TWO
THEY DROVE FOR what felt like a million years. Her pleas for Conn fell on deaf ears. At some point, after the sun had risen in the sky, she gave up begging for his life. If he hadn’t been found by then, he’d be gone. Her love. Her future. How would she go on? What was left without him?
No radio. No news. No music. The cuffs at her back made it difficult to get comfortable. The enveloping grief didn’t subside and trickled out until her exhausted body surrendered to sleep.
Life, what they could’ve been, meaning and purpose, all had been stolen. What happened to her next didn’t matter. She was done fighting. If she hadn’t been so determined to liberate the truth, maybe people wouldn’t have lost their lives. People like her grandfather… like Conn.
Her first thought when she opened her eyes? Connel McDade.
From then on, she’d wake lonely. Wake without him struck by the painful truth he would never sleep at her side again.
They’d stopped.
Light outside hurt her sensitive eyes. She hadn’t figured out what was happening until her father opened her side door and dragged her out of the vehicle into a room.
A crappy out-of-state motel.
Her stomach rumbled and her eyes burned. Not that she cared about either.
Another set of cuffs appeared from somewhere and he attached one loop to the bed’s headboard. He snapped the loose end to her wrist, leaving her contorted in a—he freed her from the first set. Thank God, she could move her shoulders.
“So is this it now? We’re just on the run forever? Me cuffed to the furniture in motels across the country?”
Nothing. He hadn’t said a damn word. All her life she’d been invisible unless acting out. If this wasn’t him repeating that past, she didn’t know what to call it. A midlife crisis? Murder was an extreme way to recapture his youth. Just what had he been up to back then?
Her mood wasn’t helped by him pacing back and forth at the end of the bed.
“We’re the only ones who know,” he muttered.
Probably wasn’t talking to her, but she was beyond caring about his wants. “About your homicidal tendencies or you screwing over the city you claimed to adore?” Bullshit. No one betrayed what they truly loved. For all the difference it made, her father didn’t even glance her way. “Lach will notice we’re gone, Ronald.”
Using his name was more appropriate than giving him any familial title. Even in private, she didn’t want to admit they were related, and he sure didn’t deserve respect.
“I can control this.”
Himself or the situation?
“Lachlan actually does have integrity and loyalty,” she said. “He’ll move heaven and earth to find us.”
How she wished to be wrong on that. With their father so unhinged, she didn’t trust him to make rational choices.
The superintendent’s staff would wait a few hours, maybe a day, then contact Lachlan to report his father missing. Her brother would look in the obvious places and try cellphones. When no one picked up, he’d do rounds of the city officials. Had anyone seen their father? He’d call Steeple. And, yes, her brother would go to Stag.
What reception awaited him there? Would Conn’s men think he was in on the murder? That she was in on it?
Didn’t look good that the boss went out with his girlfriend and came back dead, with said girlfriend in the wind.
Silvio Manzani, McDade enemy and the don bribing her father, wouldn’t be any help. Not that Lachlan would look there given he didn’t believe their father’s duplicity.
Might he go to Evander? Yes. And boy could that blow up in his face.
All the landmines they’d left behind. Avoiding them would take a miracle on Lachlan’s part. Maybe her only chance for liberation was her sibling, though she wouldn’t hold her breath he’d last the week in the wake of their carnage.
Eventually Lachlan would learn Conn was dead. May learn Evander “Vex” Manzani had been shot; he could be dead too by this point.
The only desperate hope for any semblance of help and protection would be if Lach went to Strat first. Her friend, her best friend, maybe had the privilege of being the last man to see her alive.
Would her brother put pride before sense? He may not want to go to his ex’s father to ask for help. He may not call the ex-girlfriend who’d recently found new love. If pride won out, her brother would be in serious danger.
Her friendship with Strat was common knowledge. People from both factions, McDade and McLeod, had been working together at Stag. Should that make a difference to trust and approachability? Yes. Would it? With men, who could tell?
What about Strat? He wouldn’t have gone back to bed and slept through the morning. He’d be up, working to help her, to save her. He might go to Lachlan. Then, hopefully, she could rely on her friend to guide her brother.
Conn.
Strat was one of the few people who knew about their loft. And he had Niall’s number. If he called and got the lieutenant out of bed, they may have found Conn in time. Except who knew where they’d gone? How long would it take Niall and Strat to figure out they’d been at her grandfather’s? The longer it took, the more Conn bled.
And there was the other problem, McDades didn’t use hospitals with maximum resources. McDades had their own doctor. The guy had to be used to rooting out bullets and patching guys up. How was he with blood loss? If her love had—
“We can’t go back.” Her father’s pacing continued. “We can’t. Not together.”
“You can’t go back at all,” she said. “I’m a reporter, Ronald. You think for a second I won’t recount every minute, despicable detail of what happened last night? My mission, every day I live, will be to put the truth out there.”
He stopped pacing to glare, ah, now that was familiar. “I saved your life.”
Her mouth opened in unison with the widening of her eyes. She couldn’t even—the words just—laughter bubbled out.
“Are you fucking insane? You called me! You put me there. What exactly was the threat to my life? Silvio walked out, no threat. Conn wasn’t holding a gun; he wasn’t the one shooting people. And I can guarantee, if he’d been armed, you’d be lying dead on that floor right now. You think I’d give a fuck? My guy would be balls deep inside me, listening to me scream for more, scream my thanks for taking your repulsive, vindictive ass off the board!”
Her guy once told her not to leave him alone with Ronald if they discovered he had foreknowledge of the Manzani attack that put her in hospital. How could she have thought, for even a second, that her father wasn’t complicit in that assault?
As for the meet at her grandpapa’s, her father put her in that room. He hadn’t asked for Conn’s presence. No, that was on her. His demise was on her.
“We have to fix this!”
“How do you want to do that, Dad?” she asked, rattling the cuff on the headboard. “You plan to keep me cuffed and quiet for the rest of my life?”
“You’ll say nothing.”
“Why would I keep your secrets? You’re a murderer!”
“It was necessary!” And the wild, deluded light in his eyes proved he believed that. “I did it for the city! I did it for you!”
“What do you want, Dad? Huh? You want to go back there and pretend nothing’s wrong? You want to stride on into your office and resume your role? You murdered your father. A city alderman. You’re a murderer, Ronald.”
“Because he was going to ruin everything, ruin careers, you don’t know the pressure I was under. People looked to me, they begged for help, begged me to stop him asking questions.”
His allies, those on the Manzani payroll. Not the kind of people Superintendent was supposed to serve. It made her sick.
“He was your father,” she pleaded, but got a harsh slap as the words sank in.
Right there, in that moment, she was looking at her father. Hers. If someone put a gun in her hand, would she hesitate to pull the trigger? No. After what he’d done, how could he ever be forgiven? She would kill her father, just as he killed his. Maybe murder was in McLeod blood.
“The situation got out of hand. It wasn’t meant to—if he’d just listened—”
“You deserve to go to jail!”
“And what about the man you brought to our meeting?” Either he couldn’t say Conn’s name or he was disassociating. Maybe he didn’t see her love as worthy of a name. “What did he deserve?”
“Not death.”
“Hasn’t he killed? Hasn’t he murdered people? Would you have put him behind bars?”
No and she couldn’t deny the hypocrisy. Whatever their crimes, she accepted Conn’s world and the people in it. Even Strat and his boys once lived on the shadier side of life.
“Conn never hurt anyone I loved.”
“Those he did hurt were loved by someone.”
Somewhere. Maybe. What about Pietro? Had he been loved? She’d stood there while life slipped out of him. What had she done about that? Nothing. She hadn’t objected. In fact, she went straight to the murderer’s bed.
“I figured out you were responsible for Grandpapa because you didn’t care about finding the murderer. When we were in Stag, everyone else was working hard and offering help, you just sat there. Because all along, you knew who did it.” She scoffed in an ironic laugh and sat on the edge of the bed. “Conn said you might not know the trigger man, but you knew more than you were letting on.”
Now she wondered if he’d been protecting her from the truth.
“You talked about me?”
“We talked about everything,” she said, fighting her urge to snap at his affront. “He was the man I planned to marry. The only man I’d ever consider having a family with. You took that away from me. From us.”
“You grieve now,” he said, calmer than before. “In time, you’ll see I did the right thing. I saved you from him.”
She exhaled. “Does it matter? If we can’t go back to the city together, you’ll have to get rid of me too. How will you explain my disappearance, my murder, to Lachlan? You won’t be able to blame it on Conn now, he’ll have been found.”
God, she needed that to be true.
And there in lay the rub. Her father inhaled and closed his mouth, slowly letting the breath go from his nose.
“If you’re going to kill me anyway, just get it over with. It doesn’t matter when or where.”
“I could never—you’re my daughter.”
She smiled, though it wasn’t in happiness. “Any affection you feel for me comes from Lachlan. Somehow, he taught you that you should care, but you don’t need to act anymore. There’s no one here but us. You’ve never liked me. You say I’m too like my mother, is seeing me a reminder of what you’ve lost? Did you ever love her?”
“I did love your mother. Faults and all.”
“You can’t even do it, can you? You can’t love and just leave it at that. It’s always about you, what you need, what you think. How did she live with your constant judgment?
“Your mother and I were happy. She understood the importance of my work. We had respect.”
“Are you sure about that? Because I’ve been inside now, I’ve seen true love from within. I was never afraid to tell Conn anything, nothing was out of bounds for us. He didn’t think about what I’d done wrong or how many mistakes I made, he supported me.”
“Easy for someone who sets his own bar so low.”
“Oh, that’s nice. Killing him wasn’t enough, now you have to disrespect his memory? That gun in your hand is looking pretty nice right now. Get it over with, Dad. Put a bullet in me and go back to your life, back to your happiness.”
Which definitely didn’t come from family. No. He’d killed his father and intended to kill his daughter, how long would Lachlan survive?
“I don’t relish any of this.”
“What about Lachlan?” she asked because she had to know. “What will you tell him?”
“Your brother is…”
He exhaled and loosened.
Yeah, Lachlan was going to be a problem. One way or another, eventually, he’d uncover the truth. What would happen then?
“He’s determined to find Henry’s killer. Conn’s death, my disappearance…” or death, if they ever found her body. “He’ll start putting pieces together and will expect your support.” The discerning tilt of her father’s brow gave her some inkling she might be getting through. “Think about it. How will you investigate your own crimes? Throw Lachlan off the scent without him knowing you’re throwing him off the scent? You might as well kill him too.”
The city would notice that, though Ronald would be hailed as a valiant hero for enduring such tragedy. He’d end up in the governor’s mansion if he played it right. And all it would take was the death of everyone who shared his blood.
“Lachlan doesn’t deserve to die.” But others did? “He’ll only accept this if…” Struck by an idea, he jerked, regaining his tension. “You will tell him.”
“Lachlan? Tell him what?”
“We’ll come up with it together, right here, in this room.”
“A story?”
A lie. A fable. An untruth.
“Your idea, you said you’d publish a supporting narrative.”
“I said that before you killed my boyfriend.”
“What is so different now?” he asked, lighter and more optimistic, disgusting her further. “You want to protect your brother, don’t you? Any questions of my involvement in Henry’s death, in the death of your lowlife lover, they’ll damage your brother too. Damage the family.”
She didn’t care about the McLeod family name. She did care about Lachlan.
“You want me to sell a lie?”
“We’ll put it together, us, in a way everyone can accept. We’ll answer the questions and put suspicion to rest.”
The man had a lot of faith in the power of the pen. Was it possible? Perhaps. Could she do it? Would she do it?
What choice did she have?