The Bedlam Boys: Complete Series

Chapter Two

Rainey

I brushed Cairo’s hair from his eyes, tracing the curves and angles of his sculpted perfection.

Doc Nash was out. The clinic’s nurse practitioner helped me carry Cairo out of the car, sewed him up, and ordered me to make sure he took his meds. I brought him home, helped him up to one of the many guest rooms, and fed him chicken soup till he dropped his head and passed out.

Cairo was surprisingly mellow about my fussing. Turns out Vicodin soothes even the most savage of beasts.

He doesn’t look like a savage beast now.

Light streamed through the slats in the blinds, playing in his golden crown. When you couldn’t look in those unnerving eyes, Cairo Sharpe was all soft, full lips, slightly pointed ears, and the smell of the forest I grew up in. But if I was honest with myself, awake or sleeping, he was perfect.

He was mine.

“So don’t charge around with open wounds, spilling your blood all over Bedlam, Sharpe.” I pressed a gentle kiss to his lips. “I’m the one who’s going to keep you.”

I shut the door soundlessly behind me, leaving my wolf to sleep. There was another man of mine I needed to see.

Roan reclined on Legend’s couch, messing around on his laptop while porn played loud and proud on the television screen. I flicked it off.

“Just when it was getting good.” A hand crept under my dress and delighted to find me panty-free. Roan teased my lips open. “You’ll have to take over entertaining me.”

“Later,” I replied, drawing away reluctantly.

Roan had been getting his kicks watching Legend punish me, which left him satisfied, but didn’t indulge my growing Roan addiction. I knew what he wanted, and that was for me to take what I wanted. But a few weeks ago, I was a virgin. The jump from that to knife-wielding dominatrix was taking a minute to get my head around.

“I assume Cairo told you all the truth about... last night.”

He nodded, adopting his rarely used serious expression. “Do you want to tell me the rest?”

I did, starting from the first letter I received to the fatal mistake that cost Bella her life.

“That’s not all,” I continued. “Cairo thinks the psychopath that took over for Cavendish is a student, or in some way connected to the university. He believes the same of the person who tried to kill you.”

“The latter isn’t that surprising,” he said, setting his laptop on the coffee table and tugging me down to take its place. “The former is.” Roan inclined his head. “Or maybe it isn’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve been looking through Cavendish’s old school records. Mom requires every student involved in a traumatic incident to see the university therapist. Don’t need any festering resentment boiling into a school shooting.”

I sat up straight. “You can access the therapist’s notes?”

“Yep.”

“Can you access the notes on everyone who sees the therapist?”

“I can.”

I massaged my temples. “And you use those deep, soul-baring secrets to keep people in line. I’m no longer asking why someone tried to kill you.”

He winked. “I’m a very unlikeable guy, beautiful, but you feel free to whip me into shape.”

I just might, I thought even as a blush painted my cheeks.

“But this time, I assume you’ll forgive me.”

Roan assumed correctly. “What was in the notes?”

“Stella didn’t detail her fears that she was sitting across from the next Bundy. Actually, I’m leaning toward telling Dean Mom to fire her after what you’ve said. Stella wrote that Cavendish was handling the loss of his best friend well under the circumstances, and that his strong support system would help him through. I’d bet the guy was sleeping like a baby after getting away with murder.”

It was hard to argue for the woman’s job considering. I didn’t bother to try, and instead latched on to something he said. “Strong support system? Who was she talking about? Nathan Wade and Sam Dillion?”

“And Blake Jensen.”

“Blake Jensen,” I repeated. “Who’s that?”

Roan crossed his hands behind his head. I was sitting on his lap in no underwear, and his hands weren’t all over me. This was the first time I’d witnessed Roan taken off his single-minded course for pain and pleasure.

“He’s the guy Cavendish was mentoring around the time he killed his best friend,” Roan said. “Stella specifically made a note of it, saying that focusing on Jensen and volunteering was a healthy outlet.”

“Blake Jensen,” I said again, rolling it around on my tongue and finding the taste unfamiliar. “This is the first I’ve heard that name. It didn’t come up in connection with Cavendish at all. He’s not even listed as one of his friends on social media. I looked up everyone when the new Letter Man came crashing in to continue destroying my life. I’m certain there wasn’t a Blake Jensen.”

“But there was.” Roan laced his fingers through mine, bringing them to rest behind his head and tease those silky strands. “Stella wrote down that they met three times a week.”

I stared at him, trying to connect what he was saying. “Three times a week. You don’t spend that much time with someone you can’t stand, or who can’t stand you. Did he need service hours for his degree?”

Roan raised his brow. “Accounting?”

“Of course not,” I said, mostly to myself. “He spent all that time with Jensen because he wanted to.”

“We can safely guess he wasn’t mentoring a fifty-year-old father of three. Jensen would’ve been younger than him, but now old enough to go to university with us.”

I shot off his lap. “You think Blake Jensen is the Letter Man? He killed Bella!”

“I don’t know what I think.” Roan tugged me back down. “It crosses my mind that someone who spent that much one-on-one time with a sociopath might’ve gotten tangled up in his immoral charm. Young, needy, and desperate for someone to look up to, then Cavendish walks in.

“All that said, there is no Blake Jensen at Bedlam University.”

His words popped my bubble. “What? How do you know?”

“I know everyone who attends or works in my school. No Blake Jensen. No Blakes. But there are two people whose last names are Jensen. I can search the database,” he said to my look, “but it’ll say the same thing. It wasn’t going to be that easy. Nothing ever is. But that doesn’t mean the guy Cavendish mentored doesn’t go to our school. People change their names. Or others change it for them.”

My head bobbed, hope returning. “Cavendish would have no reason to give the real name of his protégé. I can follow the two Jensens that go to the university, but if he lied about the first name, why wouldn’t he lie about the second?” I brought my fist down on the chair arm. “Still, it’s a place to start. And if it’s not them, I’ve got other smoking university students to sort through.”

Roan picked me up and carried me into the shower. I still had blood, dirt, and Cairo on me after the morning’s activities. “Did you ever find out the secret?” he asked.

“Secret?”

“Cavendish told you he killed Douglas Herbert because he found out something he shouldn’t and was going to expose him. What did Herbert discover that no one else could know?”

Roan slid my dress over my hips.

“It has to be that Cavendish was a raving lunatic.”

“Can’t be.” He flicked on the shower, filling the space with steam.

“Why can’t it be?”

“Because he would’ve just said that, sweet lips. ‘I killed Douglas because he found out I get hard killing animals behind the frat house.’ But he didn’t admit to Douglas’s find. He didn’t actually admit to anything.” Something in Roan’s voice stilled me. “Nothing more than what you already discovered, which is that he killed Douglas and sent you the letters. He never told you why.”

“I...” Whatever I planned to say died on my tongue.

“Douglas Herbert knew Cavendish his whole life. They were best friends. For that bond to break, he must’ve discovered something not even the most loyal of friends could excuse. And because of that, Cavendish had to kill him before he could tell anyone else. A secret that important wouldn’t suddenly become so trivial, he dangles it in a twisted game with a girl he doesn’t know.”

“But maybe it didn’t matter anymore,” I tried. “The guy had a death wish.”

Roan shook his head, even as it disappeared behind his shirt. “Someone with nothing left to lose has nothing left to hide. He didn’t tell you what Douglas found out. He didn’t give a straight answer to why he chose you. Rambling on about your ancestors, sacrifices, and running away from the fight. I’d think he really was a lunatic if I didn’t know better. That guy was too smart, Rainey. Everything he did was for a reason. Everything he said had a meaning.”

His gaze pinned me to the spot. “Take it from another manipulator. Use the situation we’re in now as the proof. Cavendish didn’t tell you shit about what’s truly going on here, Rainey. Not why he chose you, why Douglas had to die, or why this isn’t over. You still don’t know who the Letter Man is. Doesn’t matter that Scott Cavendish is dead, and it may not matter if the new one is Blake Jensen. You need to discover the secret that started this all, because they’ve got the whip, baby, and that just may be your safe word.”

Deep, abiding disgust filled me at the Letter Men’s torture compared to a sex game, but the point had landed, and nothing survived in its wake.

Roan scooped me up. “Now, on to the entertainment you denied me. Ride me, cowgirl, and slap me if I don’t buck when you roll.”

It was frankly astonishing Roan’s ability to flip the switch that fast. This was not an ability I had, although he taught me quickly.

“RAINEY, WHERE’S YOURhead at?”

I snapped to reality.

“You just lost half your breakfast,” Paris said.

I narrowed on Amy, disappearing the last of my avocado toast in her mouth. “Sorry.”

“You sound it,” I said, laughing.

Amy, Paris, Zara, and I huddled around a table in the student union, downing breakfast and conversation before we split in four directions. Naturally, there was only one topic on the agenda.

“You don’t think it’s true, do you?” Zara asked. “Jeremy and Micah? That’s just— Ugh.”

“You saw the sexts,” Amy threw in. “And the rest of it was just as horrible. Jonah carrying that girl into a room to sleep it off. That video should be forwarded to the dean. We shouldn’t be expected to sit quietly in class next to a rapist.”

“I don’t know that Dean Banks can do much,” I admitted, “but we definitely don’t have to sit quietly.” My grip tightened on my plate. “The rich and privileged don’t get to fuck people over without consequences.”

“Damn right,” said Paris. “I said the Crows would regret moving in on our town. Now they got the attention of Dante.”

Two gasps and a “really?” was her response.

It was hard for someone who wasn’t Bedlam-born to understand why that was a big deal. Harder still if their first introduction to Dante was listening to him beg and plead with the Bedlam Boys to leave him alone.

The single byline Dante appeared decades ago in an unofficial paper of a technically unofficial town. From the beginning, he reported the news those in charge denied to their last breath. Scandals, leaked documents, the truth of where the money went that was earmarked to pave the outer farm dirt roads. Hint: it paved the driveway to Mayor Harrow’s new summer escape, and it built the home on top of it.

Dante was a journalist before he became the crowner of the Ruckus Kings. This legacy lived on through the years, surviving the shift from print, to radio, to internet. When Dante chose a target, he wrung every secret from their life like water from a dishrag.

“He’ll find out the truth of what Jonah did that night,” Amy said, “and how close the Ellis brothers really are.”

“Can I ask you guys something?” I turned to Amy and Zara. “Even if the Crows run back to Hunter’s Crest, there were still a lot of people nodding their heads to what they had to say. If someone else is leading the pack, would you guys consider voting to split Bedlam in half? Bring back Crystal Canyon?”

“Of course they wouldn’t,” Paris cried.

Amy and Zara weren’t as quick to answer. They shared a look.

“I don’t want Bedlam to break up,” Amy said firmly. “And if half of what we found out about the Crows is true, I for fuck sure don’t want it split up to put more money in the pocket of a guy like Jonah. But a lot of what they said sounds nice.”

“You hate living under the Bedlam Boys that much?”

“No,” Zara said. “They weren’t lying about using the money they take from people to give back to the town. My mom lost her job and couldn’t pay the bills. The bank was threatening to take our house. She heard they helped another family on our street, and out of desperation, she asked me to speak to Cairo.

“He handed over six months’ worth of mortgage payments just like that. Even said she didn’t have to pay it back.” Zara dropped her gaze. “It may be selfish. I know a lot of people are angry about the payments. But I’ve never seen my mom that scared. I don’t care what people say about the Bedlam Boys. They helped my family when we needed it, and that’s good enough for me.”

I squeezed her hand. I knew that fear—the fear of losing everything. Hell, I was living that fear. If the Bedlam Boys had swooped in and saved me from losing the farm, I can’t say I’d look unkindly on their extortion either.

“But you’re still unsure of how you’d vote?” I asked, voice soft.

“That part is me not being selfish,” Zara replied. “Bedlam is stuck in the past. Hunter’s Crest has music venues, theaters, cafés, shops, hotels, everything. All stuff we could have here but the council won’t allow developers to cut down a blade of grass or touch a single historical building.”

“No one wants to live here,” Amy said. “There are more students attending this school than there are people living in Bedlam. And most of them are going to leave after they graduate.” Amy gestured at Paris, who flushed. “It wouldn’t be such a bad thing if Bedlam changed. Dragged itself into the future and was more like an actual town than a fiefdom. That’s all I’m saying.”

I couldn’t help myself. My head bobbed along to her speech. “I can’t deny what you’re saying. I’ve never wanted to be anywhere other than Bedlam and the farm, but I’m not blind to the things that drive people out. We could stand to shake things up around here—”

“Yeah, okay,” Paris sliced in. “I can’t play like I don’t get what you’re saying. I want something bigger than this life too.” She leaned in, dropping her voice. “But can we agree that Bedlamites should do it? Not a bunch of rapists, dealers, and brother-lovers? Yes?”

“Yes,” Zara said. “No doubt we can’t trust the Crows.”

“Agreed.” Amy bold as ever helped herself to a slice of my bacon. “The Crows and their rich daddies won’t have anything to do with it, but they have people thinking. If we can form a separate town, we can make it into a place people actually want to live in. The mayor and the town council won’t keep us in the past, and we don’t give up our home.” She smiled that sweet Amy smile. “Best of both worlds, right?”

And that’s the soup the Crows are selling. It’s no wonder people are slurping it down. Although the message might be going down harder after Roan’s little video.

It might not matter,another voice said. Sounds like people still want this even if they’re not doing it at the Crows’ lead. But with Foundry buying up half the town, their new landlords get what they want either way.

The Bedlam Boys’ dilemma was all too clear for me. The town can’t split while Foundry has an ounce of control here. The only way was to force them out at all costs.

To protect a secret they’re hiding from me. From everyone.

“You need to discover the secret that started this all, because they’ve got the whip, baby, and that just may be your safe word.”

Roan was right in more ways than one. While I was in the dark, I was everyone’s plaything to be pushed around and manipulated.

No more.

We steered the conversation toward light topics and broke apart with most of my breakfast in Amy’s belly, not mine. I grabbed a butterscotch muffin on the way to bankruptcy class. The lesson was as fun-filled and interesting as you’d expect. All the same, I noted every dry word out of Professor Stein’s mouth. Midterms were coming up and they wouldn’t stop for Letter Men, Crows, or my hot jailers.

“I love your hair today, Julie,” I told the TA on the way out. “Blonde highlights work for you.”

“Thanks, Rainey. But nothing looks as good as those Jimmy Choos.” She whistled. “Let me know the next time you want to trade for an old sweatshirt. I’ve got a whole closet of them.”

Laughing, I waved myself out, sticking my headphones in. I was starting to get a reputation as the girl trading designers for Target brands, i.e., I was every girl’s new best friend. Let that reputation get back to the Bedlam Boys. Maybe then they’d let me wear regular clothes again. As long as it wasn’t “farm girl chic.” Cairo was serious about that hatred hard-on.

I headed out of the Communications building, one eye getting me through the crush of students, the other scrolling through recordings. I tapped on the one from the night before.

“Hello, hello, hello, Bedlam.” Dante’s too-deep-to-be-real voice filled my ears. “How’re you all doing tonight?”

Dante did his shows live, but helpful people recorded and posted them on their sites. No one could miss a thing.

“I know what’s on your minds. So should I do the song and dance? Talk about the murder and kidnapping investigations that are going nowhere— Get off those flabby asses, Bedlam PD!

“Or should I get into the name on everyone’s lips? Crows.”

Homer Green was a peaceful spot these days. It would be seeing as Dean Banks posted no less than five security guards patrolling the place. I stretched out on a patch of grass. My next class wasn’t for two hours. I had nowhere else to be.

“None of us saw it happen. One second, we’re sipping our frappés, noses buried in our own lives, then an ear-splitting crash yanks everyone’s heads up. Are we mad those assholes ignored the stop sign? Or we just interested to see what would happen to the fools who dinged the Bedlam Boys’ ride?”

I frowned. It was hard to be sure of a man behind a digitally altered voice, but the Dante I listened to weeks ago sounded different from the metaphor-dropper I was listening to now. Was there a new Dante?

“You can admit it,” he teased. “We all sat back, interested to see what would happen. Was someone finally going to knock the Bedlam Boys off their pedestal? Did we get front-row seats to the coup? Seemed like it with those whispers of building a new town—freeing ourselves from our lords and masters.

“Who heeded the siren call?” Dante asked. “Don’t bother lying. Dante knows all. He knows you went to that party to celebrate every hit the Bedlam Boys took on the way down, only to find out why the kings have ruled for so long. Arsenio, Cairo, Jacques, Legend, and Roan won’t drop at the hundredth hit. They sure as hell won’t go down on the first one.

“Now we’ve all got a decision to make and I’m here as I always will be, to help you make it. How much of what we saw in that video is true? Are Micah Ellis’s doe eyes and brown curls so irresistible, even his brother wanted a taste? Is Jonah Hayes a rapist? Is Gael Stoll a drug dealer? Does Bentley Levine jump scrawny, sobbing guys during the day and fuck their moms for cash at night?”

I gazed at the gathering gray clouds, falling into Dante’s world. I couldn’t say I was a regular listener. His show was scandals about people I barely interacted with. The crowning of Kings of a party I wouldn’t go to. The occasional songs I didn’t listen to. The common trivia I didn’t care about.

That said, the rare times I turned him on, I listened to the end. A power Dante and all the Dantes before him possessed. He held on and didn’t let go until his signature sign-off music released you from the spell.

“I will find out,” he whispered in my ear. “Everything there is to know about Jeremy, Micah, Gael, Bentley, and Jonah. All the secrets in their head. All the skeletons under their beds. It’s the battle between two evils, and we will unmask the lesser.

“Have no fear that anyone—Crow or Bedlam Boy—will stop me or interfere. The torch has passed on. My location changed. My holes in security plugged. If you want me, you’re going to have to fucking find me.” He laughed. “And you can take that as a challenge.

“Goodbye, Bedlamites, and... good luck.”

My expression melted—and icy surprise spread down my face to seep into my bones. The laugh in his voice changed and morphed into a high-pitched sound that was not his sign-off music.

It was a call I wouldn’t forget for as long as I lived.

A kookaburra laughing.

ARSENIO

The harsh whew, whew, whew expelled with each contraction of my abs, bringing me up to my knees and dropping me back to the floor. The sound filled my ears and spread throughout the gym, and still wasn’t as loud as Rainey standing in the doorway, her silent stare speaking volumes.

“Something I can do for you, de Souza?”

She rubbed her temples out of the corner of my eye, wincing. “Maybe I’m just enjoying the show.”

I chuckled. Rainey de Souza was an interesting specimen. Hard to pin down. Impossible to categorize. She took orders but not without a side of defiance and a large cup of sass. None of us could deny she enjoyed her punishments a little more than anticipated. She wanted to be here more than anyone should.

I sat up, hanging my arms over my knees. Sweat ran down to chill in the frigid air-conditioning. It was as if she trailed each one. Following their path collecting as wetness soaking my wifebeater. Counting the hairs they touched on the way. Peeling the layers only they reached underneath.

Maybe that’s what’s wrong with this otherworldly beauty who emerged from nothing and plunged our lives in a fog we wouldn’t escape? It’s how she looks into your soul like she can see everything, while her eyes hold nothing.

That must be it, because it certainly wasn’t Cavendish or the new information I learned about her in the last seventy-two hours. That man asked her to choose, and she did not back down from the fight. It may have looked as though Rainey did not have a choice. She and I knew better. She could’ve left Jennifer to her fate. She could’ve put Cavendish’s in the hands of the police.

But instead, she set him on fire, pierced Verlice’s heart with an arrow, and went to that farm the other night prepared to do it again.

I advanced on her, peering deep in those unblinking brown pools. They reflected me as I stroked her cheek.

“Perfection.”

“I don’t feel so perfect today,” she whispered.

“Why is that?”

“I’m seeing serial killers everywhere I go. I looked twice at everyone who passed me today with a cigarette between their lips. I jumped when my professor called on Jake, thinking for a second that he said Blake. And Dante,” she said. “At the end of the show I thought... I thought I heard...”

“What?” I pressed when she trailed off.

“I thought the laugh track was a kookaburra’s call.” She tipped her chin, resting on my fingers. “Who is Dante? Or who was he? It’s another guy now, isn’t it?”

“It is,” I confirmed. “His predecessor was a guy named Lawrence Clark. He left town a few days after Ruckus Royale.”

“He did?”

“His apartment cleared out. He didn’t leave a forwarding.”

“How did you guys find him?”

I continued my exploration, skimming the bumps on her throat, brushing her pebbled nipple poking beneath the thin fabric. Why shouldn’t I? She was mine to touch and caress as I saw fit.

“It takes specialized equipment to broadcast his show. We figured he was smart enough not to walk into a Bedlam shop. Jacques set up a few fake seller accounts, and we got lucky. Someone with a Hunter’s Crest PO Box contacted him for a windscreen and shock mount. We kept an eye on the place and ended up following some brown-haired guy in his twenties out of the post office and right back to an address in Bedlam.”

“Smart,” she said with a smile. “Very smart.”

“We do have a genius in our crew.”

“Did you ever find out why he was chosen, or how a new Dante is picked? If I tracked him down, do you think he could tell me who claimed his place?”

“Possibly.” I slid her strap off her shoulder. “It’s a family business. Passed down from grandfather to father to son and so on. Clark doesn’t have kids or cousins, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t have someone picked out. Although, if you’re going where I believe you’re going with this, you’d have to consider the torch wasn’t passed on, it was taken.”

Rainey nodded, solemnity stealing the brief smile. “It was a quick sound at the end of a broadcast, but I know what I heard. It was a kookaburra, Arsenio, and I’ve been through too much to dismiss it as a coincidence.”

“You shouldn’t.” A little tug and her nipple was free. Free from its cover. Free to receive my attention. “But what is it we’re saying here, de Souza? This man helped Cavendish kidnap Jennifer Wilson, killed your friend, and then took over a radio show? What’s the endgame?”

“Ugh, I have no idea,” she cried, fisting her hair. “New Dante said he’s going after the Crows, marking the tallies in both columns for people to decide who they’re going to follow. That’s something a real Dante would do. If this is the same psychopath that’s been torturing me, why would he take over the show to do something like this? Why would he care?”

“Questions I cannot answer for you.” I lightly nipped her, catching a gasp between her lips.

“Everything I think I’m finding out about him just confuses me further. Is he some leather-jacketed smoker hanging out in the quad? Is he some hapless guy who got hooked up with the wrong mentor? Is he Bedlam’s new radio shock jock? Or is the Letter Man none of the above?”

“You may or may not find this comforting, but I have a feeling you’ll discover who this guy is soon enough.”

She frowned. “You do? Why?”

“The letters, Rainey. All these clues, hints, and games. You don’t play hide-and-seek if you don’t want to be found.”

She was quiet for a while. Long enough for me to tease her other nub undisturbed. Her dress slid down her body and snagged on my erect cock.

Rainey smelled of fruit teas and vanilla. She shifted, and her soft strands brushed my forehead. She gave every appearance of a delicate, fragile creature of porcelain skin and breasts like two marshmallow pillows. Until you spotted the thick, corded muscles in those archer/farmer arms, or imagined her balancing her scales and delivering justice. That both women should exist in one enigma got my heart doing something I never knew it could.

Race.

Rainey slipped her hand under my tank, tracing the ridges of my overworked muscles. I let her. Touching me without permission would’ve gotten Quinn in trouble. But she was Legend’s pick, not mine. I never quite took to her.

I told de Souza as much.

“Legend’s pick?” She wiggled her ass out of her thong obediently. “What does that mean?”

“We trade off picking our next girlfriend.” I kissed a trail from hip bone to hip bone, tasting her shiver on my tongue.

“Why do it like that? Why share?”

“Legend and Roan bring people in their bed all the time. A few of them assumed the rest of us were up for their sex games, and they weren’t shy about coming on to us. The same was happening with our girlfriends. They kept floating threesomes, foursomes, orgies at us.” I winked at her. “Someone who likes to be punished, loves to be owned.”

“So, eventually you figured, if your girlfriends all wanted to be shared, why fight a good idea? What does that make me? Cairo’s pick?”

I grinned. “And it wasn’t even his turn.”

Rainey brushed my hair from my eyes and sunk her fingers within my strands, breaking a rule even worse than the first. No one pets me like a fucking dog, cooing about how adorable the little biracial boy is while their dirty-ass, forgot-to-wash-after-using-the-bathroom hands roller coaster through my curls.

I broke two fingers of the first person who tried it. Wrenching them away from me so hard, I didn’t realize what I’d done until they were on the floor screaming. Mother was horrified by this.

I was eleven after all.

She sent me to an “emotion coach” who taught me everything I needed to know to survive. Don’t give anything away. Be in control, never controlled. Pick the right time, place, and situation to express the right emotion.

The next person who groped me didn’t scream, and they didn’t tell.

Reaching up, I drew her hand away, curling around her wrist. Rainey sighed as I kissed her palm.

“Just because Cairo picked me, doesn’t mean you had to let go of Quinn, or that we had to be here now.” She claimed another kiss on her fingertips. “You guys can admit you all want me, and none of you will let me go.”

“We all want you, and you’re not going anywhere. Go for a deep, dark confession next time.”

She giggled, spinning in my hands. I nipped and kissed along her tailbone. Rainey had the tiniest, barely there beauty mark in the middle of her left cheek. It was a certainty I’d now become obsessed with the damn thing, seeing it in my dreams.

“You willing to go deep and dark? Good,” she said. “That’s why I came. There are a few too many secrets holding sway over my life, Arsenio. I want to know who gave you Axel Verlice’s name, who you’re working for, and what the secret is that’s brought the Crows and Foundry down on us.”

“Do you?” Amusement laced my tone. “That’s quite a list of demands, but I’m afraid the confessional just closed up.”

I released her, getting to my feet.

“The priest has gone home.”

“Could the confessional open for one more?”

She faced me, secure in her nakedness, and it was no wonder. It was a crime worse than all I committed combined for this woman to walk around in clothes.

“When will I be ready for you?”

“You tell me.”

“Surely that’s for you to decide.” Rainey draped my arms around her waist. “Not me. Tell me I’m ready now, Arsenio. Take what you want from me.”

My heart thumped painfully against my rib cage, yanking a hiss through my teeth. This went against everything I learned in emotions management. It contravened years of hanging on to my cool—containing the slightest slip of anger or lust.

Ask the forgiveness of an actual priest, I was getting impatient.

I backed away and stretched out on the loveseat parked in the home gym. “You say you know what I want and you’re ready to give it to me. Prove it,” I said. “Tease me. Seduce me. Be my whore.” I flicked my painfully hard erection. “Get this guy to come and you won’t have to ask, because I’ll never stop giving.”

“S-seduce you?” Her voice hitched, widening my grin.

Rainey had gotten too used to us telling her when to sit, stay, beg, and come. Time to see how she behaved off the leash.

Face fire-engine red, Rainey slinked across the room, grabbing hold of my thighs. She trapped my gaze as she spread them apart, wining her hips to the ground—beginning her dance.

Rainey bobbed, dipped, and ground to music only she could hear. A slow, sultry tune if her lazy sway was anything to go by. She lay back flat to my chest, hair falling over my shoulder, and pressed my hands to her stomach as she slid down. I was passed over her mounds, indulging a squeeze. Legend was right. They were the perfect size.

De Souza continued down while I continued up. She swallowed my ring finger to the knuckle, lightly scraping me between her teeth drawing out.

My jaw clenched. On the scale of my sexual experiences, this was after-school Barney-special tame. So why was my cock throbbing so hard my eyes crossed?

She flipped over and straddled me, rocking unhurriedly on my lap, and bouncing those cherry-topped lovelies in my face. Rainey wiggled, lightly slapping them on my cheek, and the control I honed for ten years snapped.

“Fuuuuccckkk.”

“If this is what you were after, you shouldn’t have tortured yourself waiting.” The woman dared kiss me on the lips. “I was made to give you what you need.”

She picked up my hand and looked me in the eye as she pushed two fingers inside herself. A flush that glazed her eyes chased away the last of the embarrassment. “Feel that?”

Course I felt it. Her impossibly tight hole was wetter than a Slip ‘N Slide.

“That’s for you, Arsenio. It’s only for you.”

My fingers dug grooves in her hip that would be marks in the morning.

Snap, snap, snap. My self-control was tangible, living twine breaking to each kiss dotted down my chest. What was this woman doing to me?

Rainey freed my cock from its flimsy cloth prison and sheathed it between her lips. That Legend was her teacher was obvious. The guy didn’t believe in slow, soft, or easy. A trait he rubbed off on a woman who began giving blow jobs about a week ago. She bobbed her head like a hummingbird, sucking so hard her cheeks caved in.

My nails pierced the couch. If I thought I was sweating and exerting myself before, it was nothing compared to the fevered grunts pouring in her ears, spurring her on.

Let her ride the high of turning me on. I never denied that I wanted her or that I fully intended to have her. One day. On my terms.

Today wouldn’t be that day. I was always in control, and when I come inside Rainey de Souza, it’d be after I extracted half a dozen screaming orgasms by order and punishment. I hadn’t lost myself so completely that I couldn’t keep a tight rein on my dick. It wasn’t allowed to come outside unless I allowed it. She wasn’t going to—

“Shit.” I bucked, ripping the leather, and ejaculated with the power of a hundred stifled orgasms. “Agh,” I roared.

Rainey smirked at me, too smug for someone masked in cum.

She deserved to gloat. Didn’t everyone who did the impossible?

“I’m not quite sure what I won.” She snuggled up on my heaving chest. “But I’m looking forward to finding out from here on. No more holding back with me, Arsenio.”

Rainey propped her chin on me, peering in my eyes. “And no more secrets.”

“I’D SAY IT’S GOOD TObe home, but...” I trailed off, glaring at the doghouse.

Dean Banks gave the word that the Bedlam Boys’ suspension was lifted. They were allowed back on campus, which of course meant the Crows were too.

Cairo directed me to the middle of the living room while he swept every inch of the downstairs. Arsenio, Legend, Jacques, and Roan spread out, checking upstairs and outside.

“You know I picked that out special for you, Rain.” He flipped the cushions off the couch. “Don’t tell me you don’t like it?”

I didn’t bother giving that a response.

“Anything yet?”

“No,” he replied. “I’m surprised. The Crows got someone in here once before. We figured they’d take their shot while we were forced out.”

“Take their shot to do what? Jeremy already believes he has a mole.”

Cairo flashed me a look I couldn’t identify. “Does he?”

“How many times, Cairo? I’m only passing on the information you give me. No more, no less.”

“That’s not what gets me.”

“What is?” I asked, moving into the kitchen. Cairo already checked in there and I was overdue for breakfast. We all were. I’d whip up some breakfast burritos, herbal tea, and quinoa breakfast bowls to introduce Shake Boy to healthy food with flavor.

“That Ellis chose you in the first place. What deep, dark secrets did he think you were going to find out that Quinn didn’t?”

“You know, I thought the same thing.” I pulled out the cinnamon, quinoa, and chocolate hazelnut almond milk. “Then I read the contract. I’m pretty sure Jeremy would’ve made the same offer to Quinn if you guys were still with her. They’re most interested in your retaliation against the town splitting. Whatever you plan to stop it, I pass on to the Crows.”

“Interesting. They’re counting on a few slips of the tongue. Assuming that we won’t hide plans to defend the town from someone who wants the same thing. Ellis isn’t as stupid as he acts.” Cairo inclined his head. “Though in this case, credit likely goes to Ellis Senior.”

“He texted me to meet him tomorrow afternoon.” Cairo’s lips peeled back from his teeth. “He’ll want his first update.”

“You’re not meeting him alone.”

“You can hardly be there, Sharpe. Besides, we’re meeting in the arboretum. Not so quiet but not empty either.”

“We’ll see,” he gruffed.

I left it alone. Cairo didn’t appreciate the idea of me meeting any man alone who wasn’t a Bedlam Boy. Even if he understood it had to happen, he wasn’t about to kiss my cheek and send me off with a parade.

“We’re good down here. I’ll take you to class after I check my room. Bring my breakfast in the bath.”

I saluted with my quinoa-covered spoon. “Yes, sir.”

Jacques came in, passing Cairo in the entrance. They nodded at each other, and that was the only sign of supposed closeness between best friends since childhood.

“I’m making quinoa breakfast bowls,” I told him. “I checked and it’s packed with all the nutrients a genius needs. Will you try it?”

To my surprise, he nodded. “I see no reason why not.”

“Can I ask you something?”

Jacques claimed a seat on the barstool. “Reason follows you will anyway.”

I laughed. “Fair enough. I’ll skip the asking to ask and get right to it. What does my punishment entail?”

Jacques crooked a brow. The single request for me to expound.

“You said I could have some of your smoothie because starvation wasn’t a part of my punishment. You guys have set limits. I’d like to know what they are.”

“I gave you that information that day in Cairo’s room.”

“I must obey, but can I question?”

“No.”

I quieted, carefully considering the next thing out of my mouth. “Is my punishment to remain in ignorance?”

“Meaning?”

“Do you five not want me to know you? Do we stay in this cycle of sex and punishment until you grow tired of me, and Legend takes his turn to pick the new girlfriend?” The words tumbled out one after the other—too fast for me to stop. “Am I supposed to be kept at arm”s length, falling for men who won’t tell me anything about their lives, families, plans, or dreams? Is that my punishment, Jacques?”

His expression didn’t change during my speech. “No, de Souza.” His voice was low. “That is not your punishment.”

“So, one day, I’ll know everything.” I wasn’t sure if I was asking him or telling him. “About you, how you guys came together to do what, who gave Arsenio a job like Axel Verlice, and the secret this town is hiding that you’d kill to protect.”

Never let it be said I had Jacques Stone figured out.

Holding my gaze, he tipped his chin. “One day, you will.”

I loosened my grip on the spoon. “Okay, then... I can wait.”

We were quiet while I filled the kettle and set it to boil. There was likely more I could’ve, should have, said after finally receiving my answer. My guys weren’t counting the days till they got bored of me and put me out on my ass. Soon, we’d share everything and I’d know all about them. Their lives. Their hearts. Their secrets.

Mine.

I finished making breakfast. The guys were all down by that time, their search for bugs and booby traps over. They ate with caveman grunts, saying it was good. Jacques finished his bowl. That done, my last guy to feed was Cairo. He waited upstairs for me in the bath.

We took off for class and went our separate ways in front of my lecture hall. I went in, sat down, set my pack at my feet, and took out my things with a single thought plaguing my mind. Why didn’t Jeremy and the Crows try something?

The scuffle with Cairo didn’t count because they both walked away from that. I heard the rage in his voice after Roan made him give up his phone. Who knew the thoughts going through his head, but I’d bet my life it wasn’t to shake hands and cool off.

What are you going to do, Jeremy?

One side struck and the other rebounded. Back and forth they went till the Crows nearly wrestled control away from the guys, and the guys wrested their respect in retaliation. By my counting, both sides were even. They could sit on opposite ends of the aisle and wait for Bedlamites to decide where their loyalties lie.

But even as the thought passed through my head, I dismissed it. Neither side was going down that easily. That’s why you don’t put two alphas in the same pen.

“Hey, Rainey.”

I snapped out of my reverie. Nelson smiled as he grabbed a seat next to me. He had a forehead riddled with acne scars and a black eye I was certain came with a story, but there was nothing to say against that bright, winning smile. “Did you get the notes from last class? Mind if I copy?”

“Not at all.” I passed over my binder. “Go for it.”

“Thanks.”

I secretly thanked him for pulling my head out of those thoughts of Bedlam Boy versus Crow. It yanked me up and deposited me on the correct mental track: the Letter Man.

There was nothing sinister on the face about Cavendish volunteering for a mentor program. I assumed a fair amount of sociopaths filled their lives with good works, so no one would suspect inside they were empty. Who knew if he turned the kid he worked with, or how I’d prove he did, but either way, I was going to find Blake Jensen.

Or maybe who I was looking for was Dante. A shadowed figure behind a letter. A shadow voice behind a microphone. There was a certain symmetry in the name who patrolled this town for a hundred years, shedding light on its secrets, was also the dark counterpart making us pay the price for our sins.

Then there were the cigarettes. I didn’t smoke, so they all just looked like crushed trash on the sidewalk. Only the cops would be able to tell if there was something special about them, and I’d have to rely on Cairo to pass on that information since I would go nowhere near Sheriff Sharpe. Still, I knew without a doubt he was watching me.

My gaze swept the bald, spiky, red, blonde, and raven-haired heads in front of me.

Somewhere on this campus, he was sitting in class, fetching research for a professor, running a field, or studying in the library. The image I built up in my head refined by meeting Cavendish, then it changed further with the truth he blended in the Homer Green mob. All I needed was to match the picture to someone looking at me too long, standing a little too near, crossing my path more than was coincidental.

I didn’t know which route would lead me to him, so I’d go down all of them.

I start with Blake Jensen. There aren’t that many youth mentor programs in a small town like this. It’ll be easy to track down the one Cavendish worked for and find out who was cursed with him as their big brother.

I nodded to myself. Making a plan gave the illusion of control, but since I didn’t have even that much a week ago, I’d take it.

“—de Souza. Miss de Souza.”

“Ah, Rainey.” Nelson nudged my shoulder. “Look.”

Twisting around, I fell on my professor by the entrance, standing next to a guest. My jaw clenched hard enough to crack.

“Miss de Souza,” said Sheriff Jack Sharpe. “Come with me, please. I need to ask you some questions.”

A thousand emotions flooded my senses. Sound fled under the roaring in my ears. My muscles contracted, sending my pen skittering to the floor.

Sharpe hefted his belt higher up that gut. “Miss de Souza, come with me,” he repeated.

“Am I under arrest?” I amazed myself. My voice was steady.

“Not at this time. It’s just a few questions.”

“Good,” I replied, “then you can fuck off.”

The room fell silent.

“Rainey,” my professor scolded. “Who do you think you’re speaking to? There’s no need for that. Get up and go with the sheriff.”

“Mind your own business.”

Nelson goggled at me. The looks I was getting from my other classmates weren’t much better.

I glared at Sharpe. “I’ve got nothing to say to a dirty cop, so you can turn right the hell around and leave.”

Sheriff Sharpe was as expressionless as the day he told me he had no memory of receiving the autopsy results of Abigail de Souza.

“I’d rather we not have a problem,” he said slowly. “I will ask you one more time, get up and come with me.”

“Fuck. Off. I’d write it down for you, but I know how easily you misplace things.”

Saying nothing, he stepped to the side, revealing two uniformed officers standing outside the door. “Looks like we will have a problem with this one. Arrest her.”

“For what?”

The officers bore down on me—those two words their charge to action. Davidson grabbed under my arms and hauled me up and over the row.

“You’re under arrest for trespass and vandalism.” I did not imagine the satisfaction in his tone. “You know you’re not allowed out at that farm, and I know that hasn’t stopped you. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and—”

“Get off me!”

I bucked, ripping an arm free from Davidson’s partner. Sheriff Jack was there all too fast. A faint click was all the warning I got as the Taser jammed in my side.

Choking on a soundless scream, fifty thousand volts surged up my veins, drowning my mind in white light.

I was out before I hit the ground.

“CAN I GET YOU ANYTHING? Water? Soda?”

Davidson’s voice barely registered. As far as I was concerned, he was the spectator. The unwanted guest. He didn’t get to distract from the show.

Showdown.

Sheriff Jack and I locked gazes across the table.

I woke up in the back of his squad car, heading for the station. I hadn’t said a word, barring one last shout at his balding head that he was a crooked piece of shit that tore his mother’s anus when she shat him out. Davidson took particular offense to that and barked at me to shut up. The sheriff didn’t say a word. Not then, not now.

Slow, measured blinks were our responses to one another during the last twenty minutes we sat in his run-down interrogation room. I wasn’t certain what he was waiting for, but I was just counting the minutes till the yellow-faced bastard keeled over and died.

Jack came to life. Leaning forward, he pushed the open folder across the desk. It was the only thing on the table. That, and the recorder capturing the interview.

“Miss de Souza, do you recognize this woman?”

I flicked to the photo of Bella—dead on a mortuary slab. I didn’t answer.

Davidson opened his mouth. “She was found dead—”

A raised hand from the sheriff silenced him.

“Do you know her?” Jack repeated.

I pushed down the flash of pain, holding my crossed arms tighter.

“I believe you do, seeing as she was the night manager at the motel you’ve been living in for months. How close were you and Miss Hope?” he asked. “Would you say you were friends?”

I cocked my head, studying the gray creeping into his mustache. What kind of justice was there in this world that men like Jack Sharpe got to live their life peaceful and undisturbed into old age, while kind, good people like Gran died alone in a field?

“A few days ago, we found her body in your old home on the farm. She was killed by an arrow. We also found this.” Jack pushed her photo aside, revealing the one underneath. “You have quite the collection of bows and arrows, Rainey. How long have you been practicing archery?”

I schooled my face, though a flash of something else followed the heels of that question. This is why he brought me down here? I’m a suspect.

Breathing slow and even, I fought to let a rational word in. Of course you’re a suspect. It’s your farm. They know I break in all the time. They know I practice archery. He’d be the terrible cop I said he was if they didn’t bring me in for questioning.

I knew all this, and it did nothing to quell the urge to shove the folder down his throat. Cairo told me the story he made up to his father. He walked in on Bella’s murder and a man shot him and ran away. His own son told him to look for a guy, so why was I here?

“Ella Franklin, the estate agent,” Jack continued, “told us you rescued these items in particular from the estate sale. Buying them back and then requesting permission to keep them in the barn until the farm was sold. Why was it so important that you hold on to these weapons out of the many things you could’ve retained from your childhood?”

I smiled mirthlessly at him. “My grandmother, the woman whose murder you covered up, scrimped and saved to buy me a new set for each birthday. I couldn’t let her gifts—her being Abigail de Souza, you let her killer get away—be sold off to some stranger. My gran”—I leaned over the tape recorder—“died from poisoning and you buried the autopsy results. You remember my grandmother, Sheriff, once again, you covered up her death.”

His face flushed a nasty purple.

“I’d never let the things she gave me end up in someone else’s hands. Does that answer your question, Sheriff Accessory to Murder?”

“Yes,” he gritted. “Thank you.”

“No problem, rat-faced lying bastard.”

“Hey!” Davidson shouted. “Watch your mouth—!”

“Leave us,” Jack ordered.

“But, sir—”

“Now.”

Davidson obeyed. The door shut on the click of the recorder shutting off.

“Let’s try this again,” he said, withdrawing his hand. “Where were you the night of the fifth?”

“I was certainly not trespassing or vandalizing, which are the trumped-up charges you brought me in for, so I guess that means we’re done here.” I rose from my seat.

“I can hold you for twenty-four hours and I intend to do so, but if you’re that eager for a change of venue, I’ll wake up Judge Stone and see how many days we can get you in lockup for resisting arrest and attacking an officer.”

“Do it, then.” I grabbed the knob.

“Gladly, but first I’d like to know where you were during Ruckus Royale?”

I halted. “Excuse me?”

“Crime scene techs recovered something in the sand beneath Scott Cavendish’s body.” There it was again—that smug smile. “Tell me, Rainey, does that look like the charred remains of an arrow to you? Expert like yourself, receiving a new set every year, I’m certain you’re the one to ask.”

I held still, mind racing. I didn’t consider this. Not for a second did I consider this.

“Sit down, please.”

“Not until you tell me what exactly you’re asking,” I said to the door.

“I’m asking where you were during Ruckus, Rainey. I wouldn’t have thought that was a difficult question.”

Slowly, I turned to him. “I was partying with my friends like everyone else. You can ask Amy, Zara, and your daughter— Oh, oops. Paris isn’t your daughter, is she? Mom traded up for a handsome, rich daddy for that kid.”

“Careful,” he hissed.

“Why should I? I see what you’re doing.” I crossed in a bound, smacking my palms on the table. “I bet you wet yourself when the call came that Bella was killed in my home with an arrow. Finally, there was your chance to get rid of the one person who knew the truth of what you’d done.

“Get me tossed in prison as a murderer—and oh look, there’s another unsolved death you can pin on me too. Wrap both those cases in a bow, stamp my name on them, and no one will believe a word I say against you for the rest of my life.”

“That’s absurd!” he roared.

“Is it? Then why am I here when I know Cairo told you the person who attacked him was a man?!”

Shock blew his rage to nothing. “How did you—?”

“Obviously, Cairo told me. So, I ask again, why am I here?”

He didn’t hear the question. Snarl twisting his lips, Jack shoved in my face. “What do you have to do with my son?”

“I rather think that’s between me and him,” I sang.

“You stay away from him!”

“You turn yourself in,” I whipped back. “No? Well then, I guess no one is getting what they want today.”

His forehead knocked mine. “You’re in way over your head, de Souza.” Hot tequila breath filled my nose. “You think you know everything, but, little girl, you can’t see even the corner of this blurred picture. You don’t have the facts,” he barked, “nor the capacity to understand them. Go home and be careful who you slander. Someone who allegedly did the things you accuse me of would have no trouble making a double homicide stick.”

“Why did you do it?” His threat went in one ear and out the other. “Did AgriProspects pay you to cover up Gran’s autopsy results? Did they make you botch the investigation in the first place?”

“Get out!”

“Your son tastes like cherries,” I whispered. “He smells like earth, petrichor, and wind in your face as you run through the trees, but tasting him”—I licked my lips—“it’s all sweetness.”

Jack reeled back.

“He loves me, you know. Can’t get e-fucking-nough of me, and isn’t trying too hard to cure the obsession. He’s surprisingly open to hearing the truth about you. I hope you weren’t planning on dying with fond memories of you in your son’s head, because I’ll make sure that he and everyone in this town sees you for the monster you are, Jack Sharpe.”

“I—”

The door swung open.

“Rain.” His soft, cool voice doused the rage in our eyes. “Come to me.”

I wasn’t able to refuse Cairo the other times he called me. This time was no different.

He was tall, imposing, and perfect filling the entrance. His usual casual clothes of cotton hoodie and worn jeans hung on his sculpted frame. His hair was damp and curling at the temples—like he raced straight here from a shower. I curled into his side, feeling the heat of his father’s glare as he put his arm around me.

“Dad,” Cairo began, tone even. “I heard you pulled Rainey in for questioning, so I came down here to save you wasting your time. We all know how important the first few days are in a murder investigation. A guy killed that woman and attacked me. Didn’t see his face, but I caught his polished black loafers as he was running out. Those aren’t exactly my girl’s style.”

“She could still be involved.”

“She’s not.”

Jack flushed an even darker shade of purple. “I will go where this investigation leads me, Cairo!”

“And I, as the witness, will have to tell the truth, whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Rainey didn’t kill that woman.”

He raised his chin, staring his nose down at us. “Are you... certain of what you saw, Cairo? Just how close are you two?”

Cairo held his father’s gaze steadily. “I’m certain I’ve got a fucked-up shoulder and no reason to lie about the murder of an innocent night manager. You don’t trust your son’s word?”

Jack’s jaw visibly ticced. The silence stretched past comfortable.

“Fine,” he said. “You can go.”

For the briefest second, Jack Sharpe changed. A figure claimed his space—less gray salting his pepper. Less girth lining his middle.

“You can go.”

I blinked and he was gone.

Cairo’s firm grip on my shoulder led me out.

I glanced at him as we passed a watchful Davidson in the hall. I sensed a headache coming on. I massaged my temples, wishing my backpack and Advil wasn’t still in class. “How much of that did you hear?”

“Enough,” he replied.

I wonder if he expected an apology, because none would come where his father was concerned.

“How’d you know I was here?”

“Everyone knows you’re here, baby. Your tasing is trending.”

“Mmm. Camera phones, the number one worst invention of our lifetime.”

“So,” he drew out. “I taste like cherries?”

“Most days,” I mused. “Others you’re kinda lemony.”

“Good to know. And when exactly did I fall in love with you?”

“That night in the woods.” I brushed my fingers over his belt, and the dueling wolves tattoo. “You found your mate and claimed her.”

He hummed.

If I expected more of a response, it wasn’t coming. It was possible the idea of love hadn’t crossed his mind till I put it there.

Cairo opened the truck for me to go in. Over his shoulder, I spotted Davidson, Officer Andres, and the sheriff peering through the glass door, watching us leave. Cairo climbed inside but didn’t start the car. He followed my gaze to the man who gave him his height, chin, and eyes.

“What’s this about your grandmother?”

I froze. Cairo truly had heard enough.

“Did Roan tell you about our conversation the night of the party?”

Cairo grasped my chin, turning me to face him. “He said he shared more of what we do than he should have. What did he leave out?”

“Wow. I wasn’t expecting him to keep what I said to himself, but then, I should know by now not to underestimate Roan Banks.”

He waited me out.

“My grandmother was poisoned.” I almost turned to the station and stopped myself. I couldn’t look in that man’s face while I talked about her. “I had a feeling something was wrong when she suddenly died without a will. I knew it like I know my name, and I wouldn’t let it go. I spent everything I saved up for college to get a private autopsy, and then I gave those results to your father. He said later that he never got them. Pretended he didn’t know me or the name Abigail de Souza.”

Again Cairo disappointed me. He showed not a lick of outward reaction. “Who did you think killed her?”

“A man named Andrew Clein. He worked for the company that constantly harassed her into selling.”

“What happened to this Clein guy?”

“After AgriProspects folded up, he changed his name and fled further than I could reach. I even used the last bit of money I could spare to hire a private investigator and track him down. Nothing.”

“Are you sure?”

I frowned. “What do you mean am I sure?”

“I mean, there are a couple of homicidal headcases who made you their single purpose in life. Is the answer staring us in the face, Rain? Is the Letter Man Andrew Clein?”

My head was shaking before he ended the sentence. “You’d have to have met him, and you’d have to read the letters, but the same thought crossed my mind and I dismissed it. The new Letter Man is rough and unhinged, but also enjoying himself. I can sense in his letters that this is a fun game for him.

“Andrew Clein was this nervous, twitchy person. His eyes were always darting around the room, and he spoke every sentence like a question. He’s the kind of guy that takes orders, not action. Besides, he got away with what he did thanks to Sheriff Jack.” I spat the name and title. “What reason would he have to come after me now?”

Cairo leaned against the door. “You really hate my father.”

“I have good reason to!”

“Begs the question, why haven’t you done something about it?” Cairo could’ve been talking about the weather for all his inflection. “I remember you saying you had proof.”

“I do. I have— I have my grandmother,” I said softly. “When I have the money, I’ll have her exhumed and the second autopsy will say the same as the first. I’ll put it in the right hands this time, and they’ll hunt down Clein and the people who told him to kill her.”

“How much money we talking?”

“Five thousand dollars.”

He whistled. “Well, you’re fucking a millionaire’s son now. Let’s say Legend writes you a check tomorrow. Would you do it, Rain? My love, my mate.” A smirk twisted his lips. “Would you have my father thrown in jail?”

I gazed deep in those eerie green pools. “Without losing a wink of sleep.”

Cairo laughed—hearty, rich guffaws pealing from his chest. “A wolf doesn’t mate with a bunny, does he? I should expect no less.”

“You’re not going to stop me?”

“I am going to stop you,” he said clearly. “Because you’re making a mistake. Despite that gift of judging character, you missed that Andrew Clein and my father might as well be twins. Except Sheriff Jack invested in those acting lessons.”

“What are you talking about?”

“He’s a man who takes orders, not action. Actually, he’s a man who drinks his shame while his son carries out those orders. He didn’t one day get it into his head to cover up the murder of an old woman.” Cairo drifted over my head. I wasn’t sure if his father was still there. I didn’t look to see. “He got that idea from someone else.”

“AgriProspects must have paid him.”

Cairo tossed his head. “He’s got no use for money. Dad doesn’t go anywhere. He doesn’t do anything. He’s been walking in boots he’s had for six years ever since he handed over the keys to this truck. Hardly a man sitting on thousands in hush money.”

“So what?” I snapped. “Someone made him cover up her death and that’s supposed to be okay? He’s the sheriff of this town. If he can be bullied into letting murderers free, then I’m doing everyone a favor seeing him thrown out.”

“Did you not hear what I said? Someone made him cover up your grandmother’s death, and it wasn’t a bribe from a bankrupt company or threats from a nervous, twitchy businessman. You’re not interested in finding out who is really behind this?”

My eyes narrowed. “Are you trying to manipulate me? Spin the facts to suit yourself and protect your father.”

“Why would I do that when I just committed to finding out what happened to your grandmother?”

“I know what happened.”

“And I know my father. He’s not a good or a bad man, he’s a weak one.”

“He just threatened to pin a double homicide on me.”

“Right, of course, you’re only responsible for the one homicide.”

I twisted away, turning my back on him. “I said Jack Sharpe was off-limits. We’re done talking about him.”

His grip was firm but gentle, making me face him. “This is serious, Rain. I’m not denying my father did what he did, I’m saying he couldn’t have done it for the reasons you think. Maybe Andrew Clein isn’t the one sending you letters, but could this guy now be the one giving the orders?”

My expression changed. Now I was listening. “The Letter Man? You’re asking if Clein could’ve killed her on the instructions of another black letter? Why would he, or Cavendish, want to hurt my grandmother?”

“Why would he kill Bella Hope? Why would Cavendish twist you up in his sickness? Why did you wake up one day and find a letter on your porch?” he asked. “You say you don’t know what started this, what if that’s because it didn’t begin with you? It began with her.”

“But— But Cavendish had nothing to do with AgriProspects.”

“Do you know that? He was an accountant and they were going bankrupt.”

Holy shit.Yes, Cairo definitely got my attention. I lurched across the dash, gripping his arm.

“No one gained from her death,” I said. “The company didn’t get the farm. They didn’t have the money to buy it in the end. I’ve been asking myself for two years why they ruined our lives to get a farm they were forced to abandon.”

“You’re right, it doesn’t make any sense. Something obviously went wrong with the plan.”

I looked back at the station. “Cairo, are we pretending your father isn’t the one to ask? It’s as simple as making him expose who put him up to it.” My grip on him tightened. “And are you pretending that I’m not thinking of your father passing the orders off on his son? Was this an order he got from the person on the other end of your phone? One that he couldn’t pass off to you because it’s a sheriff who buries evidence?”

“No,” Cairo said clearly. “She’s not behind this.”

She?

“You can take the situation we’re in as proof. The very last thing she wants is a single piece of Bedlam in the hands of an outside company.”

I accepted that—for now. “You said you’re committed to helping me find out the truth?”

“I am.”

I eyed him. “Is this for me, or for Jack?”

He smiled. “Want the truth?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve seen what you’ll do when backed into a corner. If you lose all hope of getting her justice and exposing my father, I suspect you’ll kill him, Rain.”

The day I drove to his house came into sharp clarity.

Cairo’s words reached me from far away. “If you try, I’ll have to stop you, then you’ll consider if this love goes both ways, and if it’s stronger than your love for Abigail de Souza.” Cairo lifted his shirt, revealing the tattoo in its intricate glory. “A wolf doesn’t choose a bunny for its mate, and a man doesn’t choose between his girl and his blood.

“I can’t let you kill my father, Rain.”

My voice was a low rasp. “I never said I would.”

“You’re not saying you won’t.”

I fell quiet.

Cairo trailed his fingers down my cheek, tipping my chin. “We’re going to find out what really happened, baby, then you’ll unleash that rage on the people who’ve earned it.” He kissed me. “Agreed?”

My answer came slow, but it came.

“Agreed.”

Cairo started the car. We drove out of the parking lot, watching the station grow small in the rearview.

It was Cairo’s turn to wonder what I was thinking as I rested my head on the glass, eyes glazed on Bedlam going past. My thoughts should’ve been easy to guess.

I was thinking of the Letter Man, and how long he lurked out of sight.