Chapter 34 Jagg
JAGG
The blood drained from Sunny’s face.
She hadn’t known. That much was clear.
Her eyes locked on mine, wide with horror, and then her body started to tremble. Not subtly—fully. Visibly. Fear rippled through her, and I felt every beat of it like it was my own.
“Nothing is going to happen to you,” I said, grabbing her shoulders, forcing her to face me. “You’ve got me now. I won’t let anyone hurt you again. Do you understand? Nothing is going to happen to you.”
She stared at me, stunned—frozen. Like her brain was trying to process a world that had just tilted under her feet.
“When?” she whispered.
“Eight days ago,” I said quietly.
Her jaw dropped. Her silence screamed the truth: She knew. She knew this wasn’t coincidence. That Kenzo Rees had likely destroyed her home. Had been there. Maybe hadn’t left.
My grip on her tightened. “He won’t hurt you again, Sunny.” I pulled her against me. “Not on my watch.”
She collapsed into me, her body folding into mine like it belonged there. I held her close, the scent of her coconut shampoo grounding me in the moment, tethering me to one truth: She was mine to protect now.
I pressed a kiss to her forehead and looked up at her vandalized house—graffiti, shattered glass, slashed screens. The rage that had been simmering inside me exploded into wildfire.
Kenzo Rees.
Blue and red lights cut through the trees, tires crunching gravel. A beat later, the dogs growled in unison—low, lethal, ready.
So was I.
“Stay.” Sunny ordered the dogs as she pushed out of my arms.
I looked at my watch. It had been exactly six minutes since I’d called dispatch.
“Go straight to my Jeep and take the dogs. Don’t move, don’t go anywhere. Let me handle this.”
Sunny nodded, gripping the leashes, her face still white as a sheet.
I cupped her cheeks. “Let me handle this. This is my job.”
She nodded, biting her lower lip.
“And don’t say anything to Darby. Just get up the hill, to the Jeep.”
She looked at the headlights cutting through the yard. “How do you know it’s Darby?”
“Just a guess. Straight to the Jeep. Not a word, got it?”
She stared at the patrol car.
“Okay? Sunny. You okay?”
“Yes.”
“Say it again.”
She inhaled deeply. “Yes. I’m okay,” a little stronger this time.
“Good. Let’s go.”
I slid my hand into hers and guided her up the hill while she muttered commands to her dogs the entire way.
We split off at the driveway. I met Darby in front of his patrol car.
He wore a Grateful Dead T-shirt, wrinkled, and damp with sweat.
Khaki shorts and flip flops completed the incapable look.
He shut his car door, gaping at the graffiti on the house.
“Damn.”
“Nice response time.”
“I was nearby.”
“I’ll bet you were.”
His gaze flickered to mine, then quickly back at the house.
“Have you found Kenzo Rees yet?”
His eyebrows raised. “It hasn’t been an hour since you called me and told me he was out of jail.”
“Hour’s a long time.”
“… No, sir. I haven’t found him yet.”
A moment ticked by.
“Did she get a look at who did this?” He glanced at Sunny climbing into my Jeep, her army obediently at the tires.
“No. We pulled up to it like this.”
“Do you know when it happened?” He pulled his notebook from his pocket.
“Within the last hour.”
“Was she home?”
“No. She’d gone into town to pick up dinner at Gino’s.”
Darby kept his eyes on the graffiti, avoiding mine. I gave him ten full seconds to explain why he’d been following me. When he didn’t, I decided to play along—let him sweat, get the full confession later. My gut told me there was more to his story than wanting to shadow me.
I also kept my theory to myself—that Sunny might know her intruder. I needed to prove it before my little shadow ran back to Colson. I didn’t trust Darby. Never had.
Right now, my only priority was Sunny—turning her house upside down, finding any trace of Kenzo Rees, and getting the bastard locked up again.
“She was gone about thirty minutes total. Last night, her truck was keyed at Frank’s.
Cowboy Billy admitted to it. She didn’t call it in.
” I paused and looked at him, knowing he’d been there.
He stared ahead. I continued, “I want you to go back to the bar and see if anyone knows or heard about who could have done this tonight. Check the security cameras. Go to Billy’s house and verify his whereabouts tonight.
Do the same for the Aldridge sisters. Tell them both I’ll see them in the morning. ”
My gut told me this had nothing to do with Cowboy Billy and everything to do with Kenzo Rees, but it would be nice to officially check off that box.
“Before that, though,” I continued, “I want this entire house photographed, inside and out. We need to get it swiped for fingerprints and check for trace evidence. Need to write this down, Darby?”
He flipped open his notepad. “Did Miss Harper call you?”
I cocked my head, staring bullets into the side of his face. It was the first time I wondered if he could be recording our conversation.
“No. She got a flat tire on the way home from Gino’s. I gave her a ride.”
Sweat beaded on his forehead. He swiped it away.
He didn’t ask anything else about it, which I noted.
A normal person would ask how I knew that, or where the truck was exactly, or if the tires had been slashed, perhaps.
Or what the heck I was doing on the road behind her.
Not Darby. And I wasn’t going to share the information about the valves being tampered with. Not with him.
“Did you see her truck on your way in?” I asked.
“No.” He shook his head.
Phoenix had already towed it. The man worked fast. Good.
Darby nodded to the front door. “Busted locks?”
“Nothing obvious.” We stepped onto the porch. “Could have used a pick or credit card. The cabin is old and isn’t exactly Fort Knox.”
Darby kneeled down at the front door, searching for footprints.
“I’ll get someone out here from the state crime scene unit, but it will be awhile,” I said.
“I’ve got nothing better to do.”
I didn’t doubt that. “Stay out of the way and pay attention. You might learn a thing or two.”
Darby nodded, a moment passing before he looked up at me and finally addressed the elephant in the room. “Do you think Rees did this?”
“That’s what we need to find out, kid. Get at it. We’ve got a long night ahead of us.”
Three hours later and jack shit to show for it, I watched Darby back down the driveway, headed to Frank’s to pull security footage.
Crime scene techs confirmed a switchblade had been used to pop the lock on Sunny’s door.
Prints covered the knob—likely hers—but they lifted what they could, just in case Rees had been stupid enough not to wear gloves.
No usable prints elsewhere. No spray cans, no cigarette butts, nothing.
My Jeep had crushed any tire tracks, and with Sunny’s hair and her dogs’ everywhere, trace evidence was a lost cause.
And of course, no security cameras—something I planned to fix personally.
By the time I was done, her house would make Fort Knox look like a tent.
As expected, Darby didn’t even ask how the intruder had gotten past her dogs—an obvious clue. But I already knew it was Rees. My gut was never wrong. Revenge was the oldest motive in the book.
Darby still had a lot to learn, and with no time to teach, I’d handle everything myself—quietly, efficiently. His headlights disappeared down the road as Sunny climbed out of my Jeep, tension radiating off her like heat, her dogs just as wired.
“What did you find? Anything? Prints? Anything? What—”
“No. Nothing.”
Her shoulders slumped. “There’s got to be something.”
“There’s always something. I promise you, I’ll find it.”
“It’s him. I know it. He called me a cunt that night in Dallas, over and over. I remember.” She looked at me, eyes wide with adrenaline. “You think it’s him, too, don’t you?”
“Yes. I do.”
She nodded. “Good. We agree, then. It is. I know it.” She looked back at the wreckage of her once beautiful home. “Oh my God, where to begin…”
“Tomorrow. We’ll start on it tomorrow.”
She slowly nodded. A moment slid by before she turned to me. “Thank you,” she said softly. “Thank you, Jagg. Thank you for everything.”
“I’m not leaving you tonight, Sunny.”
“No. Please. It’s fine. You’ve done enough.”
“I said, I’m not leaving you tonight.”
“Jagger… we can’t…” she whispered and looked down.
I lifted her chin. “I am not leaving you, Sunny.”
She stared at me, pain, fear, desire, confusion, all wrapped up in shimmering green eyes that told me she’d had enough for the evening.
“But the furniture is shredded, the couches, the bed… everything…”
“I’ve got a place we can go.”
“You do?”
“Yes. We’re not staying here.”
She looked at the house, then back at me. “What about the dogs?”
“I’ll take care of it. I’ll take care of them, too.”
“You hate dogs.”
“Now where would you get an idea like that?”
“Call it woman’s instinct.”
“Does that instinct tell you that I’m going to take care of you tonight? Of everything?”
“… Yes.”
“Good.”
“Jagg, I—”
“I’ll take care of it. That’s it.”
She bit her lip, looked back at her house, then finally nodded. “Okay. Let me pack a bag.”
“You have three minutes.”