Chapter Twenty-Four
“Cassie—” Ollie stopped short in the cabin doorway, his eyes dropping past her to McCoy. “Jesus Christ—what the hell happened?”
Even with her hands shaking, Cassie didn’t lower the gun.
“Don’t move,” she said, voice quivering and raw. “Don’t come any closer.”
Ollie lifted his hands slowly, palms out. “Hey,” he said, tone softening. “Hey. It’s me, Cas. It’s Ollie. You know me.”
“Do I?”
His eyes flicked past her again to McCoy on the floor, his jaw tightening.
“I think…I think you’re hurt,” he said carefully. “Do you even know what’s goin’ on? Hell—that’s Deputy McCoy.” A pause. “You understand what this looks like, right?”
Cassie flinched—her grip slipped—she caught it before it shook loose.
“Yeah,” she said, quieter now. “I’m starting to.”
Ollie pressed his lips together before exhaling slowly. Then one hand dropped—slow, deliberate—toward his pocket.
“All right,” he said. “Calm down, Cas. We’re gonna figure this out together.”
Cassie’s grip tightened. “Ollie—don’t.”
“I’m just gonna call this in,” he said, pulling his phone free. “Get you some help—”
“Give me the phone!” Cassie shouted, the sound tearing out of her, her grip faltering now. “Don’t—don’t call anyone.”
Ollie stilled, phone in hand.
Cassie swallowed, forcing the words out past the tremble in her chest. “I’ll call,” she said. “I’ll do it. Just—just give it to me.”
“All right,” he said easily. “You can make the call—”
He threw the phone.
Cassie jerked sideways—
—and then he was on her, slamming into her like a freight train.
His hand clamped around her wrist, twisting hard, pain shooting up her arm as the gun wrenched free before she could recover.
His other arm locked around her throat, hauling her back flush against him hard enough to steal both her air and her balance in the same motion.
She went rigid the second the barrel pressed against her temple, her pulse battering against his forearm.
His breath brushed her ear. “You forgot the safety.”
A soft click.
Ollie shifted, dragging her backward with him, forcing her to move or choke.
Cassie stumbled as they walked, her sneakers slipping against the floor, her balance gone, at the mercy of the arm around her throat.
He adjusted his hold just enough to bend, grabbed his phone from the floor, and shoved it back into his pocket in one quick motion.
Then his attention dropped to McCoy.
The deputy was still alive, eyes blinking, breath coming in short, shallow pulls while black-red blood pooled beneath him.
“You old idiot,” Ollie muttered, crouching over him and digging something out of McCoy’s pocket. “You had one goddamn job, an’ instead you leave me with fuckin’ three.”
He grabbed the knife still lodged in his throat and wrenched it free. McCoy made a wet, choking sound that didn’t fully form before Ollie shoved the blade back in, lower this time, off to the side.
McCoy jerked once, then went slack, blood spilling faster as Ollie pulled the blade loose and tossed it aside.
“Put these on.”
A pair of silver handcuffs swung into view.
“Don’t make me tell you twice,” Ollie continued. “I don’t wanna shoot you…but I will.”
Numbly, Cassie did as he said, clicking them into place around her wrists, wincing as the metal bit into her burned skin. She forced them closed another notch.
Satisfied, Ollie straightened and steered her forward again.
Kicking the front door shut as they passed, he marched her toward the root cellar opening and shoved her onto the first rung.
Cassie fumbled for it with her foot, her cuffed hands useless in front of her.
He didn’t slow—kept her moving, one misstep from losing her footing the entire way down.
Pausing beside Maya’s body, Ollie nudged her with the toe of his boot. “Solves one problem,” he muttered.
Then he hauled Cassie across the packed dirt toward the far side of the cellar. At first glance, the wall looked solid—rough boards backed by packed earth.
But when he pressed against a narrow seam between two planks, one of the boards gave loose. Hooking his fingers into the edge, he slid the board aside, revealing a narrow gap into the darkness behind it.
His hand clamped onto her arm again, shoving her forward. “Move.”
Behind them, the board slammed back into place with a dull thud.
Darkness.
Nash was peering into the dark of an old stone well when his phone buzzed in his pocket. The place was one of several forgotten properties tied to the McCoys, scattered deep through the hills.
He answered as he headed toward his truck, jerking his chin for Boone to follow.
“Talk to me, Crush.”
“We got McCoy.”
Nash slowed a fraction. “Cassie?”
There was a pause before Crusher replied. “You just need to get here, boss—I’m sendin’ a pin.”
The line cut. A second later his phone chimed.
Nash looked at the screen, then over at Boone. “Let’s move.”
Boone didn’t say a word on the drive out.
Didn’t tell him to slow down as the truck tore through mud and undergrowth, fishtailing over deep ruts and half-erased trails swallowed by the trees.
He barely saw where they were going anyway.
His mind kept locking on the same thought over and over—Cassie hurt.
Cassie dead. Cassie gone before he got there.
The final stretch cut through a narrow opening hidden behind saplings and deadfall—so overgrown Nash nearly missed it even with the pin guiding him in.
The bikes came into view before the cabin, parked crooked across a semi-overgrown clearing. Engines off, the men stood where they’d stopped, waiting.
Nash was out of the truck before it was fully parked, leaving it running as he cut across the yard. He shoved past Sarge and through the open door—then stopped short at the sight of blood pooled dark across the floor.
McCoy lay in the middle of it, legs half folded beneath him, eyes fixed on the ceiling. A bloody knife sat discarded nearby.
Behind him, Sarge said, “Dead blonde down below. Maya, I’m guessin’.”
Nash turned his head just enough. “Cassie?”
“Just the girl…and these—” Sarge held up Cassie’s leather bag and a familiar-looking phone case, the phone inside smashed to hell. “Found ’em in the truck.”
Taking a step back toward the door, Nash peered at the silver pickup sitting outside with the passenger-side door open, then back into the room, his gaze dropping to the blood, the body, the knife.
“She didn’t leave,” he muttered.
“I don’t know what’s what, brother,” Sarge said, gesturing toward McCoy. “Look at this shit—he’s been stabbed twice.”
Nash moved closer to the body, crouching down. The first wound sat high in McCoy’s throat, ragged and angled wrong, but the second sat lower and farther off to the side. Cleaner. More deliberate.
Cassie would fight like hell—but not this.
Straightening, his gaze snagged on the cellar hatch still hanging partly open.
Dropping down inside, he found Maya lying off to one side. He gave her a quick once-over before turning his attention to the ground—half-smoked cigarettes, matches, busted zip ties, drag marks pressed over each other in the dirt.
“Overdose, you think?” Sarge asked from behind him. “Couldn’t find any marks on her.”
Nash didn’t answer. He’d already moved onto the wall, studying the rough boards set into the packed earth, the narrow seams between them.
“How far back does McCoy land run up here?”
“Far as you want it,” Sarge said. “McCoy’s been here longer than anybody.”
Nash drove his boot into the wall, the impact landing dull against dirt behind boards.
Moving farther down, he kicked another section hard enough to rattle the planks. Solid.
Another kick farther over. Still solid.
Another.
This time, one of the boards flexed inward before settling back into place.
He stepped closer, catching his fingers against the edge and yanking hard. The board shifted loose, revealing a dark tunnel.
He turned to Sarge.
“She didn’t fuckin’ leave.”