Chapter 35
Chapter Thirty-Five
PAIGE
“Fine,” Cole said evenly. “I was trying to do this the easy way. You give me my money, and I leave you a gift you wouldn’t find until it was too late. But on the chance you weren’t prepared to be cooperative—”
Haywood undid the last button and spread wide the lapels of his overcoat.
“I brought the gift with me,” he finished, revealing a vest beneath, covered with blocks of—
“Fuck me,” Hawk said.
“What is that?” I whispered, not understanding. White clay and wires, with a small rectangular screen in the middle. On it, 4:00 flashed on and off in glowing red.
“C-4 on a timer,” he said, turning his head a fraction so I could hear his nearly silent words.
“C-4?” I asked under my breath.
“Explosive. He has enough to fucking blow a hole in the entire estate. If that goes off, there’ll be a crater where Heartstone Manor once stood.
” Hawk tilted his head and said—I assumed into the earpiece connecting him to the rest of his team, “Kane, evacuate the Manor. Cole has a bomb. Keep it quiet. Get everyone past the gatehouse.” To me, he added, “Paige, go back in the Manor and leave through the front door.”
I ignored Hawk’s order. I needed to know what Cole’s plan was for the bomb strapped to his chest. And I wasn’t leaving Ford.
“You have three options,” Cole said. “Option one was to unfreeze my money. This is option two.”
Ford swallowed visibly. “Does option two involve you taking whatever that is far away from Heartstone Manor?”
Cole grinned. “In a way. Option two is that you leave with me, you make a phone call and get my funds unfrozen, then I let you walk, and you never see me again.”
Ford crossed his arms over his chest. “I don’t think that thing even works. It looks like you threw together some spare wires and blocks of play dough.”
“You don’t believe I’d blow up Heartstone Manor?” Cole asked, stroking a hand over the bomb on his chest.
Unlike Ford, I absolutely believed that thing worked.
“No,” Ford said, “I think you’d blow up Heartstone Manor and every single Sawyer in it if you could. I just don’t think you’d go down with us. You’re way too much of a narcissist to take your own life.”
“I don’t know,” Cole said. “I wouldn’t call myself a narcissist. Just confident. But I should be. I’m Cole Haywood. I don’t want to die, but if that’s the cost of destroying every last member of your family in one fell swoop, it’ll be worth it.”
Ford shook his head. “I don’t believe it.”
“So, you’re not going to leave with me?” Haywood asked, his eyes dropping to the mess of wires and white blocks on his chest as if he was seeing it for the first time.
Ford agreed. “No, I’m not.”
“Then I guess we’re on to option three. We all go down together.” Cole’s hand flew up, and he slapped the flat of his palm against the numbers on his chest. A second later, they flashed 3:59.
“Fuck,” Hawk growled. “Timer’s live. 3:58 remaining. Get the Manor clear.”
Before Hawk could make a move, Harvey erupted from his hiding place in the corner, gripping the handle of one of the shovels he’d taken from where it had leaned against the wall.
As he sprinted across the garage, he cranked the shovel back and swung, the flat metal blade whacking Cole Haywood on the side of the head with a low thunk.
Haywood went down hard, landing on his back with a whoosh of breath.
He rolled with a groan, lifting a hand to his head.
Before he could sit up, Harvey skidded to a stop beside him and slammed the digging edge blade down on Cole’s neck, just below his chin.
The blade went through skin and bone with a sickening crunch, Cole’s head twisting to the side as it separated from his neck, blood spilling out in a flood of red, his open eyes fixed on Ford as they slowly went dim.
Harvey lifted the shovel in both hands and brought it down a second time, severing whatever was still holding the head on its neck.
I closed my eyes with a shriek, unable to erase the vision of Cole Haywood’s head rolling free of his body, ruby red blood pooling around him in the same shade as the numbers that flashed on his chest.
I didn’t think Cole would be a problem anymore, except—
“Is that fucking timer still going?” Hawk asked, striding into the room, stepping around Cole’s dismembered head to crouch beside his body. Hawk spread Haywood’s arms wide, revealing the numbers on his chest counting down: 3:36, 3:35—
“Fucking hell. Eli, get your ass in here,” Hawk said. “Harvey took care of Haywood, but the bomb is still live.”
I followed Hawk to where Ford stood, his eyes glued to the body of his former friend. Reaching his side, I slid my arms around his waist.
He held me tight, rubbing a hand over my back. “Did you see that?” he asked, his voice rough with emotion.
I nodded into his chest, swallowing hard.
“You okay?”
I shook my head, my forehead pressing into his shirt. “Are you?” I whispered.
“Don’t know yet,” he said.
Hawk looked up. “Paige, Ford, Harvey, get the fuck out of here.”
Before we could tell him we weren’t going anywhere, Eli sprinted in, skidding to a stop at Cole’s side and dropping to his knees. He scanned the device connected to Cole.
“Did he fucking go on the internet to figure out how to build this thing?” Eli muttered as he examined the device strapped around Cole’s torso.
He dug in a side pocket of his cargo pants and pulled out a multi-tool.
“Everybody say a prayer,” he said, leaning down with sharp pliers and cutting through one wire, then another.
I didn’t say a prayer, but I was holding my breath, my arms tight around Ford. As the second wire fell in half, the screen shut off, the numbers vanishing. I felt a hot tear streak down my cheek as I drew in a long breath.
The door from the Manor into the garage flew open, Griffen sprinting in. He came to an abrupt stop as Eli flicked out a blade on his multi-tool, cut the vest off Cole, holding it gingerly. “I’m going to take this into the field to finish disarming it, just in case.”
Hawk stood, pulled his phone out of his pocket, and tapped the screen. “West is on the way,” he said when he was done. He looked up to take in the rest of us. “None of you listen worth a shit. If I tell you to evacuate, you fucking evacuate.”
“You were still here,” Ford countered, his arm tight around my shoulders.
“It’s my job to be here,” Hawk snapped back.
“And you’re my brother-in-law,” Ford reminded him. “What am I supposed to tell Quinn if something happens to you?”
Hawk shook his head, muttering, “You’re all fucking crazy.”
“Kane has everyone on the way out,” Griffen said, standing on Ford’s other side as we all watched the pool of blood spread under Cole Haywood. “I wasn’t leaving you or my brother in here to deal with him.”
Ford, keeping his arm around my shoulder, turned to face Harvey, standing a few feet from Cole’s body, the bloody shovel still in his hands.
“Harvey,” Ford said, his voice sharp, cutting through Harvey’s daze, “keep your mouth shut about shooting Prentice.”
Harvey’s eyes flickered. He shook his head. “I owe it to you to tell the truth. I should have come clean a long time ago, should pay for killing him. It was wrong.”
“I don’t need you to come clean,” Ford said. “Tell West what you know about my mother and Paige’s father. Tell him what Prentice told you, but don’t tell West you shot him.”
“Ford, I can clear your name—” The shovel tumbled from Harvey’s hands to clatter on the concrete floor. “I can fix all of this—”
“At what price?” Ford asked. “I’m free. My name is clear according to the law. The people who matter know I didn’t do it. I’m home. I have my family.” He looked down to me, reaching up to stroke the backs of his fingers across my cheek. “I have a future. I don’t want you to lose yours.”
“I’m going to jail anyway,” Harvey said, looking down at Cole’s body.
“No, you’re not,” Hawk said. “It’ll either be defense of others or self-defense, considering how close you were to the bomb. I bet West goes with self-defense. Either way, this isn’t a homicide.”
“I agree with Ford,” Griffen said. “Tell West what you know about our mother and Paul. They deserve justice. And Prentice got what he deserved when you shot him. No one wants you to pay for that.”
Harvey closed his mouth and nodded.
After a few minutes, Eli returned, carefully carrying the remains of the bomb Cole Haywood had built.
He set it aside by the corner in the garage where Harvey had hidden with his shovel.
“No one touch that.” He shook his head as he took in Cole’s head a foot from his body, an island in a sea of blood.
“You can learn all sorts of shit on the internet.” He raised his eyes to Hawk and Griffen.
“It was a crap design, but it would have worked.”
A siren wailed in the distance. West’s SUV, followed by two more Sawyers Bend official vehicles, drove up less than ten seconds later. After Griffen and Hawk quickly explained what happened, including that Harvey was the shovel-wielder, I was surprised when he put Harvey in handcuffs.
“We’ll get it all cleared up at the station,” West said calmly, and Harvey nodded, his eyes dazed.
Harvey drove off with a deputy, crossing paths with the crime scene van. I hoped they were going to put the body into that van and take it far from Heartstone.
West took our statements and, finally, as the crime scene team got to work, kicked all of us out of the garage.
We met the rest of the family in the dining room.
Everyone was milling around, looking shell-shocked.
Ford, his arms still around my shoulders, led me over to where Hope stood with Savannah and Finn.
Griffen pulled Hope into his arms, murmuring into her ear.
She held him back, her voice soothing, though I couldn’t make out the words.
“It’s over?” Finn asked Ford.
“It’s over,” Ford confirmed, meeting Griffen’s eyes over Hope’s head.
Griffen agreed. “I think it is. We still have to wait out the terms of the will, but I don’t think anyone else is coming after us. All of this was Haywood, and he’s dead.”
I couldn’t stop seeing Cole’s head rolling from his body.
It would be a long time until that wasn’t featured in my nightmares.
On the other hand, I couldn’t deny there was something very satisfying about the danger being ended in such a decisive manner.
We’d never have to worry about him getting paroled or putting bounties up on the dark web from prison, because Cole Haywood was very, very dead.
“There’s always a chance someone else has a grudge against Dad,” Ford said. “He pissed off a lot of people. But I don’t think there’s another Cole Haywood waiting in the wings. I think maybe it’s time we all get to just live our lives together.”
“I like the way that sounds,” Griffen said.
“Me too,” Ford agreed.
“What about you?” Ford asked, turning to me. Sliding his arms around my waist, not caring who was watching, he asked, “Did we scare you away?”
“Not a chance,” I said.
“Then we’re going to stop pretending that we’re not seeing each other, because I love you and I want everyone to know.”
I grinned at him. “I love you, too,” I said. “And after today, I don’t want to pretend. I just want to be with you.”
“Sounds good to me,” Ford said.
I reached up, slid my hands around his neck, and pulled him down for a kiss. In the background, I heard the kids let out a whoop as Ford’s lips met mine, but the rush of my heartbeat drowned them out.
Finally, we had answers, and we had each other. I couldn’t ask for more.