Chapter 30
thirty
Bear felt Daniel before he saw him.
He was standing in the parking lot beside X’s truck, hands in his jacket pockets, waiting for X to finish glad-handing the last of his rodeo fans at the back gate.
Logan was on the tailgate, scrolling his phone.
Greta and Naomi were ten feet away beside Walker’s trailer, heads bent close, voices low.
Atlas sat at Greta’s left boot with his ears half forward.
The arena lights threw long shadows across the asphalt. The lot was emptying out. Somewhere across the grounds, a generator cut off, and the carnival music dropped.
A chill of awareness crept up the back of his neck, and his head came up.
Daniel Goodwin was thirty yards out and weaving, his gaze locked on Greta.
The target was Greta.
Bear didn’t move yet. He turned his head and kept his voice low. “Logan. Go find Walker or Boone. Tell them I need help.”
Logan looked up. His gaze tracked from Bear’s face to Daniel.
“Oh, shit.” Logan pocketed his phone, slid off the tailgate, and ran for Walker’s truck.
Good kid. Smart kid.
Bear started walking, closing the distance between himself and Greta before Daniel could.
Twenty yards.
Greta hadn’t seen Daniel yet. She was facing away, listening to Naomi, one hand resting on top of Atlas’s head. Naomi had her back to the approach, too.
Fifteen yards.
Atlas’s ears swiveled. He’d caught the boots. He hadn’t moved his head yet, but his body had gone still.
Daniel was close enough now that Bear could hear him muttering. Not words yet. Just the rise and fall of a man working himself up.
Ten yards.
Greta’s spine straightened, and her hand tightened in Atlas’s fur. She turned just as Daniel stopped ten feet from her and spread his arms wide.
“There she is. Solace’s own search and rescue hero.” His words slurred at the edges. “How’s it feel, Greta? Finding your sister after all this time?”
Greta’s face went flat. “Go home, Daniel.”
“I’m just here to offer my condolences.” He took two steps closer.
Naomi slid between him and Greta and drew her gun. Greta put a hand on her shoulder and pulled her back. “Don’t. He’s not worth risking your campaign.”
Naomi’s jaw set, but she holstered. She didn’t step back.
“Must be hard,” Daniel continued. “All those years looking, and she was dead the whole time. Right here. Right under your nose. On your good friend Evander’s land, even.”
Bear reached them and stopped on Greta’s side, close enough that she’d feel him there. He wanted Daniel’s eyes on him, not her.
Daniel’s gaze dragged off Greta and landed on Bear, and something ugly moved behind it.
“Oh,” Daniel said. “The big man’s here.”
“Walk away, Daniel.” Bear kept his voice low.
“Or what?” Daniel swayed. His boots scuffed on the asphalt. “You put me through a wall again?”
The Valor Ridge crew closed in around them.
Walker came around his truck with Logan a step behind.
Boone and Hatch came from the left. Anson and Jonah from the right.
Ghost came up from the direction of the livestock pens with Cinder at his heel.
X cut across from the back gate, still in his competition shirt.
River brought up the rear with a corndog in one hand.
Daniel’s gaze tracked across them, and something in his face went ugly.
“Oh, look at that. The ex-con protection squad. That’s real sweet.
” He focused back on Greta. “You feel safe with them? With him?” He jerked his chin at Bear.
“You know his kid’s mom is dead, right? Probably a junkie whore who OD and left the kid with nobody.
And now he’s got you playing house across the street. Bet that makes you feel real special.”
A choked sound came from behind Bear.
Logan.
Goddammit.
Bear shot one arm out across the boy’s chest without turning. “Stay where you are.”
Logan took a step, hit Bear’s forearm, and stopped. His hands were curled into fists. His breathing was loud through his nose.
“Don’t,” Bear said softly just for his son.
“He said—”
“I know what he said. Don’t.”
Logan’s gaze locked on Daniel and filled with rage. Bear had seen that look before. In the mirror. Most of his life.
“Look at me,” Bear said.
Logan didn’t.
“Logan. Look at me.”
The boy’s gaze cut to him.
Bear held it. “He’s drunk. He’s trying to get a reaction. He doesn’t know your mother, and he doesn’t know you. Don’t give him the satisfaction. Stand where you are. Breathe.”
Logan’s chest moved fast like he wasn’t sucking in enough oxygen.
“Breathe, son.”
Logan inhaled. Exhaled. Once. Twice. The third one came out shaky.
Bear kept his arm across Logan’s chest a beat longer, then dropped it. “Stay with Walker. Don’t move from him.”
Logan nodded and moved back to stand beside Walker.
Bear faced Daniel again, and his own rage rose up from his chest, hot and choking. His hands curled into fists at his sides. He made them open.
Logan is right behind me. Logan is watching. Don’t be the man you used to be.
He breathed through the anger. In through the nose. Out through the mouth.
“Go home, Daniel,” Greta said again. Her voice was steadier than it had any right to be. “Before you do something stupid and end up back in the hospital or worse.”
Daniel took another step.
Atlas’s lip lifted off his teeth, and he let out a growl.
Daniel didn’t even glance at the dog. “Are you threatening me?” he demanded, his words slurring and crashing into each other.
“You think you’re so much better than everyone else.
Running your little business, playing hero in the mountains, spreading your legs for the first felon who looks at you twice.
You’re just like your sister. Both of you, asking for it. Begging for someone to—”
“Why are you so obsessed with her?” River called and took a bite of his corndog. “Seriously, man. She turned you down once and you’re still out here making an ass of yourself.”
Daniel’s head swiveled toward River. “Shut your mouth.”
“I’m just asking.” River chewed. “You follow her around. You vandalize her property. You show up drunk to harass her in parking lots. That’s some Joe Goldberg shit, brother. You need a hobby.”
“She’s mine.” Daniel’s attention snapped back to Greta. “She was always supposed to be mine. Just like Alice was supposed to be mine. But you both thought you were too good for me.”
Greta went still. “Oh my God,” she said softly. “You killed her, didn’t you? You killed Alice.”
The parking lot went silent.
Daniel stared at her. “What?”
“You were obsessed with her, too. That summer before she disappeared. You kept showing up at the house, trying to get her to go out with you. She turned you down, and you wouldn’t let it go.
” Greta took a step forward, and Atlas moved with her.
“And then she vanished. And now you’re doing the same thing to me. ”
“That’s bullshit—”
“Where were you the night of August seventeenth, 2011?”
“I don’t have to answer that.”
“Where were you?”
Daniel’s face went red. “I didn’t touch her. I didn’t touch either of you!” He lunged.
Bear had been waiting for it. He’d watched Daniel’s weight shift onto his front foot ten seconds before it happened, watched the right shoulder cock back, watched the eyes lock onto Greta’s face. He was already moving when Daniel’s fist came up.
He stepped into Daniel’s line, caught the punch a foot from Greta’s cheek, and redirected. Daniel’s momentum carried him past his own balance point. Bear turned him, controlled the arm, brought him down to the asphalt with one knee in the small of his back.
Three seconds. Daniel was face down with his arm locked at an angle that made struggling a bad idea.
Daniel struggled anyway. He bucked. He swore. He spat. Bear held him there and counted breaths.
In. Out. Don’t squeeze too hard. Don’t lean too much weight. Just enough to contain. Don’t be the man you used to be.
“Get off me!” Daniel’s voice came up muffled. “You’re dead. You’re fucking dead. I’m going to—”
“I called the state troopers.” Naomi had her phone to her ear. “ETA two minutes.”
Bear kept counting.
Walker moved into his peripheral vision and rested a hand on Bear’s shoulder for three seconds and dropped it.
The troopers arrived in a marked SUV, two of them.
Bear recognized the tall one from the flood response.
They assessed the situation fast — Daniel pinned on the asphalt, Bear holding him there, the Valor Ridge crew in formation, Greta with her arms crossed and Atlas pressed against her leg with his hackles still up.
“We’ve got him,” the tall trooper said. “You can let go.”
Bear released Daniel’s arm and stood. Backed up three steps.
Daniel rolled onto his side, still swearing, and the troopers moved in and hauled him to his feet. They cuffed him and started walking him toward the SUV.
Greta stepped forward. “Wait.”
The troopers stopped. She crossed to them, her chin up, her voice steady.
“Daniel Goodwin was fixated on my twin sister Alice in the weeks before she disappeared in 2011. He pursued her, wouldn’t take no for an answer, and showed up at our house multiple times.
She vanished on August seventeenth of that year.
Her remains were just found after the flood on private land outside Solace.
” She paused. “He’s been doing the same thing to me for the last two years.
Breaking into my business. Vandalizing my property.
Stalking me. He just admitted in front of fifteen witnesses that Alice was supposed to be his.
I want it on record. I want his obsession with my sister investigated as part of whatever you’re charging him with tonight. ”
The tall trooper pulled out a notepad. “Can you give me the details?”
Greta gave them everything. Names, dates, the pattern of behavior. Bear watched her do it. She laid it out like she was reading a map, her voice never wavering. When she finished, the trooper nodded and looked at his partner.