Chapter 37
Chapter Thirty-Seven
STERLING
“ D on’t move,” Brax warned us again, “or I’ll pull this trigger and kill you both. Give me the account number.”
Easing out from behind Forrest’s protective stance, I asked again, “That’s all you want?”
“I want a lot of things,” Brax said. His eyes were cold now, devoid of any emotion. “Top of the list is to never see your face again.” He paused, “So, I figure, give me the money, and I’ll go. I’ll take off, forfeit the rest of whatever my inheritance is, and none of you will ever see me again.”
“If only it were that simple,” I said. “There isn’t any money, Brax.”
“What the fuck do you mean? How?—”
“We were all wrong,” Forrest said. “It was a game. A puzzle he wanted me and my mother to solve. It was never about the money.”
“I don’t believe you,” Brax said.
He looked at the gun he had pointed at us, his eyebrows raising slightly as if he was surprised to see it in his hand. With a half shrug, he dropped his arm to his side.
“You know what’s funny,” he said in a conversational tone that seemed out of place, considering he’d just threatened to shoot us. “When I locked you in that root cellar, I wasn’t trying to kill you. I just figured I could stick you down there long enough for you to violate the will, lose your inheritance, and get banished.” He shrugged. “That seemed like enough of a prize to me. You know, just a step up from decapitating your Barbies.”
The light in his eyes when he said that last part let me know he’d enjoyed every minute of tormenting me when I was a child.
“But then,” he went on, “Griffen said you would have died of exposure. I thought it would bother me, the idea of killing you. I mean, you are my sister, technically. But it didn’t. Not really. If anything, I was disappointed you didn’t die. The money would be nice, but I do pretty well working for Sawyer Enterprises. If I can’t have Alan Buckley’s fortune,” he smirked and raised the gun again, “then I might as well just get rid of you. A quick trip off the edge of the cliff and—boom—problem solved.”
“You can’t just shoot her,” Forrest said, his voice filled with disbelief.
“Oh no,” Brax said with a roll of his eyes, “I’m going to shoot both of you. Obviously.” He raised his other hand and braced the pistol.
Forrest shifted as if planning to shove me behind him or out of the way. A crack sounded through the air. I lurched, my knees going out from under me. I didn’t feel any pain, but would I? The movies always made it look like people got shot and didn’t notice for a few seconds.
Forrest and I both hit the ground. I rolled to my knees, scanning myself and searching Forrest for a sign of injury.
There was nothing. Had Brax missed?
Frantic, I glanced over to see Brax wavering on his feet, his mouth open with an O of surprise, his eyes fixed on the edge of the woods. A bright red circle blooming on his chest, he fell to his knees with a thud and pitched forward, the gun spinning out of his hand to rest in the grass.
“Stay down,” Forrest whispered.
Callum Leary strode from the woods, a gun in his hand very much like the one Brax had pointed at us a moment before.
“I was tired of listening to him talk,” Callum said, coming to a stop in front of us. “Annoying little shit.”
“Is he dead?” I asked, looking at Brax lying prone in the grass.
“If he’s not, he will be soon enough,” Callum said, sounding mostly disinterested in Brax.
I should have been scared of his bored tone. He’d shot my brother. But at that moment, I was just grateful he’d stopped Brax from killing us.
“Now that he’s out of the way,” Callum said, “I’ll take the account numbers and any passwords your father left you. And given that I had to come all the way out here and save your life, I won’t be cutting you in.”
“There isn’t any money,” I said for what felt like the millionth time. “I wish there was, but?—
“I heard the story you told the shithead.” Callum’s dark eyes studied Forrest, then me, as he processed what we’d said. Finally, he shook his head. “I’m not buying it. All this work, and it was a game? No way. I’m a businessman, so let’s do business. You give me the money, and I let you keep your lives. I think that’s fair.”
“It would be,” Forrest said, “if we had anything to give you.”
“Try again,” Callum said, closing the distance between us, lifting the pistol, and aiming at Forrest. “I’m going to count to three?—”
“Don’t bother,” a new voice cut in.
My adrenaline was pumping so hard that I had a hard time processing what was going on. I strained my eyes. The voice was familiar, but I couldn’t see behind me from my position on the ground.
“Who the fuck are you?” Callum demanded, shifting the gun to point at the newcomer.
I turned to see Emmett Blake standing behind us, a very big gun in his hand.
“Emmett?” I asked. “What are you… How…” I couldn’t find the right words.
“He was tracking you, but he didn’t know we were tracking him.” Emmett raised one eyebrow a fraction at Callum. “You’re good at leaving trackers. You might want to get better at looking for them.”
“Fair.” Callum Leary stepped back, dropping the gun to his side. “My men?” he asked Emmett.
“Neutralized,” Emmett said simply.
“Meaning?” Callum pressed.
“Meaning they’re alive, but they won’t be able to help you.”
Callum gave a short nod. “Then we’ll talk later,” he said to Forrest and me.
“No, you won’t,” Emmett cut in, his gun still trained on Callum. “They weren’t lying. There isn’t any money.” Without taking his eyes off Callum, he continued. “We dug deep, and there’s no record of any accounts created around the time Alan Buckley acquired the Vitellius. It looks like he may have reinvested the income from his first startup in one that failed a year later. There isn’t anything to find. If you’re smart, you’ll go home and spread the word that the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow had chocolate coins. There’s nothing for you here.”
Callum shoved his hands in his pockets, his gaze resting on my face and then Forrest’s for a moment before he shook his head and took a step back. “Well, this was a fucking waste of time.”
“That’s what you get when you go chasing legends,” Emmett said evenly, his gun still aimed at Callum. “Sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose.”
“Yeah, well,” Callum nodded at Emmett, then turned to Forrest and me, “it’s been fun.”
“Not really,” I said under my breath, watching his back as he headed to the woods.
Emmett, his eyes still trained on Callum, gave a signal to someone in the trees I couldn’t see. He must have gotten a signal back because he lowered his gun and turned to us.
“You were following us from Atlanta?” I asked.
“Not at first,” Emmett said. “But when we found out they were following you, we thought it was best. Turned out we were right.”
“Thanks for saving our asses,” Forrest said, helping me to my feet.
“Not a problem,” was Emmett’s response. He looked to me. “I owed you one.”
“True enough,” I agreed, remembering the day he kidnapped my sister. “Now we’re even.”
“That we are,” he agreed. “For now.”
I thought about the training he and Lucas had promised me. I couldn’t think of a better reason to owe Emmett Blake. I started to smile until I caught sight of Brax, facedown in the grass. “Is he?—?”
Emmett crouched beside him, pressing his fingers to Brax’s neck. After a minute, he shook his head. “Ambulance is on the way, along with the police, but I don’t feel a pulse.”
I waited to feel something. Sorrow. Regret. Grief. All I felt was glad to be alive.
“The police?” Forrest asked. “Are my mom and Jerry okay? Did anyone?—”
“Your mother and stepfather are fine. No one came near the house. My guys in the woods called the police and ambulance when Leary shot Brax. We got it on video. Callum Leary won’t be back to bother you again.”
I looked behind me, the waving grasses almost obscuring the view of Brax’s body. All those years of mutilated Barbies, taunts and cruelties, and despite everything… “It didn’t have to be this way,” I said, “except he wouldn’t let it be any other way.”
Forrest’s arm slid around my shoulders, his lips pressing to the top of my head. “He brought it on himself,” he said quietly. “You couldn’t have saved him.”
“No,” I said. “We’d better go explain to your mom why her place is going to be crawling with the police. Maybe she’ll feel sorry for us and let us have some of that rhubarb pie.”
“Sounds good to me,” Forrest said with a nod at Emmett.
As we followed the path back through the woods, Emily and Jerry’s house coming into view through the trees, I realized that all of us—all of us except Brax—could leave the past behind.
Forrest’s father had dreamed of a future filled with love and adventure. He couldn’t share that future with us, but we were still here, and we had each other. That future filled with love and adventure was waiting for us. Right after we explained everything to the police.