Chapter Eight #2
Corbin looked straight at Wynn, as if checking for permission before answering. “He says he wants to clear his name. Says he didn’t try to kill you two.”
Beside him, Wynn leaned closer to the phone, his voice ragged but certain. “I didn’t. I swear it. I only want the truth about Lauren’s murder. Someone killed her, and Noah needs to pay for what he did.”
A knot twisted in Jessa’s gut, anger, grief, confusion all snarled together. Deacon didn’t hide his skepticism.
“You’re pointing fingers without proof, Wynn. If you want us to believe you, start talking,” Deacon snapped out. “And no, don’t demand that Jessa and I meet you at the end of the road where you or someone else could have the chance to ambush us.”
Wynn didn’t answer. Jessa watched on the monitor as he stared out the windshield, jaw grinding.
Corbin huffed. “Wynn and I don’t agree on everything. I’m not convinced it’s Noah. The guy’s clean. Almost too clean.”
Jessa stiffened. “Then who do you think killed my mother?”
Corbin hesitated, just long enough to set off every warning bell in her head. Finally, he said, “Shade.”
Not a surprise since she suspected him, too. “You really think Shade killed Lauren?” she pressed.
“I think he could have,” Corbin replied. “He had access to her files. She suspected he hacked her more than once. And he had reason—debts, leverage, blackmail material. Something went wrong between them. He’s not telling you everything.”
Wynn let out a sharp, dismissive breath beside him, shaking his head. “It wasn’t Shade,” he muttered. “It was Noah.”
Jessa stared at the grainy footage. Wynn agitated, Corbin tense but composed. Two men with two different stories… and neither one she fully trusted.
Not even close.
On the screen, Wynn leaned forward, gripping the steering wheel as if it were the only thing keeping him tethered to reality. “If you want to keep talking, you come to the end of the road,” he demanded.
Deacon opened his mouth, probably to shut that down hard, but Jessa touched his arm, stepping closer to the laptop.
She raised her voice just enough for Wynn and Corbin to hear through the phone. “Wynn… if you really believe Noah is trying to kill us, kill you, then meeting in the open is a bad idea. If he’s the threat, then any one of his operatives could be watching us right now.”
Wynn’s head snapped toward the tree line on the security feed. Paranoia flickered across his features, sharp and visible even through grainy footage. He scanned the road. The brush. The sky. His breathing picked up.
Good.
“If there’s a sniper out there, we’re all sitting ducks. Especially you,” she added.
Corbin shot Wynn a sharp look, one that said she has a point even if he didn’t voice it. Wynn swallowed hard, eyes still flicking everywhere like shadows might jump him.
“Fine,” Wynn finally growled. “We’ll talk. But fast. Noah might already know I’m out here.” He ran a trembling hand over his face. “If he wants to silence me… this is the perfect time.”
Deacon muttered a low curse, but Wynn kept going, leaning closer to the phone.
“But listen to me, Raines.” His voice dropped to something chilling. “If cops show up, if I see so much as a cruiser, I’m done. You’ll never hear another word from me. I’ll take the truth to my grave.”
Jessa felt a cold ripple run through her. Wynn meant it.
Deacon lowered the phone from speaker mode just long enough to fire off a rapid text to his deputies. Silent approach. Stay out of sight. Don’t move in unless I give the order.
He shifted his attention back to the live feed of Wynn and Corbin sitting in that truck like two lit fuses waiting for the spark.
“Corbin,” she said into the open call, “if you’re so sure Shade’s behind this, tell us specifically why. Why would he want us dead? Why kill Lauren?”
The man’s jaw moved, a tense grind visible even through the camera’s distortion. He blew out a breath. “Because Lauren stopped paying him,” he said flatly. “She quit the hush money. And Shade doesn’t handle rejection well.”
Jessa felt her stomach twist. “Hush money for what?”
“For the information he kept hacking out of her files,” Corbin said.
“Financials. Property records. Private correspondence. Lauren thought he’d dug into Creed Response’s ops files too.
She basically paid him to bury anything incriminating.
And Shade made sure there was something incriminating to find. ”
Deacon leaned forward, voice rough. “Explain that. You’re saying Shade set her up?”
Corbin nodded. “Maybe not just her. Roman, too.”
Black spots of fury danced behind Jessa’s eyes. “Set them up for what?”
Corbin didn’t hesitate. “For the murder of Clayton Hargrove.”
The name punched the air out of her lungs.
Jessa froze, her brain snagging on the memory.
Clayton Hargrove. The wealthy rancher whose body had been found at his remote property.
The evidence had pointed to Lauren and Roman, and Deacon had arrested them.
Along with temporarily making her mother’s and brother’s lives a living hell, it had torn Deacon and her apart.
Clayton’s estranged wife and Lauren’s childhood friend, Lila, had eventually been convicted on circumstantial evidence—volatile marriage, financial motive, opportunity. But doubt had shadowed the case for months.
Deacon’s voice cut in, sharp and dangerous. “You’re saying Shade planted evidence that made Lauren and Roman look guilty of murdering Clayton Hargrove?”
“I think Shade hacked records, fabricated digital trails, whatever he had to do to make them look dirty,” Corbin replied. “When Lauren stopped paying him… he burned her.”
Jessa’s pulse hammered so hard her vision swam. Shade. Hacking her mother. Blackmailing her. Setting her up for murder.
Wynn’s voice broke through the call, hoarse and trembling. “Lauren didn’t deserve any of this.”
Jessa swallowed hard. No. She didn’t.
Corbin’s words hung in the air like smoke—thick, choking, impossible to ignore. Shade framed Lauren. Shade blackmailed her. Shade killed her. The pieces fit too well. Too neatly.
And that was exactly the problem.
Because as Jessa stared at Corbin’s face on the security feed, her skin prickled with doubt. Corbin knew how to lie. He knew how to sell a story. He knew how to twist a truth until it strangled you.
And he knew her. Knew Roman. Knew Lauren.
He’d watched the Creed household from the inside. He knew every one of their soft spots, every secret shame, every vulnerability.
He knows exactly where to cut to make the deepest wounds.
Corbin hated Roman. Hated Lauren even more. Being passed over for adoption had carved something jagged and permanent into him. Something bitter. Something he hid behind charm and swagger.
He could be orchestrating all of this.
Corbin could be the puppeteer pulling Wynn’s strings, whispering poison into the ear of a grieving, unstable man until Wynn saw ghosts where there were none.
Feeding Wynn hacked files, doctored evidence, half-truths until hate eclipsed reason.
He could weaponize Wynn’s grief. He could aim that grief straight at Jessa and Roman.
He could burn her life down and use Wynn as the perfect fall guy.
And now here Corbin was sitting in Wynn’s truck, claiming to be a “witness.”
On the screen, Corbin shifted in his seat, just enough to tell her something ugly was coming. And then he said it. “I believe Lauren did kill Clayton Hargrove.”
Jessa’s breath slammed to a stop.
Deacon straightened, every muscle going taut. “Say that again?” he demanded.
“She was having an affair with him,” Corbin supplied. “Everyone knew Hargrove couldn’t keep it in his pants, but Lauren? She hid it well. And when he told her he was going back to his wife, Lila… well. Lauren was a proud woman. She didn’t take rejection lightly.”
“Why the hell would you say something like that?” Jessa snapped, heat flaring under her skin.
Corbin shrugged, maddeningly calm. “Because it fits. She was with him that night. And I think Roman helped her cover it up.”