Page 29 of I'll Be There
“I know. He...he told me. It was one night when Kayle had tried to—” She shook her head, as if casting the memory away. “Justin wouldn’t let him touch me. I think he must have had feelings for me by then. He started telling me that I should leave.”
She gave him a soft look. “I fell in love with your brother. He is—was—a good man. I know he didn’t like what Kayle and the other guys—and there were women too—were doing. There were a lot of drugs, but he never used like they did. And...he was gentle with me.”
Conner didn’t know what to do with her story, with words likeused like they didorgentle with me...because it intimated more than he wanted to know about his brother.
The compromises he’d had to make for what he believed in.
“Then one day he came to me and told me I had to leave. He gave me some cash—a lot of it—and...this.” She held up a thumb drive, gave a quick look around, then shoved it back into her pocket. “He said it was my insurance in case Kayle or anybody else came looking for me. He told me that the only person I could trust was...well, you.”
A fist punched his chest, took out his breath. “Me?”
“He gave me the burner phone, told me to check it once a month, and that if he could, he’d contact me.” She pressed her hand to her mouth. “I guess...”
If he could...Conner touched her arm. “You’re safe with me. He’s right. You can trust me. What do you need me to do?”
She pulled out the thumb drive, fisted it in her hand. “I have never opened it, but I think it might have clues to who killed him.” She opened her palm, held the drive out to him.
Conner stared at it, unable to move.
A tiny whoosh of air, the faintest of coughs as if from a car backfiring—and Harmony jerked back, slammed against the timber wall.
She cried out, crumpled.
“Shooter!” He jerked around fast and spied a man leaping from the outpost building. The shooter took off running toward the northern gate. Two seconds and Conner had memorized him—gimme cap, green military pants, and a gray T-shirt.
“Blue!” He dropped next to her. Blood saturated her shirt. He found the wound—not dead center in her chest, but through her lung, probably collapsing it, the way she fought for breath. “Stay with me!”
Micah ran out from the shadows. “Get into cover!” Swooping in, he lifted Blue into his arms and dashed into the powder magazine, secured behind the timber fence.
Conner followed, scooping up her bag.
Micah set her down on the floor of the powder room, moving his hands over her body, pressing down. Only when Conner dropped the bag on the floor did he hear the familiar clunk of a weapon.
Conner pulled out a 9mm Luger. “Are you kidding me?”
“We need help—” Micah said.
But Conner took off, sprinting toward the northern gate. He heard shouting, then someone calling his name, but his gaze fixed on the man in the gray shirt just cutting out of view. “Stop him! He’s the shooter!”
He realized, right about then, that he might be scaring everyone as he shoved past a family, the kids scattering out of the way, buthello— “Get down! Get—”
The tackle came from his blind side, as if the guy had played defensive-end for the Minnesota Vikings. He flew across the grass, the apprehender clamping him around his chest.
He landed so hard, the breath whuffed out of him. His tackler gripped his wrist and banged the gun out of his hand.
Conner sprawled for a second, coughing, sucking wind, trying to get his legs under him.
“Stay down!” An arm crashed down over his shoulder blades, a knee shoved into his back, and his attacker at least knew defensive moves because he grabbed Conner’s hand and turned it in a submission hold.
“Get off me!” Conner reared back, slamming his other elbow into the man’s thigh, but he’d apparently been apprehended by a buffalo.
“Stay still. I don’t want to have to shoot you.”
Shoot him?
“You’re letting the real shooter get away! Get off me!” He struggled, despite the agony shooting up his arm. “Call 911—there’s an injured woman—”
Big Man grabbed his hands, twisted his arms behind him, and nylon flex-cuffs tightened down on his wrists.
