Chapter 13
NOVA
Moonlight cast Emmett’s room in silvery blue. It muted the rust-colored shade of his sheets and quilt. The white walls practically glowed.
He was asleep beside me, his breaths slow and deep. Even sleeping, he held me in place, his chest to my back. The weight and heat of his body was better than any blanket.
The comfort of his embrace and the softness of his bed should have put me in dreamland, but I’d been awake for an hour. It had been that way for two weeks, ever since I’d tracked Emmett down at The Betsy. If I slept for three or four hours, that was a restful night.
Our routine hadn’t changed. Each night I’d come over and we’d have dinner, then talk for a while before sex. After an orgasm or three, I’d crash, so exhausted that I’d fall asleep within seconds of closing my eyes. But then I’d pop wide awake around two or three and that was it. I was awake.
For two weeks, I’d been lying here, staring out his bedroom window, watching as the moonlight faded and sunrise took its place.
One night, I’d snuck into his office and stared at the safe for an hour before finally working up the courage to try a few combinations.
His birthday. His mom’s birthday. His dad’s birthday.
Then each in reverse. Unsurprisingly, none had worked.
Also unsurprisingly, I was glad none had worked.
Other than that failed attempt, my sleepless nights over the last two weeks had been spent right here in bed, wondering what the fuck I was doing.
As much as I knew I should slip away, disappear from his life forever, I couldn’t bring myself to leave.
Two Saturdays ago, the day he’d invited me to his friends’ barbeque, I’d raced to the rental and packed my things. My suitcases had been ready to load into the Nova, but the moment I’d opened the door to haul them outside, my feet had stuck to the floor.
I couldn’t leave.
Why? Why couldn’t I just vanish? This entire scheme of mine had fizzled the moment I’d let Emmett inside my body. Yes, it had taken me a few weeks to realize it, but I was incapable of hurting him.
Completely and utterly incapable.
What would Dad do when he found out I’d failed? What would he say? Did I even care?
My relationship with my father was complicated at best. I’d spent so long wanting his attention, his approval, and now that I truly had a chance to win both, was I really giving up?
Yes. What other option did I have?
Emmett wasn’t the monster Dad had made him out to be. He was kind and generous. He was intelligent and too sexy for his own good.
He probably didn’t even realize that the blond woman who’d approached him at The Betsy had been staring at him for an hour before she’d finally walked over to say hello.
From my seat I’d seen the desire in her eyes.
The blush of her cheeks and the way she’d tucked her hands into her jeans pockets to hide her nerves.
She was totally into him and if I was a better person, I’d walk. I’d give him a chance with a woman like that, sweet and smiley. Pure. Honest. She could give him a future.
But did I leave the bar? Nope. The moment he’d left the pool table and headed for the door, I’d turned, shifting away from the man I’d been hiding behind, so he could see me.
The blond was going to have to wait her turn. I wasn’t done with him yet.
I doubted I’d ever be done. Even after I disappeared from his life, he would always linger in mine.
I was a coward. I wanted him too much. I wanted to keep him for myself, even if it was for just a short time more.
That night, he’d asked me what I wanted. The truth.
To learn it. To tell it. To live it.
When have I lied to you?
He hadn’t and that was the problem.
The liar here was me.
Everything he’d told me had seemed honest. The only way to know for certain was to check. Over the past two weeks, I’d spent countless hours skipping work to do research.
I’d been attempting to cross-check each story he’d told me with an official report. Emmett had to be spinning his stories in his favor, right? Except the stories he’d told me hadn’t been in the news.
First, I’d started with the online archives from various papers around the state.
Murders and mayhem were uncommon in Montana and when something big enough happened, it made the papers in Missoula, Bozeman and Billings.
When my searches there had turned up nothing, I’d switched to the Clifton Forge Tribune.
Their public online archive only went back five years, so I’d had to brave the newspaper office itself.
I’d made sure Bryce Slater was at the garage, where most of the wives seemed to congregate during the week.
Then I’d gone down and met a very nice man named Art, who’d logged me on to their local electronic archive because I was a grad student writing my thesis about the evolution of small-town media outlets.
He’d offered to call Bryce and her father, Lane, into the office so I could interview them. I’d politely declined.
Sequestered away in a tiny room at the newspaper, I’d scoured every piece I could find on the Tin Kings. There hadn’t been many.
Bryce Slater and her father were owners of the paper and as Dash’s wife, I couldn’t imagine she’d incriminate her husband.
Except, Bryce had moved to town after the Tin Kings had disbanded.
The owners before her had had no connection to the club, at least not one I could find.
And the tone of their articles from the time when the club had been fully functioning didn’t suggest there was much love between the general Clifton Forge populace and the Tin Kings.
But people and businesses and reporters could be bought off—my father had most likely bribed the Ashton newspaper to keep the Arrowhead Warriors off the front page.
The startling lack of news about my dad or the club, even after their arrests, was indication enough.
Maybe the Tin Kings had done the same, because there wasn’t much news about their club.
If there was mention about them in the archives, I’d read it. Nothing had screamed Emmett Stone is a liar.
I needed evidence to show that Emmett was fooling me. If I could just prove he was a monster, then I could shove these feelings aside and get back to my plan.
Police reports would do the trick, but it wasn’t like I could pull them from the county courthouse.
Requesting reports would be like shooting a flare into the midnight sky.
It would call way too much attention to myself, especially given that Luke Rosen, Clifton Forge chief of police, was so deeply connected to the Tin Kings.
He’d probably been at the barbeque Emmett had invited me to.
My heart twisted and I closed my eyes, willing sleep to come. Willing the guilt to loosen its grip.
I knew what I had to do. The only way for me to move forward was with information. Facts that I could use to make a decision. So far, I was going solely off my father’s opinions and while that had been good enough at the beginning, it wasn’t enough now. Not now when I knew Emmett.
I’d been wrestling with my next step for weeks, trying to find a semblance of inner courage.
I knew what I had to do.
Starting tomorrow.
“Hey,” I said when Emmett answered the call.
“Hey, baby.”
“How’s your Thursday morning going so far?”
“Good.” There was the clank of metal in the background and the thud of boots. He must be walking out of the garage for some privacy. “You?”
“Busy. The owner of the rental just called me and needs to come over to blow out the sprinklers. He said it’s going to be loud for an hour or so and my afternoon is totally slammed with calls.
I’d go to a coffee shop, but they can be loud too, and a couple of my clients can be really touchy.
Would you mind if I went to your place?”
“No, not at all.”
The air rushed from my lungs. He trusted me. I was betraying him, but he trusted me. Just that thought made my eyes flood with tears. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah. Just go through the garage.” He rattled off the keycode to open the door, then the code to the alarm system.
“Thanks,” I said through the lump in my throat.
He never should have trusted me.
“See you later?” he asked.
“I’ll be there. Bye.”
“Bye.”
My heart was heavy, the phone a hundred-pound weight in my hand. My chest heaved as I tried to lift it from my side.
Do it, Nova.
I squeezed my eyes shut, gave myself three long breaths, then called Hacker.
“Are you on your way?” I’d called and woken him up while Emmett had been in the shower this morning.
“Yeah.” He yawned. “About an hour out.”
“Good. There’s a Town Pump gas station on Central. I’ll meet you there.” I ended the call and forced myself to move.
I wanted information and it was time to collect. With my purse over a shoulder, I locked the rental up and climbed in the Nova. Then I raced to Emmett’s, using the codes he’d given me to get into his house.
It smelled like him, wind and cedar and spice. I drew in a long breath as I marched down the hallway toward the office.
It was bigger in the daylight. There were no cameras inside that I could see, not like the exterior, where I’d noticed some mounted on the corners of the house and garage.
If he was taping the movements in his house, I’d have to risk it.
There were two laptops on his desk, both plugged in to display monitors and charging stations. I swept up both, casting one glance at the safe in the corner.
I paused, walking over and pulling the knob. Just in case he’d opened it this morning and hadn’t closed it all the way.
Locked.
“Worth a try,” I muttered, then hurried from the room and straight outside.
With a white-knuckled grip, I drove back into town to the gas station where Hacker was parked.
His window was open and a plume of smoke streamed out as I walked over, a cigarette pinched between his fingers.
“Here.” I handed him the laptops.
He nodded, flicking his cigarette butt out. It landed beside my shoe. “Give me some time.”
“You don’t have much.”