There’s A Way (Conway Collateral Duet #2)
Prologue / Garrison
PROLOGUE / GARRISON
“C’mon now, leave her home to play house with her boyfriend. Go out on your own, baby, fly free for a night,” I muse, sitting snug and warm in the confines of my brand-new truck. Not my truck but my truck for now, one no one knows belongs to me.
I tap my fingers along the leather steering wheel, watching patiently, discreetly tucked away in the pocket of night that allows no moonshine or stars to find it. Beneath heavy pines, pregnant with needles almost too dry to hold on as the season changes, my truck stays invisible as I peer through the windshield at the old Beckett house.
I’ve been watching this house from under this tree for a while now, keeping tabs on one Miss Carsyn Beckett.
And tonight? She’s going out. And I’m gonna follow her.
I know she’s going out because she told her roommate Genevieve as much this afternoon at the grocery store while buying a pint of mint chip and two bottles of whiskey.
Yeah, I was there.
And tonight is the night. It’s gotta be.
If she brings Genevieve with her, it will be exponentially more complicated, I admit. But I’m taking her tonight, no matter fucking what. I have to. Things have been set in motion, and there is no more time.
The front door flies open, dim yellow light spilling onto the old wood porch and some of the lawn. From inside the house, laughter rushes out, and I can hear it all the way back here, echoing through the trees. Carsyn stumbles onto the porch, her giggles coming out in white puffs all around her.
It’s cold tonight. Yet she’s dragging her fingers through her hair in a tank top, jeans and boots—ostrich and cowhide, her damn favorite. A grumble worms through my chest in reaction. She’s gonna get sick dressed so foolish on an icy night like this. Narrowing my gaze, I sink my weight against the steering wheel a little to get a better look. Her cheeks are splotchy, likely because she’s likely been drinkin’ already. Ever since Colton and Kinleigh came back, she’s been drinking more.
Gen, Carsyn’s trafficking survivor friend, appears in the doorway, wrapped in a big sweater, her legs covered in sweat pants. She says something, maybe be careful or call me ? I can’t see her lips from here, if I could, I’d read ‘em. Carsyn waves, stumbling a little as she steps off the porch, toward the car pulling into the drive. There’s an Uber sticker on the side window, and the sight of it alleviates the weight from my chest.
Now I don’t need to worry about Carsyn’s truck sitting somewhere while I have her. And Genevieve is staying behind… I should buy a lotto ticket for the way things are going tonight.
I give the Uber a minute, then flip around and pull out behind it, keeping my lights off until we cut over to the main road. Carsyn has been on a quest to find Forrest Conway, my former boss, the man who kept Colton captive for months. The man who trafficked women and children, and raped his daughter, over and over. She wants juicy, plentiful, rewarding revenge.
I get her. She doesn’t know me yet but I get her, because I would want that kind of revenge too. I’ve watched news footage of fathers who wait in lobbies and outside courthouses for a chance to shoot and kill the person who hurt their child or wife. That would be me, because I’d kill anyone who hurt someone I loved. That’s Carsyn, too, desperate for retribution, and tortured by the hunt for it. Colton, from what I’ve observed in the Conway house and through subsequent wire taps, seems to be content letting the FBI handle the investigation. He wants revenge but isn’t searching for it and maybe that’s because he’s got an appetite for Kinleigh that keeps him busy. Maybe he’s downplaying how much he wants it to keep Carsyn in check. I don’t know.
Carsyn, though, it’s all she can think about. She talks about finding Forrest to anyone who will listen. Even those who don’t.
The Uber driver uses his blinker right before the turn out for a seedy bar lining the highway’s edge. I knew she was going out to drink but I didn’t expect her to choose a dive bar. The floors are sticky, the music is loud, not to mention, it’s crawling with men.
Oh.
She ain’t just drinking tonight. Miss Carsyn is hunting dick.
Trailing the Uber off the highway, I adjust the collar of my button up as heat prickles the back of my neck, thinking of her laid out on a bed for some ungrateful two-pump chump. My grip tightens around the top of the steering wheel, making the espresso leather squeal.
The neon lights come into view, and the Uber driver veers off into the gravel lot, temporarily concealing his vehicle in a flurry of dust and dirt. A beat passes before Carsyn steps out, handing a wad of cash to the driver through the passenger window. With shiny, chestnut hair running down her back, she peers over her shoulder at the driver just once, waving him off before disappearing inside.
Seven vehicles in the lot. Six bikes parked up front. I take ten minutes and run the plates on all of them, using the computer I keep stashed in my center console.
No hits . Perfect.
The night air stings my nose as I get out of my truck, adding my fleece vest over my long sleeve flannel. I wonder how drunk Carsyn must already be if she can’t feel how cold it is tonight. Drunk enough, likely, that this won’t take too much effort.
The gravel crunches beneath my boots as I move toward the run-down door, the cheap red lacquer flaking off in aged chunks. Smoothing my hand down my beard, I run my tongue over my teeth and take a deep breath in, my hand resting on the grotty knob.
Here we go.
The scent of cigarettes and beer flank me, the orange glow of old bar lights making me squint. A woman near the door eyes my boots as I step inside, and I tip my hat at her, but don’t give her much else.
Inside, I spot Carsyn right away. She’s perched at the bar, her spine straight as she peers around, trying to snag the bartender’s attention. The door slams closed behind me, causing the music player on the wall to jump, the track stuttering a second before righting itself. Half of the bar twists to eye the man who made the music skip, but Carsyn doesn’t budge.
She slaps her open palm against the counter once, twice and a third time. “Hey!” she calls, and finally the bartender looks up. I move through the tables and slide into the stool near her, one free seat between us. I tip my hat as I take a seat.
“What can I get you?” the bartender asks, annoyance thick in his tone, fatigue of serving rude drunks leaving lines near his eyes. Up close, Carsyn’s cheeks are much ruddier than I realized when watching her from two hundred yards back. And her dark eyes? Glossy as hell and bloodshot, too.
“Whiskey,” she says, slurring only slightly. “The cheap stuff.”
“Two of your best, on me,” I call over the top of her order, giving the bartender pause. I give him a nod, and he spins to face the wall of bottles, selecting his only high end bottle.
“I’m fine drinking Wild Turkey,” Carsyn tells me, twisting on her stool to eye me.
Fuck she’s gorgeous. I never get to see her up close like this, and damn if my crotch doesn’t ache a little at the sight. Velvety skin, round, doe eyes, soft locks of hair, her lips pursed in a way that tells me she kisses as good as she argues.
The bartender returns with two shots, and divides them between us. I place a few bills on the bar as Carsyn lifts her glass, eyeing him. “If this is Wild Turkey and you’re charging him for the good shit, I’ll know,” she warns, making my lips twitch.
The bartender rolls his eyes. “I’m shaking in my boots.”
She sips the shot after he walks away, and sends a smirk my way. “Not Wild Turkey.” Her eyes crawl over my beard and mustache, and I’m fairly certain she’s thinking about my face between her thighs. She shoots the remainder of the shot, which was large and could’ve been nursed for a bit. Clearly, she’s on a mission. Booze and dick, and lucky for her, I got both.
“Did that burn?” I ask, impressed by the way her face doesn’t even flinch. She doesn’t even gag or cough. She can either really hold her liquor, or she’s drunker than I thought.
“Not too bad. And thank you,” she says, dipping her head. “Damn,” Carsyn sighs, her eyes going a little distant while she still stares at my beard. “That went straight to my head.”
“That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?” I ask.
Her gaze skates from my beard to my chest, where she takes in the range of my shoulders and torso before traveling down my arm, to my hand. Her hazelnut eyes circle my ring finger, specifically. She may be drunk, but she doesn’t want to fuck another woman’s man, and I respect that.
She slides onto the empty barstool between us. “Hi,” she slurs a little, her normal edge replaced with smoke and rasp that comes with the ease of booze. I know she’s drunk, and it’s the whiskey talking, that her interest is born from her singular mission, but my lips lift in a smirk nonetheless.
“Hello there,” I reply, lowering my drink to the cheap napkin on the bar top.
She eyes me again, this time studying the lines near my eyes. “How old are you?” She hiccups, catching it with the back of her hand. “I guess forty.”
“Add three,” I tell her, reaching for my truck keys stashed in my vest pocket. “Nightcap?” I dangle the keys and smile at her, aware of how her eyes keep sliding to my beard, then my chest. We only just got here, but by God, she’s ready.
“You read my mind,” she murmurs. “A little water before we go?” she asks, cognizant of her sliding mental state. I like that she knows how bad off she is, and she ain’t waiting for me to take care of her.
I nod to grab the bartender’s attention, and a moment later he brings us the waters I requested. She drinks hers quickly, and I drink mine, too, after finishing my whiskey. Carsyn gets to her feet, the heels of her boots clicking against the tacky floor. I drop my hand to her lower back, peering down her little tank top as I guide her out of the bar.
No bra.
Thank god I found her before anyone else. Drunk. No bra. She’s setting herself up for danger is what she’s doing. One day, I’ll make her pay for this.
“I don’t live too far away,” I tell her as I crank the heat up in the cab, and turn on the seat heaters. She’s silent, but smiles, her focus moving between the windshield and studying me.
Back at my house, she begins undressing the moment I lock the front door. God it would be easy to have her first. To toss her over my shoulder, nude as the day she was born, and carry her to my room and destroy that heaven between her legs. Fuck her so hard I break her box and the fuckin’ bed.
But that’s low hanging fruit. That’s not why I brought her here.
“I’m gonna use the restroom, you continue making yourself at home,” I tell her, smiling my most charming smile. Carsyn stares at my chest and beard before looking into my eyes, nodding.
Slipping into my bedroom down the hall, I open the top drawer of my dresser and remove the first two layers of clothing, exposing the dummy bottom. Pulling out the zippered nylon bag stashed there, I open it up and grab a syringe I readied before I left.
With the needle hiding in my sleeve, palm held against my thigh, I slip into the hall and peer at Carsyn, standing half naked near my kitchen. I force myself to ignore the soft, supple globes of her velvety ass cheeks and the tiny piece of red fabric tucked between them, and instead eye what’s in her hands.
What the fuck is she looking at? This is my home, but there’s not much life here. A shell of a home is really what it is. Hell, I don’t have anything here but— fuck .
A piece of mail rests in her hands, the name GARRISON CONWAY peeking through the plastic window on the envelope. Filling my lungs with a deep breath, I loop my arm around her chest and drag her back into me, my hand stretched over her mouth. She thrashes and fights, managing to turn in my arms. She eyes the needle in my hand but can’t move quick enough.
With my voice low, her body flailing against mine, I look down into her emerald eyes and whisper “don’t scream” before driving the needle into her chest.
Her eyes flutter and her knees give, but I collect Carsyn in my arms before she hits the floor.
No turning back now.