Chapter Twenty-Two
The world was a lot nicer when Blake opened her eyes next. She had to admit that was probably mostly due to the man staring down at her.
Liam’s gaze didn’t waver.
“You know, I’ve been to war and been less stressed than I was today,” he told her. “Being a loner, not talking to people? That’s easy stuff. Falling for Sheriff Trouble? Hardest thing I’ve done yet.”
Blake had questions, but her focus was watered down. She wanted to ask about that falling-for thing but was getting distracted by what was above his head.
“Where am I?”
Her throat hurt at the question. She flinched.
Liam’s face softened. His fingers traced the side of her jaw before his hand enveloped her own at her side.
“You landed yourself in the hospital. We’re in a private room. You just cleared a round of doctors.”
Blake’s brow scrunched of its own accord.
“Concussion?” she asked.
He nodded.
“And one heck of a bruise and bump for it.” His face darkened. “Who knew Elijah Grant had such a damned hard head.”
The name brought a bad taste into her mouth.
It wasn’t the only thing.
“Did I get sick?” she asked. Blake felt like she was extremely hungover. He confirmed her suspicion.
“You came to in the ambulance and got sick a whole bunch. Poor Theo nearly lost it at the sight but didn’t want me to tell you that.” He smiled, lopsided. “He says he’s not like most teenagers, but he really wants to keep that reputation of his tight.”
Blake was relieved to see Liam joking about the boy.
“He’s okay, then?”
He nodded. Then became serious again.
“I actually don’t think I could have pulled off getting you to the ambulance without him. You’re easy to carry under normal circumstances but off a building’s roof—well, it was a bit trickier. Plus, he kept fussing after the stitches on my arm. They didn’t pop, though, and he kept his cool.”
Blake was trying to think back.
All she remembered was Elijah’s head hitting hers.
That and his admissions. The old ache in her heart started to hurt. She decided to push it to the side for now.
“What happened?”
Liam held her hand tight as he recounted the rooftop fight.
While she had taken on Elijah, he had made his way out onto the roof from the office and shot the man named Eric the moment he was close enough to get a good opening.
Before he could knock the man out with a bone-crunching hit, Elijah had already attacked Blake.
“That’s when you shot Elijah,” she guessed.
She was wrong.
“Someone followed me and came out onto the rooftop too. He’s the one who shot Elijah.”
Blake didn’t understand his expression. She raised her eyebrow in question.
“Who was it?”
She wasn’t sure she heard him clearly, so she asked him to repeat himself.
The second time, it was clear enough.
“Ryan Reed, your sister’s former brother-in-law. He’s the one who shot Elijah.”
“Ryan? As in Tim’s brother? Clem and Bruce’s uncle?” Blake didn’t understand, so she had to make sure she clarified.
Liam nodded.
“Apparently he didn’t leave town. A good thing too that he showed up. His shot was right on target.” Liam squeezed her hand. “It was a kill shot too. Elijah Grant is dead.”
For so many reasons, and probably more that she couldn’t think of, this made Blake cry. Her tears were hot and big and made her head hurt even more.
Liam didn’t say a word. Instead he kept her hand safe and secure within his until, a few minutes later, she stopped.
“We can talk about everything after you get some rest,” he told her, wiping his thumb over her cheek. “Until then, I just want to ask you one question and one question only.”
Blake was so drained. All she could do was nod.
Liam smiled.
“I’m sure there is a more suave way to do this, but the cold sheriff of Seven Roads sure doesn’t know how to do anything but ask outright.
” He cleared his throat. “Blake Bennet, when you’re feeling better, how about we go out on a date?
Dinner, movies, playing in the park with the kids—I don’t care what it is.
As long as it’s with you, I’ll be happy. ”
Exhaustion momentarily paused.
Blake returned his smile.
“As long as we eat something yummy, I’m in.”
A DAY PASSED before they finally got the rest of their answers. However, Blake ended up getting them from an unlikely source.
Ryan Reed was in handcuffs but sitting in the sunlight on a bench outside the hospital. He had already told his story to Detective Williams and Liam back at the department. Now it was her turn, thanks to Liam pulling some strings to make the conversation happen.
“Missy called me a month or so after Beth’s death looking for my brother,” he said, starting the story of why he had killed Elijah Grant.
“You know Tim. Once he left Beth and the kids, he left any thought about this life behind. I tried to tell her it was useless to call him, and then, in the middle of all of that, she said it could be a matter of life and death, and she brought up Beth’s accident.
The way she said it... I couldn’t shake it.
Then she asked me to meet her since I was still family and maybe could talk to you. ”
He looked sheepish at that.
“She didn’t hear that we had fallen out.
About how much of an ass I made out of myself at the funeral.
How out of line I was with you talking about the insurance money.
I just couldn’t believe how we’d all gotten there.
I know I wasn’t a rock star uncle, but Tim just up and leaving like that as a dad?
And then Beth was just gone. No matter what, though, I shouldn’t have done what I did.
I’m sorry about it all, really I am. Guess I should have said that sooner. ”
He kept on without waiting to see if Blake accepted his apology or not.
“When we met, Missy told me everything, starting from the beginning. She wasn’t suspicious about the steel mill or Elijah until after she heard about Beth’s accident.
That’s why she went down the rabbit hole.
Beth’s death and, well, that friend of hers.
That Hector fella.” He shook his head. “She was sure as the sun shines that Hector wouldn’t have made such a mistake with those furnaces.
So she went to her daddy about it, who, in turn, asked Mr. Grant about it.
I guess her questions got to Elijah in the end.
And he wasn’t appreciative of it. He met her at the mill, but she said he was acting weird.
He kept asking for proof and if she’d been close to Beth. ”
Ryan sighed. It had dragged him down.
“Missy said that she snuck into the furnace room after that, saying she was visiting her boyfriend that worked out there. She didn’t know what to look for but suspected it might have something to do with the computer.
So she copied everything she could onto one of those flash drive things. Someone caught her doing it too.”
That someone was Cooper Han. As part of his tech program, he had found Missy there during one of their tours fumbling around with the computer. If it hadn’t been for his aversion to judging people without giving them a chance, he might have turned her in. Instead, he offered to help her.
“That boy is a far throw from the likes of me, I’ll tell you that,” Ryan said.
“He was able to find some kind of code in all of that garble that shouldn’t have been there.
He can probably explain it better than I can, but they realized—as far as I can tell—it basically could make the furnaces overheat by themselves, eventually causing a catastrophic meltdown.
He guessed it had been put in manually by someone to make everything melt down.
But there was no way to figure out who.”
“That’s what happened with Hector,” Blake realized. “He thought it was an error that caused the meltdown and tried to help. But it was on purpose.”
Ryan nodded.
“Missy told Cooper to be quiet about it, worried it was dangerous information to have, and that’s when she called me looking for Tim.
She was trying to figure out if Beth had found the code during her investigation or if she had any info on her work laptop about it.
I didn’t have any idea but told her that if Beth had a laptop that it should be at the house with you.
” Ryan laughed. “So she actually went and stole it from you. I guess you were busy with the kids and didn’t notice, but, sure as sure, she had it with her, trying to figure out if the code was there. ”
Blake couldn’t believe it. Then again, maybe she could. Missy Clearwater had more than proven she was a clever girl.
“Then she told me she was putting it back, worried that if anyone found it on her, they might think you had a part in this. And she didn’t want you or the kids in danger.”
A look she couldn’t decipher went across Ryan’s face. He continued.
“I met with Missy the day she died. She said her father had gotten drunk the night before and wondered if his friend, Mr. Grant, was going to cash out of the steel mill while he could or give the massive debt to his son. She prodded her daddy until she got a better picture of the situation.”
The situation, which they would later confirm through an investigation, was that the senior Mr. Grant had used a lot of his fortune to help pull his son Elijah out of severe debt before he’d come back to Seven Roads.
It was only after Mr. Clearwater, his good friend, had sold his business to retire that he had started to think about letting his son inherit the mill, only to leave him strapped with the financial fallout.
Something that Elijah had found out about.
And tried to plan for.
“Elijah wanted the mill to burn down so he could collect the insurance payout. Simple as that,” Ryan finished.
“So, did Beth even know about the code?”
Ryan shrugged.
“Missy never found out, and you know me, I’m not exactly book smart. The most I’ve done was try to figure out who all was connected to Elijah. I didn’t want a one of them to escape.”