The lack of any answers, talking to so many people...either they were all in something together and covering for each other, someone had something over them, someone they feared, or someone was buying them off.

  Someone knew some damn thing.

  “Mike Chambers was a regular in Burley’s games,” Sandra was saying. “He was around fifty the night we now know Mason Cooper played for the last time. I think he was there, Jackson. When we mentioned poker, I’d actually asked if he’d liked to play a hand or two, he lit right up. But...he’s in horrible cognitive health so I didn’t want to be the one to make a call on whether or not to follow up on what he says. And I know anything he says won’t end up in court. But, neither could I ignore what he told me. I don’t want to be the only one who heard it. You’ll understand—just humor me here...”

  Tension and impatience made Jackson’s nod terse. He kept his mouth shut.

  Aimee would be up soon. He’d expected to have already had her call. If it didn’t come by the time he was done there, he was calling Leon. He trusted his deputy 100 percent. Trusted him with his own life. Wasn’t in the habit of checking up on him. Or expecting him to call in with reports on a protective witness duty, but fate had to cut him a break on this one.

  He needed to hear from the woman who’d spent the night in this bed.

  And Sandra was expecting him to follow her into the room she’d just entered, a space resembling a hospital room, if not for the brown wood dresser, the love seat and coffee table, the family photos all over the walls and the quilt on the neatly made hospital bed sporting a camouflage design.

  “Mr. Chambers? This is Jackson Redmond—I told you about him.”

  The old man in the wheelchair by the window, what hair he had slicked back behind his ears, made suckling noises, as though he had a piece of candy in his mouth, and said, “Nope. I don’t know neither one of you.”

  Sandra’s flash look at Jackson warned him to hold on a second.

  “You play poker, don’t you?” Sandra asked.

  “I do. But I’d beat the pants off you, little lady, and you don’t want that.”

  “No, but Jackson here, he’s a darn good player.”

  Admiring the way his detective took the chauvinistic comment without losing her stride, Jackson still wanted to inform that man that Sandra Philpot had beaten Jackson at blackjack the previous year during their casino night fundraiser.

  But the meeting was Sandra’s. She had the lead.

  “You play cards, young man?”

  “I do.” In his uniform with his striped credentials on his chest and his gun at his hip, Jackson wasn’t used to being called anything as irreverent as young man. And let that slide, too.

  Sandra had him there for a reason.

  “Tell Jackson about that game you used to play in Halston,” Sandra said. “The one behind the bar.”

  Mike cocked his head, clearly assessing her. “You know about that game?”

  “Of course I do. You told me about it.”

  Seeming to think on that one a moment, the old man must have decided that since he’d already spoken about the game, it was okay to do so. He started in about different nights, different hands, different players, going on for a good five minutes—during which Jackson about lost what little bit of patience he had left. Ordinarily, he’d be fine to sit with Mike Chambers for however long it took, but he was anxious to get back to Aimee.

  They were no closer to finding whoever was after her and with every hour that passed without the guy in custody, she was at more risk.

  “What about the game with the deed on the table?” Sandra asked when the old man fell silent. “You remember that one?”

  “Course I do!” Mike said, sounding affronted. “No one in that room that night’s likely to forget that one.”

  Sandra sent Jackson another pointed look, and he tuned in. Listening intently now, for whatever it was he was supposed to pick up on.

  “Weirdest damn thing,” Mike was saying, his face almost aglow. “The Evergreen kid, you know the one...the older of the two, a bit of a pompous ass if you ask me, anyways it’s his twenty-first birthday. He’s all het up. Just came from dinner with his dad, where, for his birthday present, the old man gave him a deed to a couple of acres of land on the estate—no road to it, out back of the property. Damndest thing, the old man had the address registered, did the paperwork, but it wouldn’t be recorded until road infrastructure’s in. Tells the kid the land is there for him to get married and build a house. Road goes in when he gets married. Kid went on and on about it. An address for a house that didn’t exist. And about the fact that he didn’t intend to live under his old man’s oversight for the rest of his life. And he’d get married when he was damned well ready to do so...”

  Jackson heard roaring in his ears. An address that wasn’t registered. For a house that didn’t exist. A poker game. A deed.

  Mason Cooper won huge, called his wife and they moved out of the garage apartment.

  He looked at Sandra. She nodded.

  And, heart in his throat, Jackson was out of there.

  * * *

  Boyd Evergreen was pleasant, talking to her about her parents, sharing priceless tidbits with her, like the style that her mom preferred for her hair, the way she used to can tomatoes and make spaghetti sauce, the time her father had saved a guy’s life at the mine. He offered, several times, to set her up for life. He could afford it. And wanted to make up to her, in any way he could, the life his brother had taken from her.

  She didn’t want his money. And the longer he sat there, the longer she listened to him talk about her parents, the more agitated she became. She wanted the information, but she didn’t want him giving it to her. It made no sense, and as the tension grew in her, so did her emotional unease. She felt like she was going to cry. Kept looking at her phone over on the kitchen counter, where she’d left it. Was upset that she hadn’t called Jackson to let him know she was up.

  Had Leon told him?

  There’d been no reason to let Jackson know that Boyd Evergreen had come to visit. Jackson had practically arranged the meeting himself.

  After getting up from the couch, she moved over to the front window, just to reassure herself that Leon was still out there, that she could motion him to come in in case she needed him.

  Why she would, she had no idea. But she wasn’t herself.

  Didn’t feel right.

  Should have had breakfast.

  Saw Leon outside, standing by his car. Looked like he was reaching for his phone. Jackson calling to check up on her? Since she hadn’t called him?

  And as she turned back to the room, telling herself that she was fine, that all was well, she caught a glimpse of the license plate of the car Boyd had parked in the driveway. Not the plate itself, but the frame of it.

  The way it glinted in the sun, with nuances of blue and red...

  Because of the Evergreen emblem, she saw now...

  Evergreen as in family crest, not the town.

  Her heart dropped. Felt like it was literally in her stomach. She couldn’t breathe. Was strangling. Her head hurt, pounded, with lightning bursts of pain.

  “It was you,” she cried, turning completely to face the man who was slowly rising from the couch. Her gaze went to his right hand.

  And the ring he wore there.

  A memory pricked at her... The ring with the colors on it. On her dad’s stick in the corner. Swinging it even though you weren’t allowed to touch it. Hitting her father in the head.

  She saw her Dad’s face—instead of laughing, his eyes were wide, filled with something awful, his mouth open. He was yelling and her mother rushed over and...

  The big splat of blood was like rain, flying everywhere. Hitting her leg. And...

  She was hiding under the house. Gay Gay had done that once. When he’d been in trouble for pushing her too high on the swing. No one could find him for a long time.

  Until they’d heard him from inside the house...

  A mixture of adult interpretation and childhood memories assaulted her. But the feelings...they were all innocent. Horrifying. Beyond anything she could...darkness. She couldn’t...

  But she had to.

  She couldn’t let him get away with it...

  Blinking, Aimee focused. Heard her phone ring at the same time there was a knock on the door and an arm clenched her around the neck.

  She felt the hard metal pressing up against the side of her head at the same time the door burst open.

  Heard the shot.

  Figured, since she felt nothing, she must be dead.

  And called out for Mama and Daddy.

  They were finally all going to be together again.

  Chapter 22

  Jackson knew, the split second before he got the door open, that when his deputy had called him, he shouldn’t have ordered Leon to wait for him to get there. Going in alone was not only against protocol—could get two people killed instead of one—but Jackson knew Boyd Evergreen. He’d have the best shot at diffusing the situation if there even was one.

  Unless he was too late.

  He’d had Leon keeping watch through the window. He’d known that Aimee and Boyd were still sitting as they’d been since the man had arrived, him on the couch, her on the chair, talking.

  Until seconds before he’d pulled into his drive. Leon had seen her come to the window. Jackson had run as fast as he could, burst open the door, gun in front of him.

  And got his shot off just in time.

  One second later and Aimee would have been dead.

  As it was, Boyd’s bullet, off mark as he’d jerked at Jackson’s entrance, had grazed the skin on the side of her head.

  And left her right ear ringing not too bad, she’d told him, while sitting on the end of the exam table in the emergency room.

  Boyd Evergreen had killed Mason and Adele Cooper, in front of their three-year-old daughter. Jackson had never seen it coming.

  There were so many unanswered questions—many that might remain that way since Boyd’s body was on its way to the morgue.

  Jackson had killed a man in his own living room.

  Someone he’d looked up to, respected his entire life.

  The head of his family, so to speak.

  And he wasn’t sorry.

  The sight of Evergreen standing there with a gun to Aimee’s head was a vision that was never going to leave him. He knew that as surely as he knew he had to breathe to stay alive.

  He was finding the latter difficult, breathing, as he stood outside the exam cubicle waiting for Aimee to change out of the gown they’d put on her and into the clothes Kelly had brought. Her bloodstained dress had been bagged as evidence.

  Leon and Sandra would be handling the rest of the case. He had to be off active duty until the shooting had been investigated and cleared. With Leon as a witness, and the fact that Evergreen had died with his gun still in his hand, the inquiry would be brief. He’d been told to expect to be back on full duty by nightfall.

  When news of Boyd Evergreen’s fall hit, his town was going to need him.

  He needed to see, first, if Aimee needed him. The town mattered. She mattered more.

  Maybe the realization should be huge. It settled on him with a naturalness that just made it seem normal.

  The only thing in the past hour and a half that hadn’t been shocking.

  Kelly had suggested that he get looked over, too. He’d shrugged her off. He’d shot his gun at a person before. Had aimed it for a man’s hand once, to knock his own gun out of it, and succeeded.

  Leon had already brought Randall Burley in, who, once he heard that Boyd Evergreen was out of the picture, admitted that Evergreen had been a regular at his poker games, paying off everyone who came to the games to keep quiet about his involvement. He wasn’t there for the money. He was there to get good at cards.

  And piss off his father.

  He’d started playing after Mason Cooper had quit. The only time the two men had ever been at the table together had been the night Mason won the deed Boyd’s father had just given him as his twenty-first birthday present.

  And then, to cover up his blunder, he’d told his father that he was letting a good guy down on his luck live on the property just until he found a woman he wanted to marry. He’d told his dad how Mason had saved a guy’s life at the mine—one in which the Evergreen family was a silent partner. Silent because they were in direct competition with themselves as they owned the rivaling operation.

  So many secrets and cover-ups.

  Was anything as it seemed?

  Leon had told him in their fairly brief phone conversation minutes earlier that Burley had been truly shocked to hear that Evergreen was a murderer. He’d thought, as everyone else had, that the Coopers had died in an accident. But he’d known the kid’s name and when he’d seen it show up on the reservations panel, he’d grabbed up the reservation before anyone else had a chance to look at it. Just in case. He’d told Boyd and he’d wanted Aimee to come town, to find out what she knew, why she was there. After she showed up Evergreen had admitted to him that he’d been bilking Aimee out of her inheritance because it had been in the middle of Evergreen land, and with everything that had happened, some bad investments, Grayson’s care, he didn’t have the money to buy her out. He also admitted that Evergreen had given him the money to buy Blooming Bridges, and that for his generosity, he was buying a lifetime of Burley’s loyalty. Boyd had searched for the deed Cooper had won, but never found it. Over the years Evergreen got more and more paranoid about the little girl growing up and coming to town to try to get back her father’s land. He’d been keeping tabs on her for years.

  Burley hadn’t known any of that until he’d mentioned to Boyd that a girl with the same name as Cooper’s wife, with the same odd spelling of Aimee had just booked a cabin. That’s when Boyd had reminded Burley that he owed him. Burley had agreed to question her at check-in about her reason for visiting, and he’d planned to do that, but when she’d checked in online after landing in Flagstaff, he’d just chatted with her online before she’d arrived. He’d ascertained that she didn’t remember her past, and so Burley, at Evergreen’s bidding, had tried to get her to leave town once and for all. He didn’t want her renting someplace else local. Or coming back.

  Little had Burley known that Boyd Evergreen’s paranoia had grown because Aimee had grown and he worried about that three-year-old girl who’d witnessed her parents’ murders remembering what she’d seen.

  Burley swore, though, that all he’d done was sabotage Aimee’s stay at the cabin. He’d had nothing to do with the road rage, nor the explosive device outside the sheriff’s office.

  Evergreen had been the one to shoot the bullet on his land the day Aimee had arrived in town. A move which he’d later regretted as it got Jackson involved in her search for her truths. And a move that had made Randall Burley very nervous.

  So, they still had at least one criminal at large, since Boyd was out of town after the shooting. Someone on Evergreen’s payroll, obviously. Someone who Sandra and Leon were tracking like dogs after a steak bone. Starting with Evergreen’s bank accounts. People didn’t kill for free.

  And in the meantime, Jackson was sticking to Aimee. Period.

  Whether she wanted him there or not.

  He’d failed her. Let her killer walk right into his living room. And he’d made the wrong call at the end, too, having Leon wait for him to get there.

  The one thing he’d always been was a great cop, and when it mattered most, he’d been so engrained with protocol, he’d nearly gotten the love of his life killed.

  The old man wouldn’t have done that.

  But his father was responsible for other mistakes. Ones just as great. He’d destroyed evidence when he’d destroyed that mobile home. He’d failed to investigate. He’d locked up an innocent, handicapped man, and let a killer go free.

  It was all going to come out. The city council could vote to let him go as sheriff. A new sheriff might not even choose to hire him as an officer.

  As he stood there in the deserted back area of the triage unit where they’d rushed Aimee—their only current patient—smelling antiseptic, listening to beeps and voices in the distance, he knew what he faced, and didn’t even care.

  All he cared about was on the other side of the curtain, taking an inordinately long time to get some clothes on.

  Or so it seemed to him.

  His watch told him it had been less than three minutes.

  He yanked at the curtain, ducking his head in, anyway. He’d seen her naked. And wasn’t content to have her anywhere he couldn’t see her.

  Aimee, still sitting on the end of the examining table in the hospital gown, looked at him, tears dripping down her cheeks.

  “What?” he asked, immediately filled with concern as he slipped inside, pulling the curtain closed behind him. Looking for the call button.

  “I can’t get the gown untied,” she said. “The tie between my shoulder blades is knotted and I can’t reach...”

  Weak with relief, he went to work immediately, telling himself not to look at her back, or remember his hands all over that soft skin—to remember his body pressed up against it, or that skin on top of him, making him wild...

  “I’ve been waiting right outside,” he said as his big fingers fumbled with the knot. “Why didn’t you just call out to me?”

  She sniffed. Grabbed a tissue off the box on the tray next to her. And then said, “I’ve ruined everything for you, Jackson. If I’d just stayed home, instead of being so full of my need to... I don’t even know what...look at the mess I’ve caused...and for what? To know how my parents died? It doesn’t bring them back.”

  “You brought the truth out of the darkness, Aimee. Boyd Evergreen is a killer. Who knows who else he might have hurt over the years, whatever other crimes he might have committed and gotten away with. And Grayson...he’s let that poor man believe, all these years, that he killed your parents? I don’t even know how he pulled that off. He had us all fooled...” Jackson stopped, midsentence.