Page 47 of The Verdict

“What did you talk about next?”

My mind blended thoughts and memories and facts together with the sharpest of blades, slicing and dicing them until they bled together through my brain.

“I asked her about anywhere else that Wheaton or his kid mentioned while she worked for them?—”

“What is it?”

“Check the son. There was a photograph in Wheaton’s hallway. Him and his kid on the deck of a beach house.” The image flashed in my mind—the picture that had stopped me in the hallway. “It has to do with the son.” That was when her expression had faltered.When she told me it was nothing—that he’d said nothing.

“I’ll follow up with Talon and look into Lorenz. If there’s a connection there, I’ll fucking find it,” Dare offered and let himself out of the room.Meanwhile, I stood frozen in front of the desk, like an athlete on the starting line, just waiting for the blow of that whistle to go off.

Ty’s brow furrowed even as his fingers flew over the keys, searching the records. “I think I found something.”

My heart slammed into my chest.

“There’s a trust set up in the kid’s name by his mother, that’s why I missed it,” Ty said, his eyes whipping across the screen. “It’s been paying local real estate taxes, so there has to be a property there…” His brows crunched together. “Holy shit… I found it. A beach house just south of Carmel Cove.”

“Send me the address,” I called, already out the door and heading for my motorcycle.

I was going to find her.I was going to find her and find out who the hell Merritt Manning really was. And then I was going to make her pay for making me believe that anything about her was real.

Chapter Ten

Merritt

It had to be here.

I clicked on the small flashlight I’d taken from the garage when I’d left this morning and ignored the fizzle of guilt it sent through my veins. A stolen flashlight would be the least of the things Rhys would hate me for, the first being the bright yellow Ducati I’d borrowed, the second for the heavy leather jacket over my shoulders, and the third for being a liar.

I rode the motorcycle into the small town just south of the garage and then hotwired an old Toyota parked in the public beach parking lot. The bright yellow bike wasn’t inconspicuous, and as soon as Rhys realized I was gone, he would be looking for it—and me.

Les’s beach house wasn’t too hard to find. The Inside Scoop was a local business, and there were only so many houses within walking distance, and of those, only one of them looked older. Untouched.The only thing Les hadn’t given a facelift.Probably because it belonged to his deceased wife.

I parked at the end of the drive and picked the lock on the sliding door. Once inside, I knew I had the right place. Chintzy seashell décor clung to every surface like someone had vomited a shore store onto the walls. Max described it as “seashells everywhere” with a smile on his face. And then there was the same photo of Les and Max that was at their home in the city, also hung on the wall here.

Even though the house was a good distance from its neighbors, I wasn’t going to take a chance turning on any lights. So, I waded through the soft shadows blanketing the rooms until I reached the office, unwilling to turn on a light in case it drew any attention.

The sun was still coming up, dawn was just a promise on the horizon when I’d left Sherwood this morning. The darkness was a comfort, as though not even Mother Nature could shed light on the good man I was betraying.

Rhys.My skin prickled and warmed, my body delicately preserving every second of last night into a warm, ambered memory, catching the smallest details of scent and sound and touch in its sticky trap.

It was a memory I’d savor days, weeks, and decades from now. A fossil of what could’ve been… if I’d been the person he thought I was.

Yes, I was a victim—innocent of murder—but my past hung like an albatross of truth around my neck:I was also a criminal, and Rhys deserved better.

So, I’d slid from his bed, savoring the warm tattoo of his final breath on my skin, dressed, and slipped from the cabin. In another life, I never would’ve left—another life when I wasn’t an international fugitive wanted for a jewel heist…and the poster child for the kind of vigilante target my Motorcycle Man’s MC hunted.

But in this life, who I was painted a target on Rhys’s backthe longer I was with him. Just look what happened to Les. Mercury was hunting me, and Les had become collateral damage. I wouldn’t let that happen to Rhys. I couldn’t… I couldn’t lose—I shook my head and quietly opened a door into the room I’d been looking for.

Les’s office.

The space was set up similar to his house in the city. A desk with a thin monitor on top, a chair by the window, and books stacked on shelves along the wall. Les liked carbon copies of things. The only difference here was the thick ocean musk that settled heavily in my nostrils like stale salt.

I went to the desk and ran my fingers along the smooth wood, opening one drawer after another. Notepads. Prescription pads. Box of pens.No flash drive.As cautious as Les was to hide the drive here, I didn’t expect there to be any intricate safe or hidden drawer concealing the information. Les was too egotistical for that. He was a surgeon through and through. So aggrandized in his own mind, he’d never consider someone would be after these files because it never crossed his mind that he would be caught.

Or murdered. But that was my fault.

I winced and pulled open the slim center drawer, angling the flashlight on the keyboard and mouse tucked inside. I almost shut it before the light caught something in the corner. A pill box.

---