Chapter 12 #3
Cole gave a bitter laugh. “Patterns. I’ve spent my whole life finding threats before they show up on someone else’s radar.
It was my job in the Marines—recon. I knew something was wrong out there—too many scavengers in places they shouldn’t be, too many quiet patches where everything felt off.
But when I found that first piece of a human skull…
” He fingered his beard. “I kept thinking about how that was someone’s person.
Someone was missing them and had no idea what happened to them.
I thought of my daughter, her stepfather, and the torment they must be going through, not knowing what happened to my ex-wife. That ain’t right, you know.”
Dawson stuffed his phone into his pocket. “You’ve got journals. Photos. Why didn’t you bring those to us?”
“I didn’t know who to trust. People think a man like me living out in the swamp is just some cracked vet with too many ghosts and not enough meds.
I tried once—with your predecessors. No one listened.
” He waved his finger between Dawson and Hayes.
“And we had a few run-ins. A few words. A night in one of these cells. I figured you’d be more of the same. ”
His words weren’t defensive. Just tired.
“What about your ex-wife?” Hayes asked gently. “I mean no disrespect, but we heard she cheated on you. Was that why you divorced?”
Cole looked up slowly. His eyes filled with a kind of sadness that screamed something…
but it wasn’t pain, nor was there an ounce of anger there “No. That’s not true.
I know that’s what some people say, but that ain’t what happened.
My wife and I had our share of problems. Mostly because of me.
We separated right before my last deployment.
We did it quietly, for the sake of our family.
She started seeing someone else during that time—the man my ex-wife married.
But she never betrayed me. She was a good woman.
The best.” His voice was calm. There was no edge to it.
No sense of malice or even hurt—just sadness and regret.
Silence filled the room for a long moment. Chloe sat down across from him.
“And your daughter? What about her?”
“She was fourteen when we split. She stayed with her mom and stepdad. After that last deployment…I wasn’t the same.
I didn’t reach out like I should have. I was drinking a lot, and the demons ate me alive.
It was tough for my kid to see me, and truth be told, I didn’t want her to see me like that either.
I was already living on the edge. When I learned what happened to her mom, I couldn’t face her.
I figured it was too little, too late.” Cole turned his head as tears fell down his cheeks.
“Shame can do horrible things to a man. When you choose to live your life the way I have, you can run from it, but you can’t hide from it.
I wake up every day, remembering how I left my precious daughter feeling abandoned, and I fall asleep with that guilt.
But I don’t ever have to face her, now do I?
” He turned, his face tight with emotion.
“That picture you had of me,” Chloe started. “What do you know of me and my career?”
“Not much, other than you’re a Fed,” Cole said. “I cut that picture out because I thought maybe you might listen, if I ever had anything to go on.”
“What do you know about the two recent deaths in Calusa Cove?” Dawson asked, pausing at the edge of the desk.
“Nothing, really.” Cole lifted his gaze.
“Except that news reporter wanted to ask me questions the last time I went to the marina. She all but accused me of setting the fire to the old Crab Shack. That’s why I didn’t bring the owl to the marina.
I don’t like her. She started by telling me she wanted to buy some of my pieces, then it went dark.
Lucky for me, the girl who owns the marina took pity on me and shooed that reporter away. ”
Chloe flattened her hands on the table. This Stacey woman had become the bane of her existence. “What exactly did Stacey say to you?”
“She made a comment about knowing all about my past. Who I was. My military record.” He ran his dirty fingers through his beard.
“She told me she knew my wife was dead, and that she’d been murdered by the same person who killed that person found in the Crab Shack.
That’s when she asked me if I had set the fire and what I’d done with my wife.
I was stunned. I didn’t know what that even meant.
But I felt my brain splinter, and I knew I was going to snap and say something I shouldn’t.
That’s when that girl from the marina came out.
When you all showed up the other day, I thought you were there to arrest me.
” He shifted his gaze toward Dawson. “Am I under arrest?”
“No.” Dawson shook his head. “But I am detaining you as a person of interest. I need this to be official. It’s to rule you out because, based on all that you’ve told us, and what we’ve learned on our own, you couldn’t have done what we’re thinking.”
Chloe leaned back, fingering her ponytail. “I’m sorry, but can I ask you a really hard question?”
“None of these have been easy or fun, so go ahead.” Cole shifted.
“Do you think your ex-wife is still alive?” she asked.
His jaw worked, then he shook his head. “She loved our daughter, and she loved her husband. Heck, she loved me, we just couldn’t be together anymore.
She wouldn’t disappear. Something happened.
I don’t know what. I always felt bad for her because of the cheating rumors.
The military can be harsh, and since I was deployed and people saw her out, that’s what they assumed, but she had my blessing. I was just…too broken by then.”
“I’m sorry that you’ve had to live with all this, but I wish you’d brought it to me sooner,” Dawson said, his tone softer now.
“Once I verify everything—your reports, the jurisdictional calls, your ex’s timeline—I’ll be able to let you go, and for the record, no one knows we brought you in, and I’ll keep it that way.
You can go back out into the Everglades and live your life. ”
“Thank you,” Cole said simply, shifting his gaze to Hayes. “Does that job offer still stand? I’m a hard worker. My only real problem is how to get there. I no longer have a car. Just that little boat.”
“You’ll be able to get to the two job sites by water.” Hayes nodded. “Let’s deal with this, and then we’ll talk about employment. We still have to buy the property, so it’s a work in progress.”
“I understand.” Cole seemed to accept life on life’s terms. Everything about him was even. Other than the fight he’d been involved in a few months back at Massey’s Pub, he was a reserved man who went through life not fighting for anything, including himself.
That broke Chloe’s heart.
“I might have some work at Harvey’s Cabins. You can come up the canal system.” Dawson nodded. “It’ll be on an on-call basis. It will be fixing things or cleaning out things that no one else wants to do.”
“I don’t want charity.” Cole stared at Dawson with a pointed look. “You got work, I’ll do it for either a fair trade or a decent wage, but I don’t want you making up work?—”
Dawson raised his hand. “Like I said, it won’t be steady, but if something comes up, you’ll be the first person I go find.
Now, unfortunately, we need to get you set up in holding,” Dawson added, motioning for one of the deputies waiting outside.
“My secretary is bringing in a hot meal. Is there anything else you need?”
“I don’t need special treatment.” Cole lowered his gaze.
“It’s not special,” Hayes said quietly. “It’s decent.”
As the door opened and Cole was led out by Dawson, Chloe stood beside Hayes. His expression was unreadable, but she saw something shift behind his eyes. Something subtle. Reflective. He rubbed his chest, fingering the scars through the fabric of his shirt.
“What’s going on in that brain of yours?” she asked.
“Thinking about Ken. About the last mission we all went on. How fucked up it was. I still have nightmares about it sometimes,” Hayes replied, eyes still on the door.
“I’ve seen enough men unravel to know when one’s trying to hold the pieces together.
” He caught her gaze. “You believe him, don’t you? ”
“I do.” Chloe leaned back against the wall again. “We’ll clear him.”
“Yeah,” Hayes said softly. “That could’ve been me, Dawson, Fletcher, or Keaton.”
She looked at him—really looked at him. The tight line of his jaw.
The distant storm behind his eyes. The way his fingers twitched against his leg, like he was barely holding something back.
She didn’t speak. Didn’t move. The silence swelled between them, thick and dense, like the charged stillness before a lightning strike.
He pressed his palm flat to his chest, just over his heart, and looked down.
“We always knew we might not come home,” he said, voice low.
“Every time we deployed, we accepted that. Death wasn’t just a possibility—it was a constant presence.
Honestly, I think that’s what kept us sharp. Kept us alive.”
His eyes lifted, locking with hers.
“But that mission,” he whispered, swallowing hard.
“That one was different. From the second we hit the ground, everything felt…wrong. We jumped from the helicopter into enemy territory, and every one of us knew. We didn’t say it out loud, but it was in the way we looked at each other.
We felt it.” He sucked in a deep breath and let it out with sigh.
“During that mission, I would dream about Max. I’d see him as an adult.
It’s not hard to do, since we were identical twins.
But it was damn weird. It was like he was calling me to him. ”
She took a step closer.
But Hayes suddenly held his hands out, stopping her cold. Not harshly, but with a barrier that felt like it came from somewhere deep inside. Chloe froze, arms hugging her torso, gaze fixed on the man who stood in front of her—physically present, but mentally retreating.
“We were captured,” he said, voice tight.
“Tortured. It’s a goddamn miracle four of us made it out alive.
” He let out a long breath, shaky, almost ragged.
“Ken didn’t, and each of us carries that guilt.
Each of us believes it should’ve been us.
We don’t say it out loud, but it’s there, right under the surface.
It was during those torture sessions that I saw Max.
I don’t know if I conjured him up to help me get through the insanity of it all…
or if I was praying for death. I suppose it doesn’t matter.
” He looked away, jaw clenched. “This is classified,” he added quietly.
“I could get into serious trouble just telling you this.”
“I won’t say a word,” she said.
He nodded once, the barest motion. “They tried to break us. For three days, they electrocuted us. Burned us. Cut us. When that didn’t work, they took Ken and Fletcher into another room.” He dragged a hand down his face. “Only Fletcher came back.”
Chloe’s breath caught.
“They made him watch,” Hayes said, voice breaking. “They executed Ken right in front of him.” He covered his eyes with one hand, shoulders shuddering once, then again. “My connection to Max…the dreams he’d visit me in…stopped.”
Chloe closed the space between them. She wrapped her arms around him, pulled him close. He didn’t fight it. Didn’t flinch. His arms came around her slowly, and he pressed his face into the curve of her neck.
She said nothing. Because there was nothing to say. No apology, no words of comfort that could touch what he’d just shared. She only held on.
When he finally pulled back, he kissed her temple and ran his hands up her arms. “Sorry,” he murmured. “Didn’t mean to fall apart like that.”
“It’s okay,” she whispered. “You don’t have to hold it in.”
Hayes glanced toward the table, his gaze distant again.
“Ken’s been on all our minds lately. The wedding, the secrets we’ve uncovered…
It’s got all of us questioning how well we actually knew him, especially Fletcher.
They were best friends since grade school.
” He looked back at her. “Seeing Cole—being in the same room with him—it shook something loose. Dawson felt it, too. He won’t say it, but I saw it on his face.
Cole’s not just a reminder of where we could’ve ended up—he’s a reminder that we didn’t all make it out the same.
” He reached into his back pocket, pulled out his phone, and tapped the screen.
“Keaton texted me while we were in the room with Cole. Said Fletcher’s off.
Real off. He convinced Baily to go over to his place, just to keep an eye on him.
Keaton’s got wedding prep to finish, but this is hitting all of us harder than we expected.
” He looked down at the floor, then back at her.
“I promised Cole I wouldn’t leave him alone tonight. ”
Chloe stepped closer again. “Then we stay.”
“You don’t have to?—”
“I know I don’t have to.” She nudged his arm. “But I’m not going anywhere.”
He looked at her then, something soft and grateful behind the fatigue. His mouth curved just slightly. Not quite a smile, but something close.
She let out a slow breath and reached for his hand.
They didn’t speak.
They didn’t need to.
Not now.