Chapter 35 Dane
DANE
“This was one of the spots right?”
I hadn’t been aware that I was pacing on the terrace until the voice broke into my thoughts.
I looked up to see one of the guys from Titan Security carrying a ladder.
I nodded. “I want PTZ on every door, every window.”
I’d done hours of research before ordering the security system. Installing point-tilt-zoom cameras was more expensive, but it also meant better coverage for the house and property.
Besides, money was no object. Just because Avery had fucked Beck and Noah the night before — the same night I’d been about to get her off at the town hall — didn’t mean I didn’t want her safe.
This wasn’t an “if I can’t have her no one will” situation.
This was a “keep Avery safe even if I wasn’t the one she wanted situation.”
Which didn’t mean it didn’t suck balls.
“You got it,” the guy said, putting the ladder down in front of the glass doors leading to the kitchen.
I thought he’d said his name was Darren, but I couldn’t be sure.
I’d been distracted when the crew from Titan arrived, and I’d given them access to the grounds and proceeded to replay everything that had happened the night before, from the moment I’d entered the darkened courtroom with Avery right up until I’d watched her fucking Beck and Noah through the half-open door to her room.
Those fucking fuckers had probably wanted me to see it go down.
It had felt like a party I hadn’t been invited to, and for the first time in a long time, I’d felt the sting of being left out. Only this time it wasn’t the exclusion that burned, but white-hot jealousy for Avery Hart.
I shouldn’t have watched — I’d known the images would haunt me — but I hadn’t been able to stop looking.
And who could blame me for being haunted?
How was I supposed to forget the image of Avery, legs spread, Beck eating her pussy like a hungry animal, out of my head when that was exactly what I’d been doing a few hours before?
And how about the image of Noah pushing his big dick into her delicious cunt when that was what I’d dreamt of doing ever since she appeared in the gazebo, dressed in pink and spouting nonsense words to express her surprise?
Or the sight of Avery working Beck’s dick with her mouth, sucking him off like a champ while she got railed by Noah?
Most of all, how was I supposed to forget the sound of her coming, her moans when Beck had delivered an orgasm with his tongue, the little mews that came from her mouth, wrapped around Beck’s dick, when she’d come a second time?
Fucking Rosie.
I’d been this close to giving Avery that kind of pleasure in the courtroom.
“You need me for anything?” I asked the guy I thought was named Darren.
He was up on the ladder now, screwing in one of the PTZ cameras I’d selected for the house.
“Nah, I’m good.”
“Cool.” I wandered through the kitchen garden, hoping the movement would shake me off the hamster wheel of jealousy.
Avery’s words in the courtroom echoed in my brain: that was a mistake.
The thought hadn’t even occurred to me. In fact, I’d already been thinking about getting her home and in my bed where I could do all kinds of filthy things to make her scream.
A mistake. That was what it had been for her.
I cursed under my breath as I stepped into the orchard, passing one of the nude statues Evelyn had favored.
“Great,” I muttered. “Just fucking great.”
I could almost hear Evelyn laughing. She would have found the whole situation hilarious: Beck, Noah, and I all panting after her niece, vying for her attention, hanging on her every word when the whole time, Avery was planning her escape from Blackwell Hollow.
I was passing another of Evelyn’s statues — a cherub holding a birdbath — when something caught my eye. At first I thought maybe it was a scrap of rust-colored fabric near its marble base, but when I stepped closer I saw that it was a smudge.
And it looked like blood.
I bent down, making a point not to touch it.
Yep, that was blood.
I thought about Harold and the blood seeping from his head.
Well fuck.
Fudge, I heard Avery say in my head. You mean fudge.
“Nope, this is definitely a ‘fuck’ kind of moment,” I muttered to the empty orchard.
I hesitated. I should call Sheriff Crowe, let her know there was a possible murder weapon in the orchard.
Except… as far as I knew, Beck and Noah hadn’t yet been cleared.
It shouldn’t have mattered — it wasn’t my job to protect them from their actions — but that argument didn’t change the fact that my instinct was to protect them both.
When the fuck had that happened?
I hesitated, then used the hem of my T-shirt to test the weight of the statue, being careful not to leave fingerprints.
It was heavy, but I could lift it. Beck and Noah would be able to lift it too.
Avery? Probably not.
Not that I’d ever seriously considered her a suspect.
She’d been right: she didn’t have skin in the game of the controversy surrounding the Hearthstone development.
She was in such a hurry to sell the house and bakery so she could get back to the city that any property value increase would come too late to do her any good.
I rocked the statue back onto the base and stepped away from it.
Any motive Beck or Noah might have had for killing Harold was a mirror to my own. Noah’s was probably most personal of all — he’d suffered enough change when Big Ag had bought his family’s farm — but none of us wanted to see Blackwell Hollow changed by Hearthstone.
And having Sheriff Crowe’s forensics team descend on the property could be bad for us all.