Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
Twelve steps from the refrigerator to the hallway door. Six steps from the table to the sink. Five steps from the sink to the edge of the family room.
Dove had counted them enough times to know. But the worst part wasn’t the waiting. Or not knowing whether they were in danger. It was the fact that she couldn’t sit still, and that made her want to snag her Glock and shoot something. She needed to expend some unwanted energy.
"You're making me dizzy," Lach said.
“Do you think I care?” She turned at the hallway and came back. Paused, then made her way to the sink.
Through the kitchen window, the porch light threw a pale circle over father and son with a bottle of tequila between them.
Trent's shoulders remained unnaturally still.
The back of his father's head reminded her of a maniquin.
Both men barely moved—as if their conversation required them to remain motionless.
“What the hell are they talking about out there?” she asked.
“Probably—”
“It was a rhetorical question,” she said to Easton as she pulled out her phone and opened the text string with Buddy, Sterling, and Cullen, read the last three messages.
All clear.
Nothing moving.
Property quiet.
None of that necessarily meant anything good.
Quiet was just the the pause before impact.
Nothing was moving, just the snake coiled in the grass waiting to strike.
And all clear just meant whoever was out there lurking in the shadows hadn’t been seen yet.
She knew this drill all too well. Nothing was ever what it seemed.
She shoved the phone back in her pocket and headed toward the family room.
“Could you please just sit down for five minutes?” Easton asked.
She stopped, spun on her heels, and looked across the kitchen at him with what she suspected wasn’t her most charitable expression.
"You want to tell me what's actually happening out there?
Because from where I'm standing, all I see are two strangers and one of them is a dead man.” She spread her hands.
"You'll have to forgive me if I'm not immediately comforted. "
Lach and Easton exchanged a look.
“Jack wanted to tell his son,” Lach said. “So, we’re doing this on his terms.”
"He's had twenty years to tell it. I’d say he’s a little too late. Not to mention, my uncle died protecting him, so I’d say I’m owed the courtesy.”
“I know this is hard for you, but let them have their moment,” Easton said. “And then we’ll fill you in on everything.”
“Right, because I’m supposed to trust you.
” She turned back to the window. The two figures on the porch hadn't moved.
Trent's hand lifted, set his glass down, lifted again.
The other man said something she couldn't hear, and Trent went still in that particular way he had when something landed somewhere deep.
Trent needed her. Or maybe she needed him. She had no idea, and it no longer mattered. She started for the door, but before she made it to the threshold, it opened.
Trent filled the frame, the porch light at his back, his expression serious, but there was a softness to it. "Come outside.” His words were soft, gentle, even. But they did nothing to settle the tornado swirling in her gut.
She grabbed her glass off the counter and walked past Trent through the door without a word. Her pulse raced. Her breath was ragged. And her mind filled with a million questions that she had no answers to.
The night air assailed her skin in that heavy, wet way it did on the edge of the Everglades.
She crossed to the table, picked up the bottle of tequila, and poured two fingers into her glass with the focus of someone who needed something to do with their hands.
Then she dropped into the nearest chair.
Trent pulled his chair across the porch and sat down next to her. She appreciated the gesture.
Jack watched her, and she looked right back at him because she'd stared down worse things than a dead man drinking tequila on a porch surrounded by gators that she now considered her friends.
“I feel like I’ve known you your entire life,” Jack said, rocking back forth as if he belonged on this porch more than she did.
Perhaps that was true—at one time. “When Slade and I first thought this was only gonna last a few years, he’d come visit, and he’d bring pictures of you.
It was hard because I missed Trent so much it hurt, but boy, did Slade think the world of you.
Her eyes burned, but she wouldn’t let the emotion that bubbled from her gut escape.
She needed to remain detached. To be the person the Army had trained her to be for just a little while longer.
“I have a million things I need answered,” she started.
“But why don’t we start with why you had to stay dead for twenty years.
And tell me why my uncle died protecting that secret. "
Jack set his glass down and looked at the space between the table and the railing. "None of this was supposed to happen." His voice was low and weighted. "It was supposed to be temporary."
Dove shifted in her chair. "Mr. Mallor—"
“It’s Jack.”
“Okay. Jack.” She pressed her palms flat on her thighs.
"With respect, I have heard a version of that sentence from men in positions of power my entire career and it has never once made me feel better about what came after it.
So I'm going to need you to skip to the part where you actually tell us what happened. "
Trent reached over and took her hand. “I’ve been listening to people give us the runaround for a few days now. I’m with her on this.”
Jack looked at his son for a moment, then sat forward and rested his arms on his knees.
"When the case against Edward Kirk and Armond Jackson fell apart and Slade found out about the hit on my life, he had less than a day to figure out what to do.” Jack laced his fingers together.
"He made a decision. He believed—and I believed—that he could fake my death, keep me out of sight, and use the time to find what the prosecution couldn't. The evidence that would actually stick.
" He leaned back, snagged his drink, and took a sip.
"He knew the ME. Knew what the man would do for the right price. So we used him."
“Do I even want to know how he knew that?” Dove had always admired her uncle. He was smart, and she knew he’d sometimes skirted the rules, but that was a bit of a workaround.
“He didn’t give me the details, and honestly, I didn’t ask,” Jack said.
"Gulf Coast collapsed. Kirk walked away. And everything Slade tried to find turned out to be dead ends.” He raised his glass before tipping back his head and tossing back the last few drops.
"You can't bring a dead man back to life with nothing to show for it.
And trust me, we argued about this for days, weeks, years.
I wanted to come home. I wanted to see my boy graduate from high school.
See him grow into a man. Be with the only woman I've ever loved.
But as time went on, that became harder and harder for a lot of reasons. "
"I have questions about all that." Trent traced a slow line across Dove's knuckles, back and forth, like he was keeping time. “But right now, I want to hear about Dutton.”
“He was a young kid when I went to testify, and I barely spent any time with him. Wasn’t even on our radar when we faked my death,” Jack said.
“But about five years ago. When we learned about his relationship with Courtney," Jack set the glass down.
"That's when things started to shift. Courtney had built a practice in Tallahassee defending criminals, and those assholes needed evidence to disappear.
She found a way to do that through Sovereign Resources.
" He stood, moved toward the railing, and glanced out at the water.
"Legitimate mining operation on paper. But if you needed something gone—documents, physical evidence, bodies—Sovereign had the infrastructure.
The equipment. The reach. A concierge service for anyone with enough money. "
"We know all of that," Trent said. “Why can’t anyone take them down?”
Jack leaned against the railing and folded his arms. "It took years to gather what we did, and most of it wasn’t enough to build a case. It wouldn't have needed a fire, a dead witness, or another to recant their testimony for it to fall apart.”
"So what changed?" Trent asked. "What made you come forward now?"
“Slade was close," Jack said. "Closer than he'd ever been. He had pieces that were finally, after twenty years, pointing to the same place. And then they started moving into this town. On this land." His hands tightened on the railing. "That's when I knew we were out of time."
“I still don’t understand why now. Why not eight years ago?
Or twelve?” Trent's voice had changed. Still controlled, but underneath the strength he always carried, no matter what was going on, a little boy lingered, and Dove wasn’t sure the man could hold on.
"Twenty years, Dad. Mom spent twenty years—"
“You think I don’t know that?” Jack pounded his chest. “You think that it didn’t chip away at me, too?”
“I’m just trying to understand,” Trent said softly.