Page 21 of Romeo

Someone knocks on my door, so I pull it open and wave to Bradyn.

“Thank you.Please, Mr.Hunt, I just want to find her.Let me know as soon as you know something.”

“I understand, Mr.Landers.Goodbye.”After hanging up the phone, I set it on my counter.

“How did that call go?”Bradyn questions.

“About as good as you would think since I haven’t told him we found Jules yet.”

“No?”

“I’ve got this feeling in my gut I can’t shake.Like there’s more to this than we’re seeing.So, until I get the all clear from her, I’m not letting him know where she is.”

“She doesn’t want him to know either?”

I shake my head and cross my arms.“Not yet, anyway.I think she’s still afraid Fletcher will track her down and he’ll get caught in the crosshairs.”I move into the kitchen and grab an apple from the bowl on my counter.

“Lani said she refused pain medication of any kind.”

“She did.”

“She also said you packed enough gauze in her injury to wrap a mummy.”

I snort.That sounds exactly like something Lani would say.“It was a big wound.”

“A hunting knife of some kind would be my best guess.”He tosses a 3D computer-rendered example of what the knife must have looked like.“Tucker made this after Lani sent him the dimensions of the wound.It was serrated, too, from the looks of the injury.”

“He wanted her dead.Fast.”

“She’s a loose end for him.And loose ends are not something contract killers care to have.It makes it harder to get a job.”Bradyn runs a hand through his hair.“What’s your plan going forward?”

“I’m going to bring her here and set her up in the guest room where I can make sure she’s safe.Then, as soon as she’s healed, I plan to take her back to Seattle to walk me through the crime scene.I need to see it myself.”

“If they catch Fletcher beforehand?”

“Hopefully, he rolls on whoever hired him, and Jules Landers can go back to her life without further incident.”

“Then let’s pray this gets wrapped up quickly.The last thing we need is anyone getting word we have a celebrity here in Pine Creek.Sharon will eat that up so fast we won’t be able to stop the backlash before it’s out in the open.This is one can of worms I want to control the release of.”

Sharon Thomas was Bradyn’s girlfriend when they were teenagers.It was brief, and she’d cheated on him at the senior prom he’d been attending as her guest.Now, she’s a reporter for our small town’s newspaper and very nearly got Bradyn’s now-wife, Kennedy, killed when she’d—despite Bradyn’s refusal to allow an interview—run Kennedy’s face in the paper after a particularly nasty storm caused our barn to burn down.

Ever since then, she’s been lying low, but this is exactly the kind of story that would have her breaking whatever rules her editor has put in place with regard to our ranch just so she could get the scoop.

It’s why Jules is in the hospital under a fake name and why every employee signed NDAs when we arrived.

“Lani said she should be ready for release tomorrow, which means we won’t have to stress too much about it getting out once she’s not there anymore.”

“Sounds good.”He studies me.“You doing okay?”

“Why does everyone keep asking me that?”I ask with a laugh.“I’m rock solid, brother, you know that.”It’s a façade.A mask I wear to keep what’s inside from coming out.Fake it till you make it and all that.The truth is I’m tired.Every day is a fight against the onslaught of memories I keep locked away.After all, there’s no changing the past.So why let it have power over me?

“Just checking.Phoenix sounds like it was stressful.”

“You can say that again.”The sight of Jules lying on the floor, blood pouring out of her abdomen, kept me up last night.As did the fact that she wanted me to leave her there to die so I could catch her grandfather’s killer.

She’d been willing to give up her life in that moment.Maybe she wasn’t thinking rationally.But a part of me wonders if she’s not tired, too.

Chapter9

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