Chapter Thirty-Three
The Bennet Ranch
“How much longer are we just going to sit here?” Jake demanded.
He didn’t know why he was listening to either Bennet brother considering he hated both their guts. More so in this moment than ever before.
He was the person in this situation who should be in charge. He was a damn cop. Why had he let Cal Bennet walk out of here like he had any bearing on what the hell was going on?
Whatever it was.
Maybe part of his pissed-off was that he couldn’t get a read on any of this, except a little wriggling sensation in his gut that couldn’t let go of the possibility this all connected to his father’s death.
Which he hated thinking, because it felt foolish and based in feeling rather than facts or reality.
He got to his feet, ready to charge out of here and get out of his own head—damn what anyone else said, when Nate spoke softly.
“He’s right.”
Everyone looked over at Nate, who’d also stood from his seat on the couch. Perhaps no one was more surprised than Jake that Nate had deigned to verbally agree with him, but everyone was surprised.
“We gave them their time to handle this in some … sympathetic way, but it’s going on too long. If they haven’t gotten answers, it’s time for Glenda to face more than one or two people. Hayes and I will head up there.”
Jake didn’t miss the way the redhead eyed him up and down. He’d dealt with Aly Cartwright—Bennet now, he supposed—a little bit last summer when her mother had been causing problems, but they certainly didn’t know each other in any kind of personal way.
Still, he felt very much seen when she eyed him like that.
“Is that a good idea?” she asked. Gently.
Like she knew exactly how and why he and Nate might have some issues.
“We’re all on the same side here,” Nate said.
In such a way it would make Jake look like a total prick to argue.
God, he really hated that guy.
“Why don’t you try to reach Jill on her landline again?
” Nate told Aly. “Warn them that we’re coming.
They can prepare Glenda, but we can’t just sit around waiting for answers.
Maybe it’s all coincidence that Sam found the retired police officer who handled Gerald’s death dead, but add that to Everly sending Cal and Hayes on a wild goose chase …
none of this adds up in any way that’s good. Let’s stop wasting time.”
Jake could tell Aly didn’t exactly agree with Nate, but he’d made enough of a case she didn’t argue. She nodded in agreement.
Nate headed for the door. Jake didn’t have a choice to his way of thinking except to follow.
They stepped out into a quiet morning. Something about the delicate sunrise suddenly made Jake just tired. He was used to working through the night, but this felt … different.
Probably because he wasn’t working in any kind of professional capacity. This was personal—because as far as anyone could tell, no actual crime had been committed.
Jake Hayes had made sure to keep the personal out of his life for quite some time.
“We can cut through on foot if you’re good with that,” Nate said, walking off the sprawling porch and into a soggy yard.
Spring thaw was in full swing, and while Jake had grown up mostly in town, he was all too aware of the ranching seasons out here in the community he’d grown up in.
“Whatever’s quickest,” Jake muttered.
Nate nodded. “Follow me then.”
Jake didn’t love following in good circumstances, and this wasn’t good, but he didn’t really have a choice.
They moved at a quick clip across the soggy yard, then down into some trees. Nate walked with an odd kind of barely noticeable limp that didn’t seem to slow him down any.
Military injury, Jake knew. Because he’d done his homework on Nate Bennet. He was convinced there was something the guy was hiding. A guy didn’t disappear for fifteen years, then suddenly decide to come back—even with that sob story about his dad beating him.
“So, what’s really going on here?” Nate asked after they’d been walking a while.
Jake considered. He wasn’t too keen on giving Nate any information he didn’t already have, and Cal had explained what little they’d discovered in Kalispell when they’d found him and Sam at Honor’s Edge dealing with what Sam had stumbled upon with the dead body.
She’d definitely been messed up over that, and Bennet had just sat there with her. Held her. Jake tried to think of any time he’d done something like that with someone he knew. Sure, sometimes he had to break bad news to strangers or acquaintances, but he never just…
Why the hell was he thinking about this?
“I don’t know what’s really going on any more than you or Cal,” Jake said, because he’d rather give more about the case than dwell on his personal life.
“But I don’t think it’s a coincidence Gerald Harrington and Daryl Everly were with my dad when he died.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence the police report to Gerald’s shooting is missing, and the guy who should have taken it was found dead.
I don’t think it’s coincidence Daryl Everly sent us looking into his nephew then was nowhere to be found when we got back into town. ”
They came to a creek that was clearly high due to snowmelt, but there was a little crudely made bridge that Nate was charging toward, so Jake followed.
“What about Cal’s involvement?” Nate asked once they were on the other side. “He would have been like ten when all this went down. Why is he getting threats? Why would Everly, who’d been a mentor to him, have anything to do with it?”
“Fuck if I know. You tell me. You’re his brother.”
“I was four.”
“Which means you were all living in the same house together.”
“I don’t remember any kind of connection to the Harringtons when we were kids, aside from Dad buying a lot of their ranchland and knowing they still lived up there.
Landon says as adults, Cal’s always had this weird connection with Glenda but based on everything I’ve witnessed since I’ve been back, I’m not sure even Cal knows why. ”
“You really believe all that traumatic amnesia bullshit?” Jake followed Nate up another hill.
Nate didn’t answer right away. Instead, he came to a stop at the tree line. In the middle of this clearing was the Harrington cabin.
“Yeah, I believe it,” he finally said, soft and serious.
“Why?”
Nate’s gaze took in the entire scene around them, much like Jake would do if this were a crime scene.
“If you’d spent any time in a war zone and seen the different ways different people cope with seeing the absolute worst humanity has to offer, you wouldn’t ask me why.”
Jake found that answer really fucking pretentious.
He was about to open his mouth to belabor the point—a cop and detective saw plenty of the worst humanity had to offer.
Maybe he’d even planned to be a dick about it, but he heard a faint noise that didn’t fit the quiet morning around them.
He frowned, trying to somehow concentrate to hear it better, but it was still just faint.
An incongruous sound. “You hear that?”
Nate nodded grimly. He pointed to the cabin that had just come into view. “It’s coming from there. You first or me?”
He didn’t want to give credit to Nate for offering it as a choice, so he just adjusted his grip on his gun. “Follow me.”
*
Jill didn’t know why she was bothering to scream. Unless Aly came up to the cabin looking for Cal, no one was going to hear her.
She bit back a sob. Crying wasn’t going to get her anywhere. So she tried to move the chair again, without toppling herself over. If she could scoot the chair over to the phone, she could…
What the hell are you going to do?
She didn’t know, but having a goal kept her from coming totally unglued. Grandma and Cal could handle that guy. Sure, he had a gun, but Cal was young and strong … ish. Probably. He was looking better than he had been. That had to mean something, right?
And Grandma…
Grandma had just seemed so resigned to it. Maybe this would all make some kind of sense eventually. Maybe everyone and everything was fine.
Yeah, right.
A tear trailed down her cheek, annoying because she was letting the tear win and because she couldn’t wipe it away, it tickled on its way down.
“Come on, Jill,” she muttered to herself, trying for some kind of pep talk while despair sank deep.
Then she heard a knock at the door. She was almost surprised enough to be rendered utterly speechless.
Then it sounded again and she found her voice. “Come in! Please, help!”
The door swung open, and Jill nearly sobbed in relief. Nate and Detective Hayes. She wasn’t Hayes’s biggest fan. He’d been mostly kind about questioning Grandma over Benjamin Bennet’s case, but he’d been so dismissive of Cal’s traumatic amnesia, it had annoyed her.
She didn’t trust him—but God, she was glad to see him with Nate. Even if she didn’t know how or why they were involved. They had guns and knew what they were doing.
“What the hell happened?” Nate and Detective Hayes demanded in unison.
They both rushed over, and without discussing it, started undoing the bonds—Nate taking the ones at her wrist, Jake the ones tying her feet to the chair.
“Daryl Everly.” Jill sniffled, trying not to let the relief get to her. “I got Aly’s text that Cal and Sam were coming, so when the knock happened, I opened the door without even bothering to look.”
She rubbed her wrists once Nate got them free, but Jake was struggling with the knots around her ankles.
“He was demanding to know where Grandma was, and then he took her and Cal out the back. I don’t know why. I didn’t understand any of it. But he took them. We have to go find them. He had a gun, so we have to follow them.”
“What about Sam?” Nate asked, kneeling to her other leg to help Jake untie her.
“I haven’t seen Sam. Just Cal came in. Just Cal and Grandma left with him. Out the back.”
Nate stopped what he was doing, worry clear all over his face. “You didn’t see Sam at all?”
Jill shook her head.
They finally got her legs free, and Nate was heading for the back door before Jill could even get to her feet.
“Call the police. Tell them everything that happened,” the detective said as he followed Nate’s path out the back. “Lock the doors and stay here.”
Stay here.
They were absolutely out of their minds if they thought she was going to sit here and wait to find out what was happening to her grandmother.
She grabbed Cal’s phone and her own. She shoved her feet into boots and got the gun out of the closet.
After a second of indecision, she plugged in the landline and dialed 911.
She didn’t explain everything. She just explained where she was and that Daryl Everly had taken two people hostage and that a police officer and an investigator were following them into the state forest.
She ignored the questions, the demands from the dispatcher and dropped the phone, rushing out behind Jake and Nate.
They were already gone, but she could see their muddy footprints.
She’d just follow them. She could track to a certain extent, and if she hurried, maybe she could catch up to them. Three people with guns against Daryl Everly would be fine.
Everything would be fine.
She repeated that to herself over and over again as she struggled to follow the prints.
There were so many, and the slushy snow and mud made it difficult to discern what was human, what was sun melt, and what was animal.
What the hell would she do if she just …
hiked herself into being lost out here in the state forest? What kind of stupidity was that?
But she couldn’t convince herself to stop or turn back. It felt imperative to move forward. To find them. To … do something.
She didn’t know how long she hiked, trying to follow the path, but she never caught up to Nate or Detective Hayes and she was starting to think she’d made a misstep somewhere.
But when she heard the echo of a gunshot, everything inside of her froze.
Then she ran toward it.
*
“What is going on?” Aly muttered, pacing back and forth. “Why haven’t we heard anything from anyone?”
She’d called Jill’s landline a million times, everyone’s cell a million more. No answers. It wasn’t … right. Something was definitely wrong.
Aly turned to face Landon who was standing in the living room, staring pensively out a window. She knew he was worried or he would have gone and done his chores. Instead, he was here brooding.
But he’d talked her out of following Nate and Hayes. At least he had.
“What if something is happening, Landon? I think it’s been too long. We should go. Maybe I’m being paranoid, but…”
“But we’ve had a hell of a lot to be paranoid about,” Landon finished on a tired sigh. He pushed away from the window. “All right. Stay here and—”
“No.”
“Aly.”
“No. I’ll get our coats. You get the guns.”
He opened his mouth no doubt to continue his argument, but Aly fixed him with a firm look.
“Fine,” he muttered.
They turned away from each other to go grab their respective supplies. They shrugged on their coats and laced up their boots quickly, heading out to Landon’s truck in quiet, hurried unison.
It wasn’t easy to drive the narrow, muddy road fast, but Landon did his best. They skidded a few times, but he handled it and they pulled up to the cabin. Landon shoved into park.
Landon was out of the truck first, but Aly was quickly on his heels handing him his gun. Everything was so … quiet. It felt like there was no one here.
She shared a look with Landon. Yeah, he didn’t like it either.
They hadn’t made it to the front door when they heard the loud echo of a sharp, pronounced pop.
A gunshot.
Landon let out a sharp oath.
Then they were both running toward the sound.