Chapter 14 #2
“I’ve suspected for days,” she whispered.
“Maybe longer. The way she had every explanation ready. The way Taylor looked at her when I fired him. Things Hank said about her talking in town.” She shook her head.
“But I can’t, Graham, I can’t process that right now.
I can’t grieve her on top of everything else.
So I’ve been pretending you’re wrong because it’s easier than accepting that my entire life is built on—”
She stopped. Pressed the back of her hand to her mouth.
I wanted to give her the proof. Concrete proof, the kind that would make the betrayal undeniable and actionable instead of this agonizing slow recognition.
I couldn’t. Not yet.
“I know. And you don’t have to deal with it now.” I kept my voice steady even though steady was the last thing I felt.
“I need you to go.” Her voice cracked wide open. “Not because I don’t—” She pressed her fist against her sternum. “Because you’re the one thing that hurts worse than everything else. Losing you feels as bad as losing the ranch. And I can’t afford to feel that right now.”
“I know.” My voice wasn’t steady anymore either.
“If I let myself love you, I’ll start hoping. And if I start hoping, I’ll break when it falls apart.”
“Rose—”
“Please.” Tears now, falling freely, and she didn’t wipe them away. “Please just go.”
I crossed the distance between us. She didn’t back away. I took her hands, both of them shaking, and lifted them to my mouth. Pressed my lips to her knuckles. Left them there for a long time.
“When you’re ready,” I said against her skin. “If you’re ever ready. I’ll be there.”
She closed her eyes. Tears tracked down her cheeks.
I let go of her hands. Stepped back. Turned toward the barn door.
“Graham.”
I stopped. Didn’t turn around. Couldn’t.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “For seeing me.”
I walked out of the barn and into the failing light and didn’t look back because if I looked back I would never leave.
We packed that night.
Jamie worked quietly in the cabin she’d been using as an editing suite, boxing up equipment. She didn’t say anything to me and I didn’t say anything to her. There was nothing to say.
Dex loaded the van, gear inventoried, cabins cleared. He’d done this a hundred times in a hundred countries.
I packed my bag in ten minutes. Hadn’t brought much. The cabin that had been mine for three weeks looked exactly the way it had when I’d arrived. Anonymous, functional, empty.
Except for the shelf above the desk, where Rose had left a jar of wildflowers two weeks ago. They were dead now. Brown and brittle, petals scattered on the wood.
I left them where they were.
In the morning, Hank was waiting by the van.
He shook my hand. Firm, brief, the handshake of a man who said everything with actions and almost nothing with words.
“She’s never let anyone get that close,” he said. “You should know that means something.”
“Thank you, Hank.”
“Don’t thank me. Just don’t waste it.”
Kaya appeared from the barn. She walked straight to me and pulled me into a hug that was fierce.
“Don’t give up on her,” she whispered against my shoulder. “She’s pushing you away because that’s what she does. Don’t let her.”
“I won’t.”
“Promise me.”
“Aye. I promise.”
She stepped back. Her eyes were red but she was smiling. “Good. Now get out of here before I start crying in front of Hank and ruin my reputation.”
Hank snorted quietly from behind us.
Denise appeared as we were loading the last bag.
She came from the main house with a tray of travel mugs and the warm, competent smile of a woman who thought of everything.
She handed them around, coffee for the road, making sure everyone was taken care of.
Then she turned to me with an expression so perfectly calibrated, sympathy, warmth, just a touch of shared sadness, that I almost admired the craftsmanship.
“Safe travels, Graham.” She reached out and squeezed my arm. “I’ll take care of her. You know that.”
I looked at her hand on my arm. Then at her face. Those steady eyes, that practiced kindness, the mask so seamless it had fooled everyone for years.
“I know exactly what you’ll do,” I said quietly.
The briefest crack in the surface. There and gone so fast that anyone else would have missed it.
But I wasn’t anyone else. And I didn’t miss it.
“TKM Digital Solutions.” I dropped my voice low enough that only she could hear. “March twelfth. Three months before Taylor started.”
Her smile didn’t waver. Her eyes did.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. Still warm. Still concerned. Still performing.
“You will.” I locked eyes with her for one more second, long enough to make sure she understood that this wasn’t a guess, wasn’t a feeling, wasn’t some boyfriend throwing accusations.
This was a man who’d found the thread and intended to pull until the whole thing unraveled. “Take care of yourself, Denise.”
I walked to the van without looking back.
Behind me, I heard Denise say something bright and cheerful to Kaya. Something about checking in on Rose later, about making sure she ate, about being there for her.
The performance continued.
But I’d seen the crack. And cracks don’t close. They spread.
I got in the van. Dex drove. Olivia took the passenger seat, laptop bag between her feet.
Jamie sat in the back with her headphones on, staring out the window.
I sat behind Dex and watched the ranch shrink in the side mirror.
Barn, main house, paddock fence, the mountain ridge behind it all.
Getting smaller and smaller until we turned onto the county road and it disappeared.
The photographers watched us go. One of them raised a camera. Dex gave him the finger without taking his eyes off the road.
We drove in silence for ten minutes. Then Olivia turned in her seat.
“Graham.” Her voice was low enough that Jamie wouldn’t hear over whatever she was listening to. “We need to talk.”
I already knew from her expression. The same flat, careful look she’d worn in her cabin when she’d shown me TKM, except now it was harder. Heavier.
“The incorporation documents came back,” she said. “I got them yesterday. I didn’t want to tell you before you said goodbye to Rose.”
“And?”
“Taylor Marsh is the sole organizer, sole registered agent, sole signatory on TKM Digital Solutions. His name is on everything. Every line, every document, every filing.” She paused. “Denise isn’t there.”
My last thread of hope snapped.
“That’s not possible. The timeline. TKM was registered three months before Taylor started at the ranch.”
“I know. And I agree it doesn’t add up. But the documents don’t show Denise.
Not as an organizer, not as an agent, not as a signatory.
Nothing.” Olivia’s jaw tightened. “Whoever set this up was smart enough to keep her name completely off the paper trail. Everything runs through Taylor. If you showed these documents to a judge, a lawyer, or Rose, they’d see Taylor acting alone. ”
Dex glanced in the rearview mirror but said nothing.
“I’ve been at this for a week,” Olivia said.
“I’ve searched every public database I can access.
Cross-referenced every vendor filing, every business registration, every address connected to TKM and its subsidiaries.
I found the smoke, plenty of it. But the door I can’t kick down is the banking side.
Who opened the accounts. Who has signatory authority.
Where the money actually went after it left the shell companies.
” She reached into her laptop bag and pulled out a folded piece of paper.
“This needs a professional. Someone who can subpoena bank records, trace fund flows, get access to the things I can’t see from a laptop. ”
She held out the paper. I took it.
A name and phone number in Olivia’s handwriting. Malcolm Hale.
“He handled our corporate restructuring two years ago,” Olivia said.
“London-based. Meticulous. The kind of lawyer who finds things other lawyers miss. More importantly, he’s got a network of forensic accountants and financial investigators on both sides of the Atlantic.
If anyone can trace the connection between Denise and TKM, it’s someone in Malcolm’s network. ”
I stared at the name. “You’ve already spoken to him?”
“I called him this morning. Gave him the broad strokes, no names, no details, just enough to confirm he could handle domestic forensic work in Colorado. He can. He’s waiting for your call to get the full scope.”
I pulled out my phone. Dialed the number on the paper.
Malcolm answered on the third ring.
“Malcolm. It’s Fraser Kincaid.”
“Mr. Kincaid. Olivia said you’d be calling. What can I do for you?”
I looked at the side mirror one more time. The ranch was gone. Just highway now, straight and flat, cutting through a valley that didn’t know anything had changed.
“I need a forensic accountant. Someone who specializes in tracing shell companies. Specifically in Colorado.”
“Olivia mentioned Colorado. Unusual for you. What’s the scope?”
“A company called TKM Digital Solutions, registered in Colorado six months ago. I need to know who actually created it. Not the name on the filing, but the person behind it. Bank accounts, signatories, incorporation documents, every paper trail that exists. And I need it fast.”
“How fast?”
“Before a woman I love loses everything she’s built.”
Silence on the line. “I’ll have someone on it by end of day. You’ll have a preliminary report asap.”
“Thank you, Malcolm.”
I hung up. Set the phone on my knee. Stared at the road.
Olivia had turned back around, facing forward, giving me the privacy of not being watched. But her hand came over the seat back, just for a second, and squeezed my shoulder. The gesture of someone who’d been in the trenches with me for ten years and understood that some things didn’t need words.
Dex glanced over at her, then at the rearview mirror. “We’ll find it, Graham.”
“Aye. We have to.”
The highway stretched ahead of us, flat and endless, taking me further from Rose with every mile. Behind us, the mountains were still visible. Blue and distant, holding the ranch in their shadow.
I wasn’t retreating.
I was reloading.