Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
FORREST
I followed Sterling back through town, giving her space on the road but staying close. She’d been withdrawing from me all morning. My gut said she regretted her impulsive seduction the night before. I didn’t want her to regret it. I wanted her to repeat it, preferably as soon as possible, but not if it was going to make her miserable the morning after.
It was hard sometimes to remember that we weren’t together anymore. That conversation at the gas station about the tracker had reminded me of our past dynamic, the way we used to finish each other’s sentences. It had always been like that with us, words and ideas flowing back and forth easily.
I’d screwed things up, and she’d dumped me, but it didn’t make that connection go away. I’d never had that with anyone else. Neither had she—when things were good, she’d told me as much.
I was determined to fight for her. For us. But her quiet on the ride home made me wonder—what if fighting for us was hurting her? Everything in me recoiled at that thought. I loved Sterling so much that I didn’t think I could find my way out of it. For the rest of my life, I’d love her.
I’d stayed in Sawyers Bend because I believed I could make her happier than she’d be without me. But what if I was wrong? She sure as hell didn’t look happy now.I knew without asking that most of the darkness in her eyes was about me, not the looming threat of the Learys.
I had to decide what to do about that—even if that meant leaving—but not until we’d seen this through. Not until I knew she was safe.
Following Sterling’s car, I passed through the gates of Heartstone Manor and down the long, winding road to the grand old house for the first time in a year. The asphalt of the drive was still cracked and crumbling at the edges, the result of Prentice Sawyer’s lack of maintenance in the final years of his life.
But where before weeds had grown enthusiastically through those cracks, now there wasn’t a weed in sight on the road itself, and those on the sides had been neatly trimmed. Heartstone no longer had the air of neglect I remembered from before. It was vaguely encouraging and unsettling at the same time. I hadn’t quite imagined things changing in my absence, but of course, they had. It had been a year.
As I absorbed the changes—the trimmed bushes, the fresh sand someone had swept between the pavers in front of the house— it felt right. I hadn’t liked Sterling living in Heartstone as it had been a reminder of her father’s neglect.
I liked that she wasn’t alone in a dusty heap of a house but surrounded by family in a home that was loved and cared for, even if all of it made me feel like everything we had together was so far in the past. She didn’t look back at me as she parked and got out of the car, striding up the steps to the front doors.
I parked behind her and followed her inside.
“Griffen’s probably in his office,” she said as I shut the door behind us.
I stayed at her side through the entry and down the hall, trying not to remember the last time I’d walked this way, the day I’d confessed who I was. The day that had been the end between us.
Sterling reached the door, finding it half open. She dropped a brisk knock on the heavy wood.
At Griffen’s call of “Come in,” she pushed the door all the way open. His eyes lit as they landed on her and narrowed when they hit me. “What’s wrong?” he said in a low voice, his eyes still on me, still narrowed.
I lifted my hands, palms out. “This time, it wasn’t me,” I said.
Sterling dropped into the chair opposite Griffen’s desk. “I have good news and bad news and then some really bad news.”
I sat in the chair beside her, waiting to see how she was going to spin this to her brother. Sterling wasn’t reckless, but she didn’t want to be told what to do, which meant she wouldn’t want Griffen alarmed.
“Give me the really bad news first,” Griffen said.
“The good news,” she said, as if he hadn’t spoken, “is that we found the next clue.”
“And the bad news?” Griffen asked, resigned to doing things Sterling’s way.
“The bad news is that I have no fucking clue what to do with it because there wasn’t a key or a clue for where to find the key,” she said with an annoyed roll of her eyes.
“Well, you figured out the first two, didn’t you?” he asked.
“True,” she said, flashing him a grin. “But I had an idea where to start with those.”
Griffen sat back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “You’ll figure it out. It may take time, but you’ll get it.”
She smirked and tossed her hair over her shoulder. I couldn’t help but smile. I’d hated seeing her sad. I loved her like this—saucy, vibrant, having fun teasing her older brother.
“So,” Griffen asked, raising an eyebrow, “the really bad news?”
Sterling leaned forward and dug her hand in her back pocket. She pulled out Callum Leary’s card and slapped it on Griffen’s desk. “The bad news is that he showed up right after we found the second clue at the park in Willow Springs.”
Griffen’s eyes turned dark with a mix of shock and anger. He stabbed at his phone screen, and as whoever was on the other end picked up, he let out a terse, “My office.” Stabbing at the screen again to hang up, he put the phone down. “When exactly did you see Callum Leary?” he asked, his voice dangerously calm.
Sterling’s eyes flicked to me and back to Griffen. “Yesterday, late morning. And then…” Another glance at me and back to Griffen. “And then, um…again this morning. But we didn’t talk. We just drove by.”
“And she waved,” I added, still irritated by her easy rapport with Callum Leary.
Sterling turned her head and scowled at me. “I didn’t wave. I gave a thumbs-up,” she retorted.
“Same difference,” I said, and her eyes rolled to the ceiling.
“Why did you give Callum Leary a thumbs-up?” Griffen asked in that same deadly soft tone.
I wasn’t afraid of Griffen Sawyer. Not exactly. But I knew enough of his background to know he could probably tear me into pieces without breaking much of a sweat. I was in shape, active, and athletic, but I had not been trained to kill with my bare hands. I knew my limits.
The door opened, and Hawk Bristol strode in, a broad figure with a glare that made me want to keep my mouth shut and follow orders. If I had any illusions about Griffen, I had none about Hawk. Hawk had been decent when I’d helped him board up the windows the day Quinn’s guide shop had been trashed. But I knew where his loyalties lay, and they would never be with me. That was fine, especially considering it was Sterling he was here to protect.
In greeting, Griffen said to Hawk, “Callum Leary knows Sterling solved the first two clues. He approached them in a park in Willow Springs yesterday, and Sterling waved at him this morning.”
“I didn’t wave. I gave a thumbs-up,” Sterling repeated.
Hawk’s gaze bored a hole in Sterling’s forehead. She seemed oblivious. “Where were you this morning?” he demanded. “And how did Callum Leary find you?”
Sterling turned to me. “What was the name of the town?” she asked.
I told Hawk and added, “When I stopped for gas, I found a tracker on the car. We left it there. I thought it was smarter to let them see us go exactly where they were expecting us to go.”
Hawk crossed his arms over his chest and gave me a slow nod. “Then we can leave it there, and they’ll think you’re staying put since that’s exactly what you’re going to do.”
Sterling glanced at me, then back to Hawk, and finally to her brother. “No way,” she said.
“The Learys almost killed Tenn,” Griffen reminded her. “They were very clear about their intention to hurt Scarlett and Thatcher.”
“I know,” Sterling said, “But?—”
“You think you do,” Griffen said, glancing at Hawk and back to his youngest sister. “You think you know, but you don’t. You don’t know, and I pray that you never do.”
Sterling’s teeth sank into her lower lip, and she looked away.
At that moment, it was crystal clear—the two men in the room with us had lived a very different kind of life than the one Sterling or I had lived. My life hadn’t always been easy. It definitely hadn’t always been happy. But these two men had lived in a world outside the one I knew, a world I suspected the Learys would recognize.
“Sterling,” I said, “maybe now…”
She clutched her purse, which I knew held the mint tin. I hadn’t taken it back. I should have. It was no less valuable than the first index card, the one I’d kept from her, saying I didn’t trust her.
I could have argued that I let her keep the mint tin because the code inside was supposedly so much harder to break than those we’d seen so far. But that wasn’t it. I just hadn’t wanted to take it from her.
Something in my gut said that while money was a factor in Sterling’s dedication to solving my father’s clues, it wasn’t everything. I felt the same way. The money would be nice, but there was so much more. Being near Sterling again, for one thing. And I was getting pieces of my father back, pieces of my childhood I’d lost.
Watching her since we’d started this, I thought that with every clue she solved, Sterling was discovering depths she didn’t know she had. I wasn’t going to be the one to hold her back.
“We’re not giving up,” I said.
“If it’s about money—” Griffen said.
I shook my head and glanced at Sterling, who watched me, her brows pulled together.
“Maybe it’s partly about the money,” I said. “I promised Sterling twenty-five percent. If rumors are true, it could be twenty-five percent of a lot, or it could be nothing.” Before they could interrupt, I pushed on, admitting, “The more I think about this quest and my father’s intentions with the Vitellius and the first code…it’s possible…” My gaze moved again to Sterling, wanting her to understand something I’d only just realized myself. “It’s possible that this was just a game he wanted to play with me. A challenge or an exercise. It’s possible there’s no money at the end at all.”
Sterling’s eyes flared, and I thought she’d already figured that out. She set her jaw and shook her head. “It doesn’t matter,” she said finally. “Maybe there’s money, maybe there’s not. We’ll never know until we see it through. And anyway…” She took in a harsh breath and blew it out. “Anyway, solving the last two clues brought us to Bob and Sugar Mae.”
“Bob and Sugar Mae?” Griffen asked, and I explained our progress through the clues.
Griffen let out a sigh and shared a long, speaking glance with Hawk.
“I don’t like this,” Hawk said to Griffen.
Griffen shrugged. “I don’t like it either.”
“You can’t stop us,” Sterling said.
Griffen stared at her for a long moment, and I got the impression he’d like nothing more than to lock her in the dungeons of Heartstone Manor until he was sure she was safe. I didn’t think Heartstone Manor had a dungeon, but I had no doubt Hawk and Griffen could build one with their bare hands if they wanted to.
They shared another long glance, and Griffen sat back. “You have to solve the latest clue before you leave Heartstone again?”
“I guess,” Sterling said. “I don’t know if I have to leave. I haven’t gotten that far. I’m not sure where to start with this one.”
“You don’t go anywhere without checking in with Hawk or me, understand?” Griffen asked.
“For how long?” Sterling challenged, leaning forward in her seat.
“Hawk and I will let you know.”
Sterling slouched back in her chair, glaring up at him, looking every bit the little sister she was. “You can’t make me a prisoner.”
“You’re not a prisoner, Sterling. Just give us a few days to make some plans to keep you safe. You can do that, at least.”
“She can,” I promised, absorbing her sharp glance without a flinch. “I know you want to solve this,” I said to her. “I do, too, but not if it means putting you in danger.”
“Fine.”
She didn’t look like she was going to put up with being on lockdown for very long. I hoped she wouldn’t have to. There had to be a way to keep her under the radar and out of the Learys’ reach long enough for her to solve the remaining clues. If we couldn’t?—
I didn’t want to think about what would happen if we couldn’t.