Chapter Two
Brooke knew Zeke wasn’t wrong. You had to know what a threat was to be able to neutralize it, but she just didn’t know for sure if it was a real threat. It skirted a very careful line to let a civilian in on a case.
Especially since she hadn’t shared her theories with the detectives yet.
Of course, Zeke was hardly a civilian. She didn’t know how to classify a man who’d been in the army, been a North Star operative taking down gang members and who knew what else, but “civilian”
didn’t cover it even if he was no longer affiliated with either of those things.
“Brooke. You came to me for a reason, and you knew I’d need to know.”
“I didn’t think that far ahead, to be honest. I just knew I didn’t want to be alone in my rental tonight.”
Did that sound like an invitation? It was decidedly not, and she almost opened her mouth to say so, but reason won out.
He knew what she meant. She didn’t need to embarrass herself on top of it.
“Okay, well, think that far ahead now. Explain to me what you’re afraid of. You can trust me.”
When it came to personal matters, she wouldn’t trust Zeke Daniels as far as she could throw him. But when it came to this sort of thing? Investigations and danger and searches for the truth?
She could trust him implicitly. It was why she’d called him. Why she’d come here, despite wanting to keep as far away from Zeke as she’d been doing the past month of being in Sunrise. He was right, she had to explain it to him.
And still . . . “Can I have something to drink? Some water, maybe?”
He frowned at the diversion but motioned her to follow him and led her into a pretty little kitchen. The furniture was bachelor terrible, but the cupboards were nice—clearly new and part of his renovation—as were the appliances. And a huge window dominated the wall over the sink and looked out over a beautiful mountain view.
She stood a moment, just taking it in. It needed some lace curtains to flutter in the breeze when the window was open, but other than that, it was absolutely, stunningly, perfect. A cozy kitchen with an awe-inspiring view.
That reminded her this ranch, this house he was renovating, was everything he’d once said he’d never want. Bitterness threatened to rise up, and this wasn’t the place for that. Their “back then”
didn’t matter to the present. She refused to be bitter over something long gone. Her own mistake for thinking she could change a man like Zeke.
She took the glass of water he handed her and then took a seat at the small kitchen table when he gestured at the chair. He sat across from her—which might as well be right next to her as small as the table was. As big as he was.
Well, at least he hadn’t filled this house with a wife and children. That might have actually sent her over the edge. Not that she knew for sure there wasn’t a wife wandering about, but no signs of a woman or children so—
Put the past aside, Brooke.
She sucked in a breath, carefully let it out. “I’ve been excavating the bones in the cave in the preserve for weeks now, right?”
she said, focusing on work, because that was what she did best. Slowly, carefully, methodically pick apart the tiniest thing to create a picture, an answer.
He nodded. He had that intense investigator look on. Paying attention to every word. Filing it away. Like she’d reversed time and landed them back at North Star.
“There’s . . . a lot. A lot of remains. A lot of victims, essentially,”
she continued. “I know that rumor has made its way around Bent County, and it’s true. It was clearly some kind of . . . mass burial. Except, not all done at the same time. Bodies over the course of years.”
“So Jen Rogers killed more than just the Hudson parents?”
Here was where it got tricky. Jen Rogers was the current suspect and had confessed to the murders of the first two people Brooke had excavated and identified. Because she’d been living in the cave for a portion of the past few years, the assumption was the other victims had been killed and buried by her hand as well.
But Brooke had a different theory. A more complicated one. “Jen Rogers is forty-six years old. Some of the bones I’ve found . . . based on what I’ve tested, what I’ve observed . . . I think they’ve been there for closer to fifty years.”
Zeke absorbed that information. Jumped to the conclusion immediately. “There’s another murderer? An older murderer?”
“It’s one possibility. It could also be innocuous. Fifty years is a long time. I haven’t been able to study all the bodies, determine causes of death. These could be . . . accidents or have other reasonable explanations behind them.”
She tried to tell herself that, but she understood too well what she’d found.
“If it was innocuous, you wouldn’t be being followed.”
“We don’t know for sure that I am, or that it connects.”
But she was gratified that it was his immediate conclusion as well. Even if she felt honor-bound to argue with him.
An investigator had to look at every angle. That, he should know, considering he’d been one in his own right. More than the “shooting the bad guys, running into danger”
kind and less of the “sending highly scientific reports to law enforcement agencies” kind.
He clearly didn’t agree with her that there might be multiple possible answers here, but it was true. In her investigations, she had to weigh every possibility, and there was always the possibility that these older bodies were a coincidence. Something innocent from a long ago time.
“Why haven’t you told the detectives?”
Zeke asked.
“I’m waiting on test results to ensure my observations are correct, or at least more plausible than not. I can’t work on supposition, and neither can the detectives. We need facts. I should have answers in the next few weeks and then . . . maybe.”
He stood, that old energy she remembered—and shouldn’t—pumping off him. He’d always been this way. Vibrant. It had thrilled her back before it had flattened her. So she’d rebuilt her life around the old tenants that had gotten her into adulthood. Peace, calm, the careful unearthing of teeny-tiny facts that lead to bigger pictures.
Never being too big of a burden. Never hoping for too much from anyone. She was an island, and she had to remember that. She had to remember that no matter what he was, she was Brooke Campbell.
“Where do these tests get run?”
he demanded.
She didn’t like being interrogated, but she supposed she only had herself to blame since she’d been the one to contact him. And she knew him. Maybe he’d changed in four years—hence the ranch and the settling down. She’d certainly changed herself. But right now he seemed very much like the Zeke she’d known. No use not answering his demanding questions.
“The state crime lab in Cheyenne.”
“That means what you send them passes through a lot of hands.”
“It’s a murder investigation. Of course it does. I doubt anyone has drawn the conclusions I’ve drawn yet. But they will if someone’s looking to connect things. The detectives will, once they have all the facts.”
Zeke paced the kitchen in front of that beautiful window view. A beautiful view in it of himself. Like a predator, sleek and smooth and . . .
Dangerous, if you recall. But aside from breaking her heart there at the end, he’d always been kind and gentle and—
Don’t start that again. She looked down at her hands.
“But if someone knows what’s in that cave, they might have cause to follow you. Have cause to see if you put what they know together.”
“Those are all ifs.”
“Don’t be na?ve, Brooke.”
A sharp order that landed with the pain it had four years ago. For a second, she could only stare at him and wonder if she’d wandered into some kind of time slip because it had landed with so much of that old pain she thought she’d gotten over.
But she didn’t have time to deal with that as she heard a door slam open and a woman’s voice call out his name.
He muttered an oath under his breath. “Prepare yourself for the onslaught.”
It might have been funny, the look on Brooke’s face as Carlyle whirled through his house, if he didn’t think Carlyle had the ability to see right through him when it came to Brooke Campbell.
Too many old ghosts still haunted him when it came to her, and it was not a comfortable realization to find that he liked the look of her at his kitchen table. He had not once allowed himself to think of her when he’d bought this ranch, started on renovations.
And now she was just here, like that’s exactly who he’d been thinking about, and he knew he’d never be able to erase that.
His sister stormed into the kitchen—not because something was wrong, no doubt, but because she was just a storm herself.
“What are you doing here?”
he demanded.
“Hi to you too,”
Carlyle replied, already studying Brooke. “You’re that forensic person, right?”
Brooke smiled, but Zeke recognized it as the prim, professional one she trotted out when she was uncomfortable.
He didn’t like the knowledge he remembered all her different smiles either.
“Brooke Campbell.”
She held out a hand for Carlyle to shake.
Carlyle slid a glance at him then shook Brooke’s hand. “You knew each other back when he was being Mister Super Secret Spy?”
“Yes.”
This was followed by a beat of silence where Carlyle studied Brooke and then him.
“And about as talkative on the matter as you are,”
Carlyle grumbled.
Even now, with North Star disbanded, it was second nature for him to just not talk about it. North Star had been a secret group, and maybe it wasn’t so much now, but he still didn’t just hand out details.
He’d spent years disbanding a dangerous and vicious gang, another year unraveling other terrifying missions. He’d leapt into danger time and time again, and his sister didn’t need the details on that.
Ever.
“Because there’s nothing to talk about,”
Zeke said gruffly. “Brooke, this is my sister. Carlyle.”
He couldn’t really remember if he’d ever mentioned Car to Brooke back then. North Star had meant keeping family ties close to the vest. It had meant not letting on that you had a real life outside those secret walls. But Zeke had too many memories of telling Brooke way more than he should have.
Brooke smiled politely at Carlyle. “It’s nice to meet you. I’ve heard . . . things about you.”
Carlyle laughed, loud and brash. “I just bet. Well, I need to talk to Zeke for a sec.”
She studied the woman then turned her gaze on Zeke. “Come to dinner tonight.”
He scowled. “I don’t want to go to a Hudson dinner.”
Carlyle and their oldest brother Walker had entangled themselves in the Hudson family, the Hudson Ranch. Walker marrying and procreating with Mary Hudson—Daniels now. Carlyle hooking up with Cash Hudson.
All sorts of domestic bliss Zeke preferred to keep his distance from.
“I didn’t ask if you wanted to. I told you to come.”
“I’m busy.”
He looked pointedly at Brooke. “Someone’s following her.”
“Did you go to the cops?”
Carlyle asked Brooke.
She shook her head. “It’s . . . complicated.”
“Ah, well, maybe she should stay with the Hudsons then. It’s got better security than this place. You can both come for dinner and stay.”
The denial was immediately on the tip of his tongue. It wasn’t a smart denial, but there and knee-jerk all the same.
Brooke spoke before he could find the right words to get Carlyle to back off.
“I know what I mean to the Hudsons,”
Brooke said.
Her voice was cool and calm, but Zeke hated that hint of vulnerability he could see in her eyes. Because she’d always been the girl who didn’t quite fit in. Things he never should have let her tell him about herself.
“I don’t think I’d be welcome,”
Brooke said as if it didn’t bother her, but Zeke would lay money on the fact it did.
“You gave them answers,”
Carlyle said with about as much gentleness as his sister gave anyone. “I know you’d be welcome.”
“I examined the skeletal remains of their parents. I’m sure they’re grateful for the positive ID. Sheriff Hudson has told me as much, but . . . no one wants to be reminded of that, and my presence would be a reminder. Even if they were kind enough to not want it to be.”
Carlyle was silent a moment then shook her head. “I’m sorry, you’re way too sweet and calm and, like, smart-sounding to stay with this Neanderthal.”
It was clearly an attempt to lighten the mood and he knew Brooke was good at that. Going along with the attempts people wanted.
“I don’t doubt it. Luckily, I’m not staying with him. I’m just . . . seeking his counsel on how to proceed.”
Zeke’s scowl settled deeper. Like hell she wasn’t staying with him when she was in clear danger. “Yeah, and that counsel is going to keep me busy tonight. I’ll come up to the ranch some other night.”
He started ushering Carlyle out of the kitchen, into the living room, almost to the front door.
“You messed her up, didn’t you?”
she asked.
“Goodbye, Car.”
Before he could effectively usher his sister out of his house, she stopped him with a very simple sentence.
“I think Cash and I are going to get married.”
It shouldn’t be any kind of shock and yet . . . “Huh?”
“He asked me to. And I said yes. So, barring end-of-the-world-type stuff brought on by the Daniels clan settling down, I guess it’ll happen.”
She opened the front door herself, stepped out onto the rickety porch. “Anyway, that’s what we were going to announce at dinner.”
“I’m not settling down.”
That was perhaps not how he should respond to the news his baby sister was getting married. To a guy he happened to like. But Zeke was who he was.
Carlyle gestured at his house. The one he’d bought. He did not allow himself to include Brooke in her gesture. “Sure you’re not. Remind me the last time you stayed in one place for more than three months, let alone a year, and—oh, yeah—bought land.”
“It doesn’t mean I’m . . .”
He shook his head. “Congrats, Car. I’m glad. Cash’ll keep you in line.”
He’d only said that to piss her off, because they were who they were.
Yet she didn’t fume. She didn’t even laugh. She studied him with those careful eyes. She didn’t trot that out too often, especially now that she wasn’t keeping secrets from him and their other brother.
“It doesn’t hurt, you know.”
“What doesn’t?”
“Building something you decide to keep forever.”
Since he didn’t want to touch that with a ten-foot pole, he offered his own version of emotional honesty that would ideally get her running. “They’re lucky to have you, Car.”
Just as he’d predicted, his sister turned away. “Maybe we’re all lucky,”
she muttered and then strode for her truck where one of her ever-present dogs sat in the passenger side.
She didn’t go to the driver’s side. She opened the dog’s door and shooed it out, then gave it an order to stay.
“I don’t need a dog,”
Zeke said, not quite sure what she was up to as she made her way to the driver’s side of the truck.
But she didn’t even look at him. She got in her truck, closed the door and leaned out the open window as she backed away.
Carlyle pointed to the house. “She might.”