his undercover assignment. It was up to him to determine what truths to tell and which ones to conceal to protect not only the integrity of the operation, but also the detectives working it.

  A call from Sierra’s Web had let him know that while the powder found in the movie case was a form of heroin, it consisted mostly of sugar and starch with a minimal amount of morphine, and therefore was far less potent, less effective, and much less addictive than the lethal form of the opiate his team was following. He’d discussed with Rachel the possibility that the three men in the bar the previous night were dealers, just on a smaller scale, a much less professional, local operation, peddling more of a small-high party drug than dangerous opiates. Not worth risking their operation, blowing their cover, even with the local police.

  For all they knew, local law enforcement cooperation could be the way their drugs were passing through the marina and across the United States. Made sense that the same crooked cop or cops were taking kickback for the passage of other illegal substances as well.

  She’d agreed.

  They decided together to keep a watch for the movies, the once again missing crate, and to keep an eye out for the three men who’d been in the bar the night before. To find out what they could, with a possible tie to a mutual link in the supply chain from their marina for illegal contraband.

  There was no indication that Belen and the three men in the bar were connected. But that didn’t mean they didn’t share some distribution channel.

  The discovery of which could be the piece they needed to solve their case and get astronomical amounts of lethal drugs off the streets and away from the kids who were dying while partying with them.

  All they really had at the moment was one movie, and knowledge of a crate being hidden before the hider was killed. And they had crates that looked alike, one with a partial movie label on the bottom, but no proof at all that the crate Kacey had photographed that afternoon had contained more drug-concealing adult movies. He felt sure that it did.

  But before he went any further up his professional ladder with the news, he needed more.

  He’d asked Sierra’s Web to log the movie, and its cover and contents, as evidence, and hang onto it. The firm had been retained by the Henderson Police Department to help on his undercover operation. He’d discovered the movie while working that assignment.

  He’d been given a specific job. But he was still a cop, with temporary jurisdiction in the state of Arizona. Detectives regularly worked more than one case at a time.

  Not at all happy with the turn of events of the past few days, Devon gained a measure of peace in terms of his professional decisions with the mental self-check. Which left him to wallow in a quandary of a more personal nature.

  He’d never before been in the position of having to have “The Talk” after having had sex with a woman. In Devon’s world, and Tommy’s, that conversation was like putting on a condom. It had to happen before he got intimate with a woman, or he didn’t get intimate. Period.

  Looking over at Kacey, seeing her determination and ability to stand back up every time she got knocked down, he had trouble getting any words out at all. She was clearly at a low point in her life. All alone. Unable to reach out to anyone at all because she had to appear to be dead. Devon didn’t want to join the list of circumstances pushing her to the ground.

  She’d done right by him more than once. He’d known she was out by the river that day. She hadn’t had to take photos. Or to show them to him.

  If she’d known Jerome was heading to his death, she could have taken the time stamped pictures as a form of protection for herself. An alibi of sorts. Proving he’d been alive at the time she’d been present.

  The theory fit.

  He didn’t feel strongly about it.

  And then he saw it. A speck of orange hiding underneath the top layer of blond hair at the back of her head, by her neck.

  A flower from the Mexican Bird of Paradise plant.

  The only way it could have gotten there was if she’d been underneath one.

  She’d said that she hadn’t gone near the crate. That she’d taken her pictures from afar, that Jerome’s shoving of the crate had disturbed a pack of coyotes, that the man had run for the river, maybe being nipped by a coyote and then had detailed how she’d dealt with the pack to make her own escape.

  Other than getting a little dry-mouthed, thinking about her walking out in the desert in only the bra he could picture well because he’d purchased it for her, he’d taken it all in as fact.