Chapter 16 #2
And then I broke. The dam welling inside of me flooded at the knowledge that my brother was coming for me. My face crumpled, and my hands went immediately to cover my face.
Tate wouldn’t allow it. In one swift movement, he slid me across the bed, settled beside me, and slid an arm underneath my neck, pulling me into him and onto his chest, while I soaked his shirt with quiet tears that wracked my body.
When we heard the police arrive a few minutes later, most of my tears had dried up.
It was just the occasional sniffle that escaped.
I wasn’t sure if Tate even knew he was doing this, but his fingers brushed gently across my back, lulling me to a place of calm.
We heard the Walker boys talking loudly and leading the police to my room next door.
Sometime later, a soft knock sounded on Tate’s door. Maybe I was dreaming—no doubt if it were true, Tate would deny it to his grave—but I could have sworn there was the softest of kisses brushed against my head before he slid out from underneath me and answered the door.
The next few hours were a blur of police questioning, dusting for prints, and the entire Walker family up in arms, trying to figure out how Leroy had gotten inside when all the windows had been locked and there was no forced entry.
The Walker men performed room and window checks every night, last night included.
It was finally determined that Leroy must have snuck into the home sometime the day before, while the entire family was at the barn raising.
“It would have been easy for him to sneak inside when you were all in and out of the house, and get somewhere downstairs to hide until the middle of the night,” one of the officers stated matter-of-factly, as if his statement didn’t absolutely obliterate all of us who lived here.
The police finished conducting their investigation later that afternoon with one policeman informing me that I could move back into my room.
By that time, Will had arrived, and the Walkers already had plans in place to increase security around their house and put more cameras everywhere.
I sat through it all, my brain a fuzzy mess.
Tate had such torment in his eyes I could hardly look at him.
I listened and watched as the Walker family moved into a frantic tizzy to accommodate and fix and protect until I couldn’t stomach the way I had flipped their entire world upside down.
All this just five days before Jaxon’s wedding. Poor Ann. She didn’t need anything else to stress about.
It was then, while listening to Tate and Will debate the merits of moving me somewhere or keeping me here (Will wanted to move me, and Tate wanted me to stay, shockingly enough), that my phone dinged with a text from Elaine.
Elaine: Check your email. Urgent.
A feeling of dread settled over me. But since I didn’t think anything else thrown at me today could top what had already occurred, I opened my email with a feeling of hostile indifference.
“Knock, knock.”
My door opened, and I smiled when Reese’s head popped in. Tate had only just left my side when his dad needed his help installing a camera.
“Hey,” I said, sliding my partially packed duffel bag underneath the desk. “What are you doing here?”
She entered the room in jeans and a wrinkly t-shirt, like she’d just thrown on whatever she had lying around, before she closed the door. She hugged me before flopping down on my bed. She immediately grabbed a carrot from the vegetable tray and was eyeing the cheese and crackers Ann had brought me.
“I came with Dominic,” she said, giving the vegetable a generous dip in ranch dressing. “He’s changing the locks and installing a bunch of security cameras all over. This place will be tighter than Fort Knox when those boys are done.”
My eyes closed. “I told them not to do that.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m going to tell Will to get me out of here.”
She sat up. “I heard him tell Dom you were staying.”
I swore softly, my entire body feeling achy at the thought of all the trouble happening to this sweet family for my benefit.
“What’s wrong?” she pressed again, pulling her brown hair up in a ponytail. “Besides having a deranged madman creep obsessed with you.”
“We could have died. Tate’s entire family, and me, could have been murdered in our beds. And Will’s probably pushing them to make me stay. I can’t do it. I can’t do that to this family.”
She held up her hands. “I wasn’t part of the conversation for long, but Will was most definitely not pushing them. Tate was the one demanding that you don’t go. Tom and Ann were agreeing. They want you to stay. They want to get him.”
“That’s because they’re too nice. They can’t really want this. A guy was hiding out in their basement while we were all sleeping.”
We both chewed on that and a couple carrots for a minute before Reese added, “Tate seems like he’s barely holding it together. Have you talked to him?”
“No. He mostly just grunts and throws things around when he comes inside. He only just barely left me alone in here. He only wants me to stay because he has some weird allegiance to Will.”
As I said the words, it felt wrong. The words felt wrong, disloyal to Tate and all his efforts in some way, but there was no other explanation that I was willing to entertain.
“Allegiance to Will?” Reese said incredulously before she began to laugh. “I don’t think it’s worry for Will that has him yelling and bossing Dom and all his brothers around and installing security cameras all over this farm.”
I flushed slightly and began to rise. “I need to stop all that. I—”
Reese shot a hand out and grasped my arm, pulling me back. “Just think about it for a second. Settle yourself back down on this fluffy bed where Tate probably sleeps in the nude and think.”
Despite myself, a laugh bubbled out of me.
“Not a bad picture in your head, right?”
I scowled lightly at her, but I didn’t mean it. I felt lighter with her here. Like it was all just a bad dream. A dream I didn’t want to think about anymore.
“Wait. Did you say you came with Dominic?” I asked.
Her cheeks darkened slightly with color as she opened a sleeve of crackers. “Yeah.”
I watched her. My eyes narrowed. “How are things going with you two?”
“Fine. Good? Good.” She didn’t meet my eyes.
That shifty little rat. My suspicion meter was at an all-time high. And it felt amazing to think about something else.
“Been busy spending copious amounts of alone time with your ex?”
“You’re one to talk, tractor girl.”
“Nice subject change.”
She took another handful out of the bag. “I thought so. Just don’t do anything crazy without talking to someone first. You matter to everyone here, no matter what you might think.”
“That was a beautiful TED Talk.”
“Thank you. Now let’s think about something happier. Let’s plan out what we’re going to do to this nut job when we catch him. I lean more toward the old medieval ways of punishment. Things like stretching, burning at the stake, stuffing him in the stocks…all that good stuff. What do you think?”
With a lighter heart, we spent the next few minutes concocting revenge tactics before she had to go, promising me a phone call later tonight.
I needed to leave.
If the Walkers knew that, they’d have a guard around me all night.
While a part of me wanted to sneak away in the cloak of darkness and stop being a burden on this sweet family, another part of me knew I couldn’t do that to them.
It would be selfish to sneak off and make them worry like that.
After all they’d done for me, that wasn’t the answer.
Besides, I didn’t have anywhere to go. That left me with one person able to help—the person who got me in this mess in the first place.
I picked up my phone to call Will, but not before I glanced again at the email from my boss, my heart sinking at each word.
It was one more problem to add to the mix. One more iron on the fire, so to speak. But in this case, it would only help my insistence on leaving.
Because if I wanted to keep my job, I could no longer stay in this house.
I dialed Will’s number.
“Hey,” he greeted.
“Are you back home now?”
“I’m still on the road. Almost there. How are you holding up?”
“You need to get me out of here.” I used my best no-nonsense voice for this speech. Will bulldozed right through it.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No. You will stay with Tate until we catch him.”
“What if that’s never? He has to go back to his job eventually. What if Leroy sneaks in again and hurts somebody?”
“He won’t. We’ve got cameras everywhere.”
“I don’t want to do that to this family.”
“They’ve already agreed. Tate won’t let me take you anywhere else.”
“I don’t care. This started as your operation! Not Tate’s. Get me out of here.” In a last-ditch effort to make him take me seriously, I threatened, “Or maybe I’ll just find my own arrangements out of here.”
“Olivia,” he growled. “Don’t even think about it.”
“You have two days to make it happen, or I’ll figure something else out. Either way, I have to leave.” My words felt big. Bold. Words a main character would be proud to say. But I didn’t feel proud. I felt lost and confused and absolutely terrified.
“Come home with me, then,” he said quietly.
My heart sank, and hopelessness rose in my chest. “I can’t. I’m not doing that to Meg and Hazel.” I thought of my six-month-old niece’s chubby little smile and fingers, and there was no way I’d bring my problems to their door. “Please, Will,” I whispered.
He sighed. “I don’t know where to go from here.
My boss won’t give me permission to move my team there.
I’ve got the Autumn Ridge PD on the lookout, but other than that, I’m stuck.
No matter where I put you, somebody is at risk until we find this guy.
Tate’s willing and wants it, and he’s good at what he does, so I’m going to let him have it. ”
I closed my eyes. I was done talking.
“Liv,” Will said softly. “Please tell me you’re not a flight risk.”
“I’m not a flight risk,” I said with little emotion.
Will swore and hung up on me.