Jake could tell Aly didn’t exactly agree with Nate, but he’d made enough of a case she didn’t argue.She nodded in agreement.
Nate headed for the door.Jake didn’t have a choice to his way of thinking except to follow.
They stepped out into a quiet morning.Something about the delicate sunrise suddenly made Jake justtired.He was used to working through the night, but this felt… different.
Probably because he wasn’t working in any kind of professional capacity.This was personal—because as far as anyone could tell, no actual crime had been committed.
Jake Hayes had made sure to keep thepersonalout of his life for quite some time.
“We can cut through on foot if you’re good with that,” Nate said, walking off the sprawling porch and into a soggy yard.
Spring thaw was in full swing, and while Jake had grown up mostly in town, he was all too aware of the ranching seasons out here in the community he’d grown up in.
“Whatever’s quickest,” Jake muttered.
Nate nodded.“Follow me then.”
Jake didn’tlovefollowing in good circumstances, and this wasn’t good, but he didn’t really have a choice.
They moved at a quick clip across the soggy yard, then down into some trees.Nate walked with an odd kind of barely noticeable limp that didn’t seem to slow him down any.
Military injury, Jake knew.Because he’d done his homework on Nate Bennet.He wasconvincedthere was something the guy was hiding.A guy didn’t disappear for fifteen years, then suddenly decide to come back—even with that sob story about his dad beating him.
“So, what’s really going on here?”Nate asked after they’d been walking a while.
Jake considered.He wasn’t too keen on giving Nate any information he didn’t already have, and Cal had explained what little they’d discovered in Kalispell when they’d found him and Sam at Honor’s Edge dealing with what Sam had stumbled upon with the dead body.
She’d definitely been messed up over that, and Bennet had just sat there with her.Held her.Jake tried to think of any time he’d done something like that with someone he knew.Sure, sometimes he had to break bad news to strangers or acquaintances, but he never just…
Why thehellwas he thinking about this?
“I don’t know what’sreallygoing on any more than you or Cal,” Jake said, because he’d rather give more about the case than dwell on his personal life.“But I don’t think it’s a coincidence Gerald Harrington and Daryl Everly were with my dad when he died.I don’t think it’s a coincidence the police report to Gerald’s shooting is missing, and the guy who should have taken it was found dead.I don’t think it’s coincidence Daryl Everly sent us looking into his nephew then was nowhere to be found when we got back into town.”
They came to a creek that was clearly high due to snowmelt, but there was a little crudely made bridge that Nate was charging toward, so Jake followed.
“What about Cal’s involvement?”Nate asked once they were on the other side.“He would have been like ten when all this went down.Why is he getting threats?Why would Everly, who’d been a mentor to him, have anything to do with it?”
“Fuck if I know.You tell me.You’re his brother.”
“I was four.”
“Which means you were all living in the same house together.”
“I don’t remember any kind of connection to the Harringtons when we were kids, aside from Dad buying a lot of their ranchland and knowing they still lived up there.Landon says as adults, Cal’s always had this weird connection with Glenda but based on everything I’ve witnessed since I’ve been back, I’m not sure even Cal knows why.”
“You really believe all that traumatic amnesia bullshit?”Jake followed Nate up another hill.
Nate didn’t answer right away.Instead, he came to a stop at the tree line.In the middle of this clearing was the Harrington cabin.
“Yeah, I believe it,” he finally said, soft and serious.
“Why?”
Nate’s gaze took in the entire scene around them, much like Jake would do if this were a crime scene.
“If you’d spent any time in a war zone and seen the different ways different people cope with seeing the absolute worst humanity has to offer, you wouldn’t ask me why.”
Jake found that answer really fucking pretentious.He was about to open his mouth to belabor the point—a cop and detective sawplentyof the worst humanity had to offer.Maybe he’d even planned to be a dick about it, but he heard a faint noise that didn’t fit the quiet morning around them.He frowned, trying to somehow concentrate to hear it better, but it was still just faint.
