Chapter Fifteen
Honor’s Edge Investigations Office
Detective Jake Hayes didn’t often worry about being fair. His job, the way he saw it, was about being right. Not proving his own preconceived notions were right but actually finding the truth. He had a lot of respect for the truth.
He saw a similar determination in Samantha Price. But he had to admit, he didn’t understand how she could deal with the Bennets as much as she did. The way Jake saw it, Bennets were just about allergic to the truth.
It wasn’t that Jake believed in the sins of the father or anything like that.
Benjamin Bennet was your typical narcissistic, manipulative, sociopathic abuser.
They were a dime a dozen, really. Maybe a little smarter than most to have avoided the truth coming out for so long, but not smart enough to get away with it forever.
His kids were their own brands of asshole, far as Jake could tell, even if they were victims in their own right.
Still, they were grown men. Grown men who rubbed him the wrong way, the whole lot of them.
Maybe he could stomach Landon, because the man had the good sense to keep to himself.
But Cal was some asshole criminal defense attorney—and didn’t that figure. And Nate…
Well, none of them were murderers, far as he knew, so he’d give them that. The rest didn’t really fall into his purview. Long as they stayed on the right side of the law.
Jake had spent his day yesterday following up on Sam’s break-in and didn’t like what he’d unearthed.
At all. He also didn’t like all the questions he still had, even after talking to Glenda Harrington.
Sam wouldn’t be able to answer his questions any more than Glenda had, but if he gave her the tools, maybe she’d ferret out an answer before he did.
Jake considered himself equal opportunity that way.
Besides, she needed to know what to be on the lookout for. Maybe it wasn’t dangerous, but it wasn’t benign either.
So, despite the questionable roads, Jake decided to drive on over to Honor’s Edge. Surely, he’d be able to catch her alone today. He had no intention of discussing this in front of Nate fucking Bennet.
Jake couldn’t stand the guy. Something about the stillness. The other two, all arrogant posturing and whatnot, Jake didn’t like, but he understood. They were what they’d always been. Known Bennet entities that made sense in the context of Marietta as a whole.
Jake did not understand Nate Bennet. Couldn’t get a read on him. And no matter how much digging he did—on his own time, because he knew how to separate the personal from the professional—he couldn’t find any dirt.
Just military commendations.
Why that rankled didn’t take a mind reader. Maybe he’d never seen any real indication Sam and Nate had something going on, but Jake considered himself an exceptional observer. There was no way that Sam turning him down this summer wasn’t wrapped up in Bennet in some way.
Which was all well and good. Jake could take no for an answer. And he wasn’t asshole enough to be bitter about it.
Much.
Sam was hardly the only woman in the world. That Harrington woman was a looker—if Jake could get over how much her grandmother irked him. Especially after yesterday.
Glenda Harrington. She hadn’t given him shit to go on.
She’d played up the frail old lady—and she wasn’t that old—and the traumatic muteness.
It wasn’t that he didn’t believe a person’s brain could play tricks on them.
What he didn’t believe was that she couldn’t communicate at all, since she was clearly with it enough to know what was going on.
But she’d given him nonanswers and little shrugs and feigned a headache. Something there. Something Jake was going to get to the bottom of.
But first, he’d let Sam in on what he’d found. He pulled his Tahoe into the back lot of Honor’s Edge and spotted Bennet’s truck parked next to Sam’s junker of a car.
Jake ran his tongue over his teeth, pausing before he pulled into a spot. Maybe Bennet had just come into work despite the roads. It wasn’t that early. Jake didn’t have to jump to conclusions.
Not that any of his conclusions mattered. He’d moved on.
Mostly.
Jake eased into a spot. Then decided better safe than sorry. He pulled out his phone and typed out a text. He paused again. He didn’t have to give Sam all the information he had if Bennet was around.
But he’d at least give her some, enough to protect herself. Then see what shook out because of it.
Got a few minutes? I’m in the parking lot.
*
Sam’s phone dinged. She still hadn’t come up with anything to say.
She told Cal to get him far away from here.
But what the hell did Glenda Harrington know about Bo Lake? Could there be some … long-lost familial connection there? Why did Glenda know some connection that Bo didn’t? And why did he look like a Bennet? A scared, lost Bennet who people thought was trouble, apparently.
And she still couldn’t get there. No matter how her mind told her she should.
Her gut didn’t fully trust Bo, but it didn’t distrust him either.
She felt this … need to protect him in some way.
Like an injured baby bird who’d fallen out of his nest right at her feet.
“He’s not a … bad guy, Nate,” she said, grabbing her phone off the counter to see who texted her.
“Your hesitation doesn’t fill me with relief.”
She didn’t know how to explain it to Nate and have him actually listen. He’d hear she had doubts and jump on them, instead of letting her exist … in the middle. Cautiously optimistic, maybe. Not drawing conclusions until she had facts to back them up.
“I can’t jump to all bad or all good without proof. But he’s lost. Maybe he’s not all good, but he deserves answers. The truth. You keep telling me I shouldn’t blame myself for needing to find the truth.”
“I don’t think you should blame yourself for it,” Nate returned.
He had that stock-still posture, but his gaze was intense.
Not blank. “I can disagree with you, Sam. I can think Bo is trouble and not think that’s something you need to blame yourself for.
It’s a difference of opinion. Not a reason to bail. ”
God, she hoped that was true, with an alarming amount of yearning she hoped that could possibly be true. But she didn’t know if she could believe him. Didn’t know if that meant whatever they were doing here was just … doomed.
So, she looked at her phone screen and pulled up the text to deal with anything else.
A text from Detective Jake Hayes. Got a few minutes? I’m in the parking lot.
For a second, she could only blink at it. Jake was here. And Nate was here. And buy a clue, Sam.
She tried to push all that personal mush out of her brain. What Nate had said yesterday morning had no bearing on … whatever this was. “Detective Hayes. He’s downstairs and wants to talk. Maybe it’s about the break-in.”
“Maybe it all connects. Glenda to Bo to the break-in.”
Sam opened her mouth to tell him he could head back to his cabin if he was going to keep harping on Bo, but Nate kept speaking before she could. An expression of perfect military stoicism taking over his face. It had been gone pretty much since last night.
She didn’t like it being back.
“He text you a lot?” Nate asked.
She just stared at him for a full minute. She knew he’d been weird about Jake since Jake asked her out this past summer. She hadn’t really fully been able to absorb jealous. Mostly because there was nothing to be jealous about. “You can’t really be jealous.”
He shrugged. “Why not?”
She had not expected that. She’d expected denials and … maybe some condescension. But there he stood. Why not? “Because I haven’t gone out with him once, even though he asked a few times.”
“You said he was hot.”
It actually made her laugh, which was a relief. Maybe this wasn’t totally shot over Bo Lake. At least not yet. “Well. He is.”
Nate scowled, no military blankness for that answer. “So why didn’t you go out with him?”
Sam sighed. She could make up a million reasons—some of them would even be valid, but the simplest truth was maybe what belonged in this moment. If she was going to hope, maybe that meant she had to put some of her own directness out there. “Because of you, idiot. Is that what you want to hear?”
“Yeah.” His scowl morphed into a grin. The boyish one that had so many flutters taking up residence in her chest she wasn’t sure she could breathe.
And she shouldn’t be filled with anything, because there was still the Bo Lake connecting to Glenda Harrington connecting to Jake Hayes problem, but maybe that was why the detective was here. Maybe she’d—they’d—get more answers from Jake than Cal or Glenda.
“Come on. Let’s go see what he’s got to say.” She texted that she’d be down in a few to unlock the door.
“Oh, am I invited to this party?”
“If you can keep the dick measuring to a minimum.”
“Maybe I should stay up here then. Besides, no hiding that I’m wearing court clothes.”
It took her a second to fully comprehend what that meant.
Nate was in his clothes from yesterday—a very, very rumpled suit.
She was in her sweats. She supposed it did …
paint a picture. But what did that matter?
People were going to … know. If they were seeing where this went, it was going to be obvious in a town this size.
The thought of trying to hide that made her tired. “I don’t care if he puts two and two together. Do you?”
“No, I’d quite prefer it, in fact.”
She rolled her eyes, grabbed her keys, and slid her feet into her boots. “Come on.”
*
Nate followed Sam down the stairs. He stayed on the last step while she opened the door. Maybe he wanted to make it really clear where they’d come from. Together.
If that tangle in the back of her hair and his clothes from yesterday didn’t tell the story for him.
Petty? Probably. On this, Nate didn’t care. He figured every once in a while a guy got to be petty.