CHAPTER 29
I stare at the entrance to the store across the parking lot, debating whether I should go inside or not. Though the dread in my stomach has been coated with a thick layer of Mexican food, that doesn’t stop it from rising up, clawing at the back of my throat.
How long has Jake been? Long enough to worry? Or am I letting my nerves get the best of me?
There’s no denying that I’m twitchy. I can’t stop chewing on my lip and trying to finger comb the braid out of my hair, which has turned it into one massive dreadlock. By the time Jake finally appears, I feel like a wreck.
My gaze darts between him, as he pushes an overflowing cart toward the car, and the glove box, where the dossier of Don Farris is stowed once again. As soon as he gets close, I hop out of the vehicle and hurry over to him.
“Everything okay?” he asks as I fall into step beside him.
“Yeah. Just thought you might want some help.”
“I’ve got it. But here.” He pauses for a moment, rummages through the jumble of bags and pulls out a large bottle of water. Unscrewing the cap, he hands it to me. “I’ll load everything. You rest.”
I want to argue that I’m fine, but I have to use both hands to hold the plastic liter he just gave me.
Even though the meeting at the warehouse earlier today seems ages ago, the truth is, my body still feels like it’s back in that shack in the woods, exhausted, thrumming with fear, dehydrated, and weak.
Despite that, I stay, leaning against the back door of the car as he opens the trunk and begins transferring packages inside.
Picking at the label on the water bottle with a ragged nail, I think about the file in the car. The dossier on Don Farris contains the type of information Director Jacobson was working on getting for me. How had Jake’s PI managed to find the data so quickly?
Perhaps an even more important question is, what kind of connections does Jake have that allowed him to take the discovery a step further and access the hitman’s financial records?
As easy as it would be to ask, I can’t bring myself to say the words. I don’t want Jake to think I don’t trust him. And I don’t want him to know that I’ve read—and memorized—every word of what his PI discovered.
“So, what’s the plan, exactly?” I ask, needing to do something to vent some of my frazzled nerves to make space as more worries continue to fizz up inside of me.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean when we get to Key Largo. I’m going to use that ID to pose as your mom, right? To empty out her bank account?”
Jake deposits a handful of bags into the trunk and says, “I’m not sure. I mean, it’s one option, yeah, but I don’t know if it’s the best one. What do you think?”
“I think it’s a start.”
He pauses, turning to give me his full attention. “If we take her money, she won’t be able to pay anyone to do her dirty work. What else do you think we should do?”
I shake my head in response, not sharing the plan that I’ve started to form, because if the need arises to put it into action, there’s not going to be a we involved. It’s going to a me job.
Jake studies my expression. “What are you thinking, Cassie? Something’s bothering you.”
“I guess I’m just concerned. What if it isn’t enough? Your mom could have money stashed in bank accounts across the country. Or even in other countries, for all we know.”
A muscle in his jaw tics. He swallows hard as he sets his hands on my shoulders. “I don’t want you to worry. You’ve been through enough already. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
Stepping forward, he closes the distance between us, his arms sliding across my back as he holds me close. He whispers against the top of my head, “I promise. One way or another, I’ll make sure she can’t try to hurt you again.”
Something about the way he says it makes my skin tighten. I pull back until I can see his face. “How?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does to me.”
He tries to pull me back into his embrace, but I refuse to move, staring at him for an answer. Finally, he heaves a heavy sigh. “Look, there are ways to make her go away.”
“Such as?”
“Like what she did to Bianchi.”
That was not at all what I expected him to say. Nor was it what I was trying to get at.
“You don’t mean that.”
“I think that maybe I do.”
“That’s not who you are.”
“Well, then I guess it’s who she drove me to be. Let’s forget for a moment that she murdered your parents and abandoned me with an abusive alcoholic. I made it clear to her, Cassie. Repeatedly. You’re the most important thing I have in my life, and she still tried to take you away.”
I think back to Monday morning, as Janine sat glaring at me in court. Jake being overly affectionate with me was his way of trying to send a message to her, it just wasn’t the one I thought. And apparently, it wasn’t one she was willing to hear.
“She’s made her choices. If it comes down to it, I’ll make mine.”
“But if it got traced back to you—”
Jake smiles sadly as he cups a hand to my face. “I’m already going to prison.”
“What?”
This feeling is worse than being tied up in that shack. Worse than waking up handcuffed in a serial killer’s basement. It’s like all the light is being sucked from my world, the darkness closing in around me, with no chance that things will ever return to the way they were.
“I’m pretty sure I killed that man earlier.”
“You were saving me.”
“How are we going to prove that? Both the Feds and the sheriff thought you were safe. I’ve watched enough crime shows to know that they’ll be able to determine that his time of death happened after I said you were back.”
This isn’t happening. I’m not going to let it. I spent my entire career solving crimes, which puts me in a unique position to also know how to cover one up.
Falling into investigator mode, I say, “The burden of proof will be on them. What is there linking you to that old storage facility? Do you own it? Did anyone see you there? Did you—”
“The bullet, Cassie. It was fired from a gun registered in your name.”
“Is that all?”
“Isn’t that enough?”
“No. Jake, you can stop worrying—”
“I can’t. I know about bullet striations and how they can be traced back to the gun that fired them. Once they figure out who that guy is and what he did, the first person they’re going to look at is you, and if you believe for one second that I’m going to let them think you did it—”
I silence him with a kiss, the kind I dreamed about giving him during all my conscious hours in the shack.
When our lips part, I say, “All of our handguns are loaded with frangible ammunition. It’s safer for when you shoot indoors because it disintegrates upon impact which means no ricochets.
It also means that most police departments don’t have the technology or the manpower that would be required to even try and recover trace evidence off the fragments. ”
He stares at me for a long minute with an expression of shock. Slowly, it morphs into a hopeful half-smile. “Really?”
When I nod, his smile becomes complete. This time, he kisses me, lifting me from the ground until I feel like I’m floating.
I do my best to shut off my brain and enjoy the moment—because you never know how many more moments you’re going to get.
And I don’t have the heart to tell him that I suspect the body in the warehouse is the least of our problems.