Chapter 24
Annabelle
My heart hammers against my ribs. I’m holding my breath by force. Bennett looks so fucking normal standing there on the dirt track. That’s the part that makes my stomach churn. He doesn’t look like a rapist and murderer. He looks like a man who’s here to help.
I step out just enough for him to see me. The stone of the doorway feels cold against my spine. I’ve got the decoy notebook clutched to my chest. I’m holding it like it’s the only thing keeping me upright.
“Annabelle,” he calls out. His voice carries over the open ground, smooth and calm. “It’s okay. I’m here. Just stay where you are.”
“Did you come alone?” I ask. My voice sounds thin. I don’t have to try hard to make it sound like I’m on the edge of a breakdown. The names written on my skin feel like they’re burning. They’re a secret weight that reminds me I’m not alone.
He takes a few steps closer. He’s careful. He’s scanning the windows, the weeds, the shadows. “I did. I want to help you, Annabelle. Let me see what you found.”
“I’m not coming out there,” I say. I retreat back into the gloom of the farmhouse, pulling the shadows around me. “You come in here.”
He hesitates. It’s a tiny flicker of movement. He’s calculating. He’s deciding if the risk is worth the prize. I keep my eyes on him, waiting for the moment he commits to the trap.
I sense Maeve out of the corner of my eye and force myself not to look at her.
“Give me a name so I know you’re holding what you say you’re holding,” he says.
He is calm. Too calm.
“You want a name?”
“From the evidence your mother had.”
“B-Briggs,” I say, not wanting to name him yet. “I think he killed her.”
He nods slowly, his face a grim mask. “That is what I’ve suspected for a long time.”
My breath catches. “What?”
He sighs and scrubs his hand over his face. “I’ve suspected Briggs for a long time, not just your mother, but others.”
I blink and lick my lips. I can feel Maeve waiting to pounce. “I don’t know what you mean? Suspected?”
He glances around. “If you have evidence that will help me put him away, you need to give it to me.”
Confusion floods my system, and I step back. “You’re working against Briggs?”
He nods. “I shouldn’t be telling you this, but I’m desperate at this point. If you have anything that can nail that bastard to the wall, I want it.”
My gaze goes to Maeve, standing behind the door. She shakes her head in warning.
“I don’t believe you,” I say, my voice too shaky. “You are in this book.”
“I expect I am,” he says with a soft smile.
“Don’t come any closer,” I say.
“I won’t. I’m not the bad guy here, Annabelle. If you have what you say you have, it will look very much like I’m one of them. I’m not. I’m working undercover.”
“What?”
The word rings out in the old farmhouse, but it doesn’t come from me.
It comes from Maeve.
“You lying piece of shit,” she roars, gun raised.
Bennett immediately raises his hands and steps back. “I’m unarmed. And I’m telling the truth.”
Fuck. Fuck. What the fuck?
“No,” Maeve growls. “You are part of this. I’ve hunted, I’ve got notes, I’ve got—”
“You’ve got what I needed the others to see.”
“This isn’t happening,” I whimper as it all comes crashing down on me. “This isn’t happening.”
“It’s not,” Maeve says. “He is lying.”
“I’m not.”
“Prove it,” I say before Maeve can shoot him. “Prove you aren’t involved!”
Bennett reaches slowly into his back pocket.
Maeve’s finger tightens on the trigger. I hold my breath.
He pulls out a small, leather-bound ID wallet and flips it open.
He doesn’t throw it. He holds it steady.
The badge glints in the harsh sunlight. It looks official. Every badge looks the same to me.
“Look at the number,” Bennett says. His voice is a low anchor in the chaos. “Call the Special Investigations Unit. Sergeant Mack Finn. He will vouch for me. I’ve been inside for years. I let the rumours about me circulate so Briggs would trust me. I had to let things happen, Maeve. I had to watch.”
Maeve lowers the gun a fraction and fires, hitting the dirt at Bennett’s feet. He doesn’t even flinch. “You watched Christa die.”
Bennett’s jaw sets. “I tried to stop it.”
The world tilts. My grip on the decoy notebook turns my knuckles white. If he is telling the truth, we are about to murder the only ally we have. If he is lying, he is the most talented actor I’ve ever met.
“He’s playing you,” Maeve says. “He’s a snake. He knows exactly which buttons to press.”
“Search my car,” Bennett suggests. “There is an encrypted drive in the glove box. It has everything I’ve gathered. It matches what you have, and more.”
The guys are waiting for my signal. One word from me and Bennett dies. One mistake and we lose everything.
“Maeve,” I say, my voice wavering.
“Don’t believe him, Annabelle.”
“Call the number.”
She turns her head towards me. “Are you fucking serious?”
“Yes. I’m serious.”
Maeve’s eyes blaze with a fury that makes her hands tremor.
She doesn’t reach for her phone. She keeps the weapon fixed on Bennett’s chest. I can’t breathe through the static in my brain.
If he is telling the truth, my mother died because the system was too slow.
If he is lying, he is buying time for the hunters who murdered Jack.
“Call it, Maeve. Now.” My voice is a sharp command.
Bennett stands motionless. He doesn’t look at the gun. He looks at me. It is a heavy, professional stare.
“He is playing for time,” Maeve spits out. She doesn’t move. “He wants us to call a number that means fuck all.”
“Give me something else,” I state to Bennett. “She’s right. The number means fuck all if Briggs is on the other end vouching for you.”
“Briggs is dead,” Maeve hisses.
Bennett tilts his head. “Wrong Briggs, Maeve. There’s two of them.”
“Are you fucking with me?” I mutter and wonder how this ended up as my life.
Maeve is glowering so hard at Bennett, I’m surprised he’s still standing. “What do you mean two of them?”
He gives her a look back. “Do I really need to spell it out to you of all people?”
“Fuck off,” she grits out. “Who was he?”
“Alec. Tony is still alive.”
“I hate you,” she spits out. “All of you.”
“Fair,” he says. “Smart. Check the drive.”
“With what? We didn’t come with a fucking laptop,” Maeve says.
“Take it with you. It’s a copy.”
“And let you walk away from here alive? I don’t think so.”
“Take me with you.”
I chew the inside of my lip. “Ethan,” I call out. “Are you hearing this?”
“I’m hearing it,” Ethan says. He steps out from the high grass on the right, his weapon fixed on Bennett’s skull. He doesn’t look like he believes a single word of the undercover bullshit. “It’s a touching story, Detective. Really brings a tear to my eye.”
Aidan emerges from the left, looking like a ghost with a vendetta. Callan appears from behind the stone wall, his face a mask of cold intent. They circle Bennett like wolves closing in for the kill.
“Search the car,” I tell Ethan. “He said the drive is in the glove box.”
“I’ll do it,” Callan says. He moves toward the dark sedan.
Bennett keeps his hands high. He doesn’t flinch as Callan nears his vehicle.
I feel sick. Maeve’s gun hand is still steady, her eyes darting between Bennett and the brothers.
It’s a total fucking disaster.
“If you’re lying, I’ll carve my name into your ribs before I let Aidan finish you,” Ethan says. He sounds like he’s actually hoping for the excuse.
Callan opens the passenger door and searches the compartment. A few seconds later, he holds up a small silver thumb drive. “Got it.”
“Jack is dead,” I say, my voice cracking before I catch it. “The woman he was following is dead. If you’re the fucking hero, why is everyone dying?”
“Until we had more, I’m one man against a network,” Bennett says. “I needed more than files. I needed the source.”
“Tony Briggs?”
He nods.
“He’s the ringleader?”
“Yes.”
“He is the one who killed Christa,” Maeve says.
“I know,” Bennett says softly, and those two words hit me right in the gut.
Right before a bullet slams into the back of his head and he falls face forward as Maeve spins to knock me to the floor, kicking the rotten door shut as far as it will go.
“Stay down,” she says.
“I hadn’t planned to get up.”
She gives me a look and then creeps towards the door to peer out, as I presume, the triplets scatter.
Another gunshot. Closer this time.
I crawl into a corner and pull my knees up. Putting my hands over my ears, I close my eyes.
The world explodes into a mess of splintering wood and biting dust. The sound of that first shot—the one that turned Bennett into a corpse before he could finish his sentence—rings in my ears.
I curl tighter into the corner, the decoy notebook digging into my ribs, a useless shield against a world that just turned inside out.