8. Bram
brAM
It was early, the sun just starting to warm everything up as I navigated the Humvee up the mountain. Any day now I’d wake up to find frost on the balcony, Maeve’s pumpkin muffins scenting the loft with all the spices she used to make her mouthwatering baked goods.
What a difference a year made.
A little over a year ago Maeve had tried to smuggle her gun into the Hunt. We’d chosen her as prey, thinking it would be fun to tame her, having no idea that we’d be wrapped around her finger less than twelve months later.
I shook my head as I turned onto an unmarked side road.
The fucking Hunt.
It had started as a game, a way to accommodate our basest of urges — to fuck, to kill — and I’d happily given it all up just to have Maeve in my bed every night.
Even more crazy? The Hunt had tamed the Hawks too.
No, not the Hunt: Cassie.
My baby sister.
And Cassie taming them was the only explanation for where we found ourselves now, because why else would the Hawks — the fucking Hawks — throw themselves on a fucking grenade for my sister?
I sighed with frustration as I followed the unmarked road to a little-known trailhead. I hadn’t wanted to leave Cassie at the hospital, but she wasn’t alone. Maeve was there, and Poe and Remy, following Cassie around.
She hated it, but I’d made it clear that 24/7 protection was nonnegotiable. Between the accident that had almost killed her two months earlier and the ambush at the paper mill with the Hawks, I wasn’t taking any chances.
Not until I figured out what the fuck was going on.
And Cassie wasn’t the only one under my protection.
We’d stationed a couple of guys at each of the Hawks’ rooms too.
I could hardly fucking believe it, but my job was Cassie’s happiness, and the last couple of days had made one thing crystal fucking clear: Cassie wasn’t going to be happy if something happened to even one of the Hawks.
Fuck.
I parked the car at the trailhead next to a familiar black Audi and got out, then started down the trail.
It wasn’t my favorite spot in the Blackwell Preserve — that was a secret I’d only shared with Maeve — but it was still nice. Birds sang in the trees, the leaves almost at peak fall color, and somewhere up ahead I heard the rush of the waterfall.
I followed the sound to a clearing where water fell over the side of a small ledge into an amber pool, its color unique to the Blackwell Preserve because of the minerals that laced the river water around Blackwell Falls.
It wasn’t the eponymous Blackwell Falls, just one of many smaller waterfalls that were hidden like jewels in the Blackwell Preserve, but it was peaceful, and even more important, isolated.
Adam Rourke was sitting on a boulder near the water, trying not to get his shoes muddy, a fresh fade shaved into his light brown hair.
He looked up with a grimace as I approached.
“You do this on purpose, don’t you?”
“What?”
“Make me drag my ass into the middle of nowhere,” Rourke said. “Get my shoes dirty.”
“If you dressed like other cops it wouldn’t matter.”
“I’m not like other cops,” he said. “I’m not even a cop, technically speaking.”
I sat next to him on the boulder. “You know any detectives who wear Italian loafers and custom shirts?”
“Not in Blackwell Falls.”
“Exactly.” Being a detective in Blackwell Falls meant being in the mountains now and then. Not my fault Rourke was dumb enough to wear expensive clothes to work. “What do you have?”
“Not much,” Rourke said. “And I don’t mean that in the usual not many clues kind of way.”
“How do you mean it?”
“Chief wants to move on,” Rourke said.
“It hasn’t even been a week.” Hawk had survived the Code Blue, but he was still in the ICU, still unconscious. Cassie had only left the hospital to shower. She ate all her meals there, slept there in either Vigo’s room or Jagger’s.
“I know.”
“Where is it coming from?” I asked.
The chief of police didn’t decide to hurry along an investigation on his own.
“No idea,” Rourke said. “This time of year it could be anybody.”
I knew what he meant. It was fall, one of the biggest tourist seasons in Blackwell Falls. The town was overrun with out-of-towners wanting to pick apples and take pictures for social media with pumpkins and local hard cider.
So far the incident at the paper mill had been glossed over by the local press as an “unexplained explosion,” but it was only a matter of time before it got more attention, especially if the investigation dragged on.
And a team of men in military-grade tactical gear launching an attack on four locals wasn’t going to be good for tourism.
“How many casualties on their side?” I asked.
Other than what Cassie had told me, I knew next to nothing about what had happened at the paper mill. I’d been too busy taking care of her, making sure she was protected at the hospital.
Making sure the Hawks were protected because apparently that was my job now.
Fuck me.
“One,” Rourke said. “Bad luck. Big piece of glass hit his jugular when the explosion went off.”
“I take it he had no ID?” I asked.
“Correct.” Rourke hesitated, then reached into his pocket. “But he did have this.”
He held out a cell phone encased in a bag marked Evidence and I lifted my eyebrows in question. No way was I touching that thing until I knew who it belonged to and where it was going.
“Took it off the dead guy,” Rourke said.
“Anybody know about it?” I asked.
Rourke shook his head. “Figured you’d want it since you called in the explosion.”
Technically it had been Poe who’d called 911 — I’d been too busy trying to keep Cassie calm — but same difference.
“You want it back?” I asked, looking at the phone in his hand.
“Negative,” he said. “In fact, I’d prefer to follow the chief’s lead and let this one drop.”
I took the phone. “Why the fuck would you do that? You’re a fucking detective.”
“You didn’t see those guys. They were armed like they were going to war. You ever see shit like that here?”
I had, actually, but only because I knew Rafe Maddox.
I’d never seen it from outsiders.
I pocketed the phone. “How’re you going to account for this?”
“I covered my ass,” Rourke said. “It’ll look like a clusterfuck, piece of evidence lost on its way to the lab. The chief’ll scream, but he wants this done anyway.”
“Thanks,” I said.
Rourke got to his feet and brushed invisible dirt off his pants. “It’s not a freebie. You owe me.”
“I know.” I had sources all over Blackwell Falls, but everything they gave me came at a cost.
Maeve was the only person — other than Cassie, Poe, and Remy — who’d never wanted anything from me.
“Keep me posted.” Rourke headed for the trail, then turned around. “Actually, don’t. I don’t want to know.”
I waited a few minutes before heading back to the car, wanting to give him time to leave. I had no reason to believe anyone had followed either of us, but better safe than sorry.
I wasn’t looking to burn my sources in the Blackwell PD.
Back in the car, I removed the phone from my pocket and stared at it through the evidence bag. I could throw it in the river, let it go, hope all this shit died down.
Hope Cassie had had enough.
Or I could take the phone to Aloha, let him break into it.
The first option left me exactly where I’d started: Cassie dealing with this shit alone or with the Hawks, me pretending it didn’t matter.
Our parents had been dead for over a decade.
Did it matter?
I shelved the question for another time.
The second option meant stepping onto the field with Cassie and hoping it wasn’t quicksand.
The problem was, Cassie was already on the field, and if there was one thing I’d learned about my little sister in the last three months, it was that she wasn’t a quitter.
And if it was a choice between Cassie sinking into the quicksand alone or me sinking with her in an attempt to pull her out, it was going to be the second one every fucking time.
I started the car and headed for Aloha.