I stowed two large locked cases in the back of my rental car. I didn’t open either of them. Hadn’t made up my mind about opening those hardback cases at all, despite Owen’s clear concerns.
But I needed to have these items close. Just in case. I was nowhere near fighting shape despite my active lifestyle and hours spent on the slopes or in the gym.
You closed the door on the man you were.
A shudder ran through me, and I fingered the bullet hanging near my throat as I drove out into the country.
Who was I now? The easygoing bartender and laid-back ski instructor?
The answer had to be yes.
The highway twisted back and forth through the canyon,then curved gently as the landscape opened up and I left Hartley behind.
Turning onto a quiet, two-lane stretch of asphalt, I drove onward, the road passing through a narrow valley with mountains framing either side.
I’d only visited this property once. It was a fifty-acre stretch of ranch land and foothills. The place had been about to enter foreclosure, and I’d bought it on impulse for dirt cheap during my time living in Hart County. Nobody else knew. Not even Owen or Keira.
At the time, I’d thought of this property as an investment. I’d planned to fix it up and start renting it out. I hadn’t let myself think about actually living here.
But of course, deep down, I’d wondered what it would be like to put down actual roots. To stay.
If only that were possible.
The exterior was rustic wood and stone. Not unlike the ranch property Aiden and Jessi had transformed into the Last Refuge Inn and Tavern, though that was on a mountainside instead of in a valley.
I unlocked the front door and stepped inside, waving away the dust that I kicked up walking across the wood floors. The living spaces were rough, with a sawhorse left over from some of the work. Drop cloths and a few forgotten tools littered the corners.
In the two years since I’d left, I’d hired a contractor to redo all the plumbing inside the house, which had been in rough shape. Same with the electrical.
I went around the house, checking the main electric box and switching on the water, which was fed by a well. Everything seemed to be in working order, at least the basics.
It wasn’t much. No furniture. Barely livable.
But I didn’t need much. I had a bedroll in my things. Running water was an upgrade from some of the perchesI’d holed up in, back in the day. This was enough to get started.
I had a hell of a lot to do.
First on my list would be connecting with River Kwon. I figured I might need River’s hacking skills, and of all the Protectors, River was the least likely to care about playing outside legal lines. Even if River’s wife was the lieutenant governor.
And then, I had to find a way to get Keira to talk to me again.
I told myself it was because I needed her eyewitness account about her attackers. But also, I just wanted to see her.
When she was so close in distance, there was no possibility of me staying away.
That had always been the issue, hadn’t it? When Keira was right there in front of me, she tempted me to believe a different ending was possible.
By two in the morning, I was still awake.
I rarely slept more than a few hours at a time. Tonight was no different, and jet lag hadn’t helped. I’d passed out early in the evening, and now I was up. Eager to make some kind of progress on my mission.
I moved through the rooms on instinct, listening to the quiet. Like a wraith in my own house. The place was silent around me, settling into itself with the occasional creak of old wood.
Moonlight filtered through the bare windows, casting pale rectangles across the floor.
I slipped through the cellar door and down the rickety wooden stairs in my bare feet. Switched on the exposed bulbusing the pull chain. There was a dirt floor at the bottom and several sets of shelves for storage, most of them empty except for the cobwebs I didn’t bother to clear.
I took out one of the cases I’d stowed here earlier. Well, I supposed it was yesterday now.
