Chapter 17
Bradford
“Mr. Bradford,” Chief Wilkerson grunts, as he steps into his office, his beady eyes already fully of suspicion. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Just came to check on something.” To see how fucked I am.
“Figured so.” He drops a file on the table, and then lowers into his seat, nodding for me to take the chair opposite of him. I don’t take it, choosing to mull at the back of the room. My eyes jump to the picture of the chief and his family, and I frown.
We don’t have a lot in common. He’s got a solid ten years on me. He grew up here. I grew up in Texas. I took a career with the Marines, he served four in the Army.
But he knew my grandparents. And he knows a little of what I do now.
“I shouldn’t be sharing this with you,” Wilkerson starts with the same line he always does.
I smile, but only with my mouth. “You know I support local law enforcement.”
He lets out some incoherent noise and doesn’t look at me. He opens the folder. The first page is a color photo of the smoking ruins of the house out in Ridgecrest. I let my eyes go blank. I don’t want to give away how much it still pisses me off.
He slides the photo over. “We had the fire inspector from a couple counties over come up for this one. Unusual burn patterns. You know what that means?”
I shrug. “I got a few ideas.”
Wilkerson eyes me, his dark brown irises riddled with a fatigue I relate to. “You’ve been a little messy around here lately on local jobs. Now, I know—”
“I’m in a bit of a predicament,” I cut him off, hating the obvious being pointed out. “I’ll sort it out.”
Wilkerson lets out a sigh, and then reaches into his top desk drawer, retrieving another folder. My eyes follow it as he keeps it closer to his chest, opening it only far enough for him to pull out another photo.
And I cringe the moment I see it.
“This kid.”
I stare into Cade’s mugshot, his disheveled hair and dopey smirk setting off a rage in my chest. “What about him?”
Wilkerson tenses, slapping the folder down on the desk. “I know this kid was working at your tree farm over the holiday season. I saw him with my own eyes, Cal. I’m not a fucking idiot, but I’m starting to think you might be.” He retrieves the notice of Cade’s status.
Wanted. AWOL. Two-time capital murder in Texas.
He shoves the notice at me. “What the fuck, Bradford? I know you help the crazies, and I know you run your business, but this? This is a lot. Why are you fucking around with this guy?”
I eye the little shit in the picture once more. “I don’t recall that guy.”
He waits, and when I don’t respond with more, he shakes his head.
“This pattern,” he pulls out another photo, “has triggered some people in the area. They’re now running with the idea that the AWOL murderous Marine is in the area.
I can’t cover for you with all these goddamn agencies coming in here. ”
“What agencies and people?” My mind runs back to the break-in. “All badges?”
Wilkerson grows quiet, and the conflict warring in his expression tells me that he’s now hung between a rock and hard place.
“You need to figure your shit out, Calvin. That’s all I’m going to say.
I don’t want to lose the job that I worked my ass off for, but whoever this Kellan kid is, you need to understand that he’s got a long history of bullshit.
Prior to the two Marines being killed in Lubbock and his enlistment, he was a person of interest in a boat-fire that involved the death of his sister’s boyfriend, and then when he was eleven, he lost his biological father in a housefire as well.
He was never charged on the two fires, but I think there’s something there. ”
“Huh.” I purse my lips, appearing unbothered. But internally? I’m freaking the fuck out. Every siren is sounding. Why the hell did Ben not tell me this? Does he not know?
“I’ve always supported you,” Wilkerson straightens in his chair, his thin frame half of mine. “But this… This is a lot, Cal. I get that you have contracts that I don’t understand, and I’m all for your rehab-shit. But you’ve never been involved with someone with active charges? A fucking fugitive?”
Tell me about it. It’s a goddamn lot.
And I need to get a better grip on it.
“Could you send me those case files?” I stand to my feet, ready for the meeting to be over. “I’d really like to take a closer look.”
“I can.” Wilkerson eyes me. “But you’re not gonna win this one. I ain’t going down with you on something like this.”
“That’s fine. I’m not asking you to.”
Because I’ll eliminate the problem before any of us go down with it.
“Have a nice day, Cal. And get some sleep,” he calls after me. “You look like shit.”
I give a wave over my shoulder, and then leave by the front. Out in the parking lot, I spot an unmarked gray SUV parked at the far end, a dome camera mounted low on the windshield, its black eye aimed right at my truck. It doesn’t belong in this town or county.
Well, fuck.
I roll my shoulders, then fish my keys from my pocket and walk out, keeping my hands in the open and my face blank. I slide into the truck, start it, and let the heater run for a few minutes before pulling out. In the mirror, the SUV doesn’t move.
And only when I hit the turn for my own road do I let myself feel the stress.
I try to process the whole thing—the Kellan folder, the arson signature, the cross-pollination between Texas and here. A dead father. A dead boyfriend.
Who the fuck is Cade? He’s got demons I didn’t even know existed.
I need to call Knight. Or maybe not. Maybe I just need to cut the loose threads, all of them, before the net closes around my own neck.
But there’s some reason to keep the stupid kid alive. He can be good at eliminating bodies… When he doesn’t lose his head and ruin it at the scene.
Then again, even some good ones have to be put down.
I drive past my own driveway, keep going, hit the state highway and keep my eyes on the rearview. Still nothing. But that doesn’t mean they’re not watching.
At the next crossroads, I pull over, kill the engine, and sit, the mountains glaring at me in the distance. How fucking nice it would be to disappear into them and never coe back.
I close my eyes and run my hands over my face, feeling the old wounds threaten to give, the ones no one knows about.
‘You’re fucking useless, Calvin.’ my father voice roars in my ears. I clench my fists as the ache of broken fingers on my eleven-year-old body come back to life.
I rip my cowboy hat from my head, as my heart rate spikes in my chest. I toss it to the dash, the memories of my past suffocating. I’ve never lost control, because I saw what happened when my father did.
But I still chose my demons. And those demons may or may not have fucked with the steering linkage of the asshole’s old Camaro while he drank himself stupid at the local bar. And did it lead to the car careening over the side of the bridge into the river?
Possibly. But no one ever laid a hand on me or my mother again.
She died a peaceful fucking death three years ago.
There has to be people willing to do what needs to be done. I remind myself why I started this, why I built the business when I got out, why I keep the leash tight on the men who can do the job. It’s not for the money.
It’s for control. I keep the monsters I know in check and put the monsters I don’t in the grave. There’s never been one I couldn’t decide where they belong.
Not until Cade. But I’m starting to figure that one out.
I’ll break him, or I’ll eliminate him. Period.