Page 46 of Silverstorm

“How are you coping?” She knew he meant how was she coping with the knowledge that Parker Gaudin was dead. Like he did every night when he came in, he removed his jacket and gun belt and slung them over the back of the armchair.

“I’m really good,” she told him, meaning it. She was really good. This chapter of her life could finally come to a close. It was time to start a new chapter. “You must be starving, I’ve got some dinner ready for you.”

He sat down next to her on the couch. “Thank you.” There were small lines around his eyes, and she could tell he was tired. It’d been a long day, but from her point of view, a good day, too.

She went to stand, to get his dinner, but he put a hand on her arm. “I can do it,” he said with the lift of his eyebrow. That was another thing she loved about him, the fact he didn’t mind doing his fair share around the house. “But first of all, I have some information I think you’d like to hear.” He tugged her toward him on the couch, where they sat facing each other, knees touching, her hands held lightly in his. She looked deep into his eyes, not exactly dreading what he might say, but wary of any more surprises. “We’ve had a call from the medical examiner regarding your mother’s autopsy.”

Oh. That was interesting. Aria held her breath. She hadn’t expected the results for a few weeks yet. Brady had grudgingly agreed to exhume Dimitra’s body. They were looking specifically for arsenic poisoning, traces of which could be found in a person’s hair or fingernails, even long after their death.

“And,” she prompted.

Jude exhaled sharply. “They found it. They found traces of arsenic in her hair.”

“Oh, God.” It was the news she’d been dreading. And also the very thing she’d been wanting to hear. It answered the question as to why her mother had taken her own life.

And the answer was that she hadn’t. Someone else had murdered her and made it look like suicide by placing a rope around her neck and hanging her from the rafters in the barn very soon after she was dead. Or perhaps even while she was still alive but dying from the poison. No one had thought to question the premise that Dimitra’s death hadn’t been anything but a simple suicide. But now Aria finally had closure. Now she could truly cry for her mother, taken from her by a vicious murderer.

They could never prove one-hundred percent that it’d been Parker who’d killed her, but everything pointed in his direction. They’d also never know the entire truth of what happened back in the early days of Tango and Dmitri’s marriage while they’d been members of the cult. But Jude was helping her to piece it together, bit by bit.

Brady had allowed Jude to accompany him on a raid of the InXium compound. Normally, a county deputy wouldn’t be allowed on a police investigation, especially outside his county jurisdiction, but Brady owed Jude big time. It wasn’t necessarily the detective’s fault that a corrupt member of his team had played a part in Aria’s kidnapping. But he’d certainly ended up with egg on his face, and there was now an ongoing investigation into the rest of the squad. It turned out that Camden McMurdo’s sister, Stacy, was caught up in the InXium cult, and Parker had threatened her life if Camden didn’t comply. Camden was remorseful and repentant, apologizing to Aria via a handwritten letter. But she wasn’t ready to forgive him yet, and he’d still ended up in jail, which was where he belonged.

So Jude had called in the favor. That raid had uncovered a group of around thirty people all living in an isolated community on a block of land that was privately owned in the foothills near the Rocky Mountains National Park. Brady had interviewed each group member but there wasn’t a lot else he could do. The law wouldn’t allow him to order them to disband, because technically, they weren’t breaking the law. So they went back to their little commune to continue their religious beliefs. But without their divine leader, perhaps they’d now become a toothless tiger.

Jude suspected there were many more members of the cult scattered throughout the country and they might never track them all down. He believed they might also reconnect at a later date and restart the group back in the shadows. But that wasn’t his problem for now. Stacy had been among the members, and she’d been absolutely clueless as to the threats Parker had made to her life to keep her brother in line. She’d agreed to come home and visit her family, visit her brother, who’d gone to jail to keep her safe.

So far, they’d found out some fascinating tidbits of information. Back in the late eighties and early nineties, InXium had been a fledgling religious movement, led by a man called Nelson Gaudin, who was the son of a Pentecostal minister. Nelson decided that mainstream churches were too limiting, and he’d developed his own scriptures where disciples lived as simply as possible, wandering across the state, gypsy-like, to find what they needed to survive. Which was probably why Parker and Rocky were so good at living for weeks on end in the Bitterroot Mountains.

Jude pieced together the stories and rumors some of the members had given Brady from what Parker had told them later. It seemed the two brothers, Tango and Parker, had joined the movement sometime in the very late eighties, becoming completely indoctrinated by the charismatic leader, pledging never to leave. Then a young, impressionable and very beautiful Dimitra had joined the group, and the two brothers had both instantly fallen in love with her. She eventually chose Tango, but Aria was left to wonder if Parker’s accusations had been true, and she still held a candle for the older brother. It was soon after Dimitra had given birth to Iliana that she began to question Nelson’s doctrines, deciding that the commune was no place to bring up a child. But by that stage, Nelson had become insecure and narcissistic, guarding his members jealously, and not allowing them to leave of their own free will. Three years later, Aria had been born, and Dimitra had become desperate to get out. She finally convinced Tango that they needed to leave, but as they were escaping through the forest, Parker had caught up to them, intent on stopping them. He and Tango had fought, both of them were injured, but finally Parker had struck Tango over the head with a large branch, knocking him unconscious.

The stories became a little unclear after that. All that the cult members knew was that Parker returned empty-handed, and Tango and his family disappeared. How Dimitra had managed to get her injured husband and two young children out of there on her own was anybody’s guess. Parker had risen through the ranks, and on Nelson’s deathbed a year ago, he’d been named supreme leader. It was probably then that Parker’s long-held hatred had resurfaced. Now he had the power to do whatever he wished. He believed that at least one, or perhaps both of the Cusack sisters, were his biological children. And he’d come to claim what was his, believing that his version of God would grant him immortality, if only he could be reunited with his true progeny.

After that, it was more conjecture than anything else that filled in the blanks of the remaining years of the Cusack family. Word around the cult was that Tango had always been a little on the paranoid side, it was one of the ways Nelson gained his followers, by appealing to that absence of self-confidence in certain people, giving them something they believed they lacked in return. Jude surmised that perhaps Tango had received a brain injury when he’d been knocked unconscious, exacerbating his paranoia and ruining any presence of mind.

But one thing they both agreed on was that Tango’s warnings that Parker would come back one day had held true. In his own mixed-up way, Tango had been trying to protect her. Even that day a few weeks ago, when she’d turned up on his front veranda and he’d told her to scram, he’d been trying to scare her away from the imminent danger he knew was lurking around him. She felt great sorrow at how his life had deteriorated until he’d become too insular and scared to venture out into the world. It was a sad legacy to leave behind. Jude had finally revealed the extent of Tango’s stabbing injuries, and the only explanation he could come up with was that Parker hated his brother so much, that even after he died from the poison, he couldn’t bear to leave his body intact. A crime of passion and loathing indeed.

No one knew exactly why Parker had come to Stevensville to murder Dimitra all those years ago. Perhaps he’d been trying to force a confession out of her. Or perhaps he’d been trying to convince her to come back to Colorado with him and flown into a jealous rage when she refused. The reasons would forever remain as conjecture and nothing more.

“I’m glad we finally have an answer,” she said, leaning into Jude, resting her head on his shoulder. He smelled like the outdoors, woodsy and earthy and fresh, like the wind. His lips rested in her hair, and a buzz of electricity flowed through her at his soft, unassuming touch.

Sitting up, she gave him a sideways glance, arching her eyebrow coyly. She liked what she saw, the way his broad shoulders filled out his brown shirt and a sudden urge to touch him ran through her. So strong she couldn’t resist. She ran her hands up the length of his arms and over his bulging biceps. Oh, my. Those biceps. They were to die for.

Thinking about starting a new chapter in her life, she decided that tonight was the night this self-imposed celibacy was going to come to an end. Tonight was definitely time to start again. With Jude.

She leaned in to capture his lips with hers, letting her desire funnel through her lips, letting him know how much she wanted him. Hadn’t stopped wanting him. But now she was ready to share her body with him wholly and freely once more, with no guilt about secrets or lies to hold her back. He’d said over and over how much he wanted her, and wanted to be a father to her baby.

Now was the time to finally let him in. Let him know how much she loved him, and how she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him. To have a family with him. To grow old with him.

“Are you sure?” he asked, raising an eyebrow as her fingers found the buttons on his shirt.

“Oh, yes, Mr. Wilder,” she breathed. “I’ve never been surer of anything in my whole life.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

JUDE HELD HIS breath. He’d been too scared to even dream about this moment. Aria unbuttoned his shirt, slowly, seductively. The second she shoved his shirt down over his shoulders and raked her fingernails down his chest, he was hard. He’d been holding back his feelings, his urges, for weeks now, and it felt like he might actually burst out of his trousers.

Aria had needed time. And he’d been happy to give it to her. Hell, he’d give her as much time as she needed, because he knew she was the woman for him. And he knew she was worth waiting for. But did this mean she’d come to some sort of decision? God, he hoped so, because this not knowing was just about killing him.

She must’ve seen the hesitation in his eyes, because she took his hands and helped him draw the hem of her sweatshirt over her head, revealing acres of creamy skin. And breasts. Oh, Lord, she had beautiful breasts. He leaned in to suck on each one lightly in turn, eliciting a moan from deep in her chest.

---