Chapter 23
Aidan
The farmhouse is a jagged tooth of grey stone against the sky, looking every bit like the sort of place people go to die.
Callan doesn’t say a word; he doesn’t have to. We are like two halves of the same dark thought. He’s scanning the tree line, eyes cold and clinical, while I check our back. The air out here is too quiet. It feels like a trap waiting to snap shut.
A buzzing off to the right makes us both freeze.
“A phone?” I mutter.
Callan points a finger toward a cluster of tall grass and rusted farm equipment fifty yards ahead. I follow the line of his hand. The buzzing is rhythmic, insistent.
I move first, and stay low, my boots finding the soft patches of dirt to muffle the crunch of dried leaves.
We reach the source, and we stare at it before we look at each other.
“Great,” I mutter, staring down at Jack’s dead body, shot right between the eyes. The fucker probably didn’t even see it coming.
I bend down and grab the phone, answering it with a terse, “Yeah?”
“Aidan,” Maeve says, her voice flat. “Where is he?”
“Dead.”
“Fuck,” she curses and hangs up.
I pocket the phone and Callan and I move back out of sight in the cover of the brush. Ethan joins us, followed by Annabelle and Maeve.
“He’s dead?” Annabelle asks quietly.
“Yeah,” I say.
The word lands hard in the little clearing we’ve made for ourselves. Annabelle goes white under her tan. Ethan’s face shuts down in that dangerous way of his, all control welded into place. Maeve closes her eyes once, briefly and viciously, then opens them again.
“How?” Ethan asks.
“Shot in the head.” I glance back towards the grass.
Callan shifts slightly, eyes still on the tree line.
Annabelle presses her lips together. She stares at me for a second, then past me, towards where Jack is lying out of sight. “And the woman?”
“We haven’t found her yet,” I say. “We only found Jack because Maeve was calling him.”
Annabelle wraps her arms around herself, then drops them like she’s caught herself doing it. “So what now?”
I look at the old house again. Every broken window feels like an eye. “Now you call Bennett and tell him you have the evidence your mother left you.”
She hisses, and I frown.
“What?” I ask as Callan leans closer.
“Come again?” he says coldly.
Ethan purses his lips and then inhales. “It’s the plan. Annabelle is going to draw Bennett here under the guise that she has evidence to bury him and his pals. Then we kill him. And we keep killing them all until they’re wiped from the earth.”
“That’s the plan,” Annabelle agrees, which satisfies me that Ethan hasn’t just sprung this on her right now.
I study her face while she says it. She is scared. Of course she is. Only a complete idiot would not be. But she is not backing away, and that makes me love her even more. Something I will unpack later.
“Use your phone, put it on speaker,” I say.
She wipes her palm on her leggings before pulling out her phone. Her fingers shake once, then steady.
“No one fucks this up,” she says.
It is not a plea. It is an order.
I almost smile.
Annabelle dials and waits.
We all go still.
The ringtone cuts through the quiet. Once. Twice. Three times.
Then a click.
“Miss Harrison.” Bennett’s voice comes smooth and professional down the line. “I was expecting to see you this afternoon.”
Annabelle’s expression does not move. “The plan has changed.”
A pause. “Are you okay?”
I have to give it to the prick. He sounds concerned and calm, like he hasn’t ruined lives for sport.
“No,” she says flatly. “Everything is not okay. My mother left me something, and I’ve just found it.”
Silence.
Then, carefully, “What sort of something?”
“Evidence.”
The word lands like a bullet.
Callan shifts half an inch beside me. Ethan’s eyes go dead.
Bennett doesn’t speak for two seconds. Three. When he does, his tone is lighter than it was before, which tells me more than any panic would have. “Evidence of what? Who might be her killer?”
Oh, he’s good. Fucker will die painfully.
Annabelle lets out a short breath. “Evidence of who’s been hurting women for years. Evidence of who killed my mother when she got too close.”
Another pause.
I can hear the bastard thinking.
“Annabelle,” Bennett says, voice softer now, like he is trying to talk a frightened child off a ledge, “where are you?”
She looks at Ethan once. He gives her the tiniest nod.
“At the farmhouse near Ludsbrook,” she says. “My mum wrote it down. I found it hidden with other things. Names. Dates. Places.”
Maeve’s face is carved from stone.
Bennett is quiet long enough that my finger tightens on the trigger. Then he says, “You need to leave there right now.”
Annabelle gives a sharp laugh. “Why? Because it’s dangerous?”
“Because if what you’ve found is real, you could be in serious trouble.”
“You mean from the men in it?”
I almost grin. That’s my girl.
His tone firms. “Listen to me carefully. Stay where you are. Do not call anyone else. I’m coming to get you.”
“No police,” she says at once. “No uniforms. If this is what I think it is, I don’t trust any of you.”
“That’s understandable.”
Liar.
“I only called you because you were on my mother’s case,” she says.
“You did the right thing,” Bennett cuts in, gentle as poison. “Stay hidden. I’ll be there soon.”
The line goes dead.
For one second, no one says anything.
Then Ethan says, “How long?”
Maeve is already moving, dragging her phone out, pulling up something on the screen. “From the station, if he leaves now and drives hard, forty-five minutes.”
“Does he really think you think he’s innocent?” I ask with a sharp laugh.
“He believes he needs to keep me thinking that,” she replies. Her hands are shaking wildly now. I pull her to me, and she rests her head on my chest. “I’m scared.”
“I know, little bell, but we’ve got you. No one here will let you get hurt.”
“What if they shoot me like they did Jack?”
Ethan and I exchange a grim look. “We won’t let that happen.”
“How can you stop it?”
“They aren’t going to kill you from afar,” Callan states.
Annabelle hisses.
I shoot him a furious stare.
“I mean, if they want to kill you, they’ll want to know what evidence you have and where it is. They aren’t going to shoot first and ask questions later.”
“He’s right,” I say, shaking my head slightly. He needs to work on his bedside manner.
Maeve looks up from her phone. “He won’t come alone.”
“Good,” Ethan says. “Saves us a trip.”
I ease Annabelle back a little so I can look at her face. She is trying hard not to shake. “When he gets here, you do exactly what we say. You don’t improvise. You don’t get brave in the wrong direction.”
Her chin lifts. “I’m already being brave in the wrong direction.”
“That isn’t funny.”
“Kind of is.”
I smirk, and it relaxes her a fraction.
She breathes in and releases it. “Tell me what to do.”
Callan crouches and drags a rough map in the dirt with a stick. “Farmhouse here. Main track there. Broken wall to the rear. Tree line on three sides. Bennett will come first. He needs to know what this evidence is.”
Ethan points at the sketch. “Annabelle goes visible here. Front of the house. Not too far out. He needs to see her fast.”
“No,” I argue.
Ethan’s head turns. “What?”
“She doesn’t stand in the open like a fucking target. Not with a rifle possibly trained on this place.”
Callan’s eyes flick to the tree line again. “Agreed. But also, if there were, we’d all probably be dead by now.”
Ethan looks irritated for half a second, then recalculates. That is one thing about my brother. He is a controlling bastard, but he is not stupid enough to cling to a bad idea because it was his. “Fine. Adjust it.”
I crouch and take the stick from Callan. My side gives a warning pull. I ignore it. “She stays just inside the doorway. Visible enough that Bennett sees her, covered enough that if anyone takes a shot from distance, they hit stone first.”
Annabelle looks at the farmhouse. “The doorway looks like it could collapse if I breathe on it.”
“It’ll hold for ten minutes,” I say.
Maeve steps closer, studying the dirt map. “If he brings backup, they won’t all approach from the same angle. Bennett will want eyes on the track and the rear.”
“I take rear wall,” Callan says.
I nod. “I take left flank. Ethan takes right. You stay with Annabelle.”
Maeve’s expression hardens. “I am not sitting this one out while that bastard comes for her.”
“You are if I say you are,” Ethan replies.
Maeve steps right into his space. “Try it.”
“Gladly.”
“You stay with her,” I say to Maeve. “Because if Bennett gets close enough to talk, you’re the one who knows how he operates.”
Her jaw tightens. “And if I get a shot?”
“You take it,” I say. “This isn’t a competition. We all want the same thing.”
That settles something in her. She nods once.
Callan points at the dirt. “Bennett parks on the track. If he is smart, he keeps a distance first. Talks. Assesses.”
“He is smart,” Maeve says. “Assume that.”
“I already do,” Callan mutters.
Ethan looks at Annabelle. “You tell him you found a notebook. Nothing digital. Nothing sent anywhere.”
“Why?”
“Because if he thinks there’s a copy, he gets cautious.”
“And if he thinks it only exists in one place, he’ll believe he can solve the problem by taking it off you,” I add.
Annabelle swallows. “Right.”
Callan draws another line in the dirt with the stick. “If Bennett arrives and starts asking questions from a distance, keep him talking. Short answers. Nothing clever.”
Annabelle’s mouth tightens. “I’m too scared for clever.”
“Scared is good. It’s real,” Maeve says. “If he asks where the notebook is, say it’s inside. Hidden. That gives him a reason to come closer.”
Annabelle nods, once, hard enough to tell me she is forcing herself to hold it together.
I take the stick from Callan and scrape a mark by the left side of the house. “If he tries to take you to the car, you stall. Drop the notebook. Ask a question. Fall over if you have to. Give us a second.”
“I can do that.”
Ethan stares at her. “You do not let him put a hand on you.”
“He will fucking lose it if he does,” Maeve grits out.
I glance around the clearing again. Broken wall, long grass, open front, half-collapsed side shed. Too many places for a bastard to hide. Too many angles. My side throbs under the fresh dressing, a hot reminder that I’m not at full strength. I don’t care.
“No one gets to sit back and watch. Once Bennett commits, we collapse it on all sides.”
Ethan nods. “Weapons check.”
We all do it automatically. Mine is loaded. Spare magazine in place. Knife where I want it. Callan does his in silence, efficient as breathing. Maeve checks her gun with hands that are steady.
Annabelle watches all of us, wringing her hands. “Should I have something? A gun? A knife?”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “It will make you look dangerous, and you have to look scared.”
“Okay,” she whispers.
I look at her for a second longer than I mean to. “You’ve got us,” I say.
Her eyes come to mine. Blue, bright, furious under the fear. “That only helps if you don’t miss.”
“I never miss.”
Ethan rises first and brushes the dirt off his palms. “Move.”
We split.
Callan disappears towards the rear wall with that eerie, silent efficiency that makes people underestimate how much damage he can do until it is far too late.
Maeve catches Annabelle by the wrist and takes her towards the farmhouse, keeping low until they reach the front.
Ethan circles right through the grass. I head left.
I cut through scrub and rusted metal, find a patch of broken stone and high weeds near the corner of the house, and drop into a crouch. From here, I can see part of the track, the front doorway, and enough of the side to catch anyone trying to circle round.
The wait starts digging in almost at once.
Flies buzz near the weeds. My side throbs in time with my pulse. I keep my breathing even and my gun steady.
No movement on the track yet.
I glance across the broken sweep of grass towards the doorway. I can only see part of it from here. A strip of shadow. A slant of stone. Then Annabelle appears for half a second, just enough for me to confirm where she is before she steps back again.
Good.
She looks small in that doorway.
That thought makes a vicious possession uncoil in me.
I settle deeper into the weeds and force my focus back outwards. Every few seconds, I check the same points again. It is boring in the way ambushes always are right up until they aren’t.
A car engine drifts over the field.
Every muscle in me locks.
I shift lower and angle my view. A dark car rolls into sight on the track, slow enough to tell me Bennett is being careful. It stops about thirty yards from the farmhouse.
The driver’s door opens, and Bennett gets out. His sleeves are rolled up, his tie is gone. He is a detective trying to look casual and approachable. He shuts the door quietly and scans the house.
He is alone.
For now.