It didn’t.
She continued anyways.
There was no point in keeping it in any longer.
Darius had taken a bullet because of her.
The truth would hurt less.
She hoped.
“I think he’s the reason he got the White Knight of Small-town Living nickname in the first place.”
Darius’s eyebrow lifted once more.
“He gave himself the nickname?”
Eve shook her head.
Her answer felt as loud in mostly dark hospital room as the gunshot had.
“I think Scott Keys destroys small towns just so he can save them.” Eve made sure to hold Darius’s gaze. He sure was handsome. She let out a small breath. “And I think he’s only coming to save Seven Roads now…because he’s spent the last several years slowly destroying it.”
Chapter Thirteen
The town was in an uproar and, for the first time it had nothing to do with the danger or mystery that had taken place within its limits.
No one really cared about the still-unknown woman shooter who had carjacked Mr. Gleason while he was pumping premium or that, while his car had reappeared in the next county over, she hadn’t.
No one seemed to care about the shooter who had died at the steel mill being identified as a Rafe Bailey—a do-anything for hire with a long jacket of various criminal activities and time spent in several county jails and one state prison—or the fact that still no one knew who had hired him.
And when it came to the steel mill itself—the largest employer of the entire town, and the one stretch of space in all of Seven Roads that most residents had been to at least once—almost no one spoke about the boarded-up, blocked-off and hidden network of old rooms beneath that had been partially discovered after the shooting.
Some did speak to the fact that the shooting in question had resulted in the injuries of the only McCoy County detective and the Keyses’ almost-bride, but most of those people chattering were working at the sheriff’s department. One of their own had been hurt, and they had no one in custody to answer for it. A gnawing problem that kept their focus on the things that mattered most.
Talk of Gary Whittaker’s homicide case, still without a lead, hadn’t completely died down, but the shock value’s stock had never risen too high to begin with, since he had been an outsider.
Instead, the gossip that blew every other piece of news out of the water for the town locals kept to one bit of information that had leaked in the aftermath of all the hubbub.
The rumored breakup of Evelyn Myers and Mitchell Keys.
It was one thing for the wedding to be postponed because of a homicide. But for the bride-to-be to be caught out with another man the day after with no public explanation, not to mention the extra layer of rumor that Scott Keys had made such a stink at the sheriff’s department, demanding that same man be fired… Who cared about Gary Whittaker?
Who cared about the missing shooter?
Who cared why there had been a shooting at all?
Darius, a week later, believed he could have left the town in ruins if they could only see who met him in his living room after finally being released from the hospital.
Eve, sitting cross-legged in front of a laptop on his couch, nearly fell over as she tried to undo herself to stand. Mitchell, sitting next to her, managed to catch the water bottle she’d had sitting next to her before it fell to the floor.
“I didn’t think you were getting released until this afternoon,” Eve exclaimed, righting herself. Mitchell gave her a little push for extra stability. She didn’t address it. Her gaze went over his shoulder to the hallway leading to the front door. “How did you get here? Did you drive? Is that allowed? I mean, I know it’s mainly the one side of you that’s all hurt, but surely that’s still not allowed. You know, I got a flu shot in the backside once, and it hurt like all heck just driving back a few blocks, so I bet a bullet wound would—”
Darius held up one hand in astopgesture and interrupted the raging flow of thoughts.
“Theo’s outside with my bag,” he said. “He’ll be in after he finishes telling Liam I’m out and home. My phone’s juice is low, or else I’d do it.”
He added in the last part because he had a feeling Eve was about to grill him on why he hadn’t called her.
