He hauls uncle Richard to his feet, and through the broken window I can see them both clearly. Roy looks like he's been living rough. Clothes dirty and torn, hair greasy and unkempt, face gaunt with the hollow-eyed desperation of a man who's been running from the law for too long.
But what makes my blood freeze solid is the gun in his hand, pointed directly at uncle Richard's chest.
"You lied to me," Roy snarls, pressing the barrel against Richard's sternum hard enough to leave a mark. "You said there would be drugs in that van. Good stuff, lots of it. Easy money, you said."
Uncle Richard's face goes white as fresh snow. "Calm down—."
"Fuck you!" Roy's voice cracks with rage and desperation. "You hired me to run that bitch off the road. Said she was carrying a shipment of veterinary ketamine. Easy money, you said. Just make it look like an accident."
My crash. Uncle Richard was behind it all.
"My brother's rotting in county lockup because of you," Roy continues, his finger tightening on the trigger. "The cops are hunting me like a goddamn coyote. And for what? Nothing! There were no drugs in that van!"
"There was a misunderstanding," Uncle Richard says carefully, his hands raised in surrender. "I can explain everything. I can make this right."
"Explain this, you lying sack of shit!"
The gunshot cracks across the Montana afternoon like thunder, echoing off the canyon walls.
39
Beau
The silence in Gabriel's kitchen after the SUV disappears is complete, hollow, like the world's been trampled flat and left bleeding in the dust.
I sit at the scarred oak table where Lucy laughed over pancakes this morning, staring at the scattered documents Richard Kensington left behind like evidence at a crime scene.
Colt paces by the window like a mustang in a too-small corral, his hands clenched into fists that he keeps flexing and releasing.
Every few steps, he stops to stare out at the empty gravel drive, as if willing Lucy's to materialize out of thin air.
Gabriel stands frozen by the sink, gripping the counter so hard his knuckles have gone white as bone.
None of us speak. What is there to say?
I keep replaying the moment she looked at me with those dark eyes desperate and pleading, begging us to believe her. To fight for her.
"Fuck this," Colt finally explodes, spinning away from the window with enough force to rattle the glass. "This is all wrong. Everything about this whole situation is wrong. I don’t believe a single thing… I canfeelher heart…"
Gabriel's jaw tightens like he's biting down on broken glass. "She lied about everything from her name to her background."
"No." Colt's voice is sharp as a branding iron, cutting through the thick air. "Did you see the fear in her eyes when she looked at her uncle? That was pure terror, like she was staring at her executioner."
"She's mentally ill, Colt," Gabriel says, but there's no conviction in his voice anymore. Just the hollow echo of a man repeating words he's not sure he believes. "The documents showed..."
I listen to them argue, but their voices feel distant, muffled, like they're talking under water. All I can think about is the way Lucy's face crumpled when I stepped back from her.
She isn't Lucy Reid. But she isn’'t a stranger either.
Impulsive? Undoubtedly. Secretive? Absolutely. But crazy? No. Not the kind of crazy that needed to be locked away and medicated into compliance.
"We fucked up," I say quietly, the words falling into the space between their argument like stones dropped in still water.
Both men stop to look at me, and I can see my own guilt reflected in their faces.
"Beau..." Gabriel starts, but I hold up a hand to stop him.
"No, listen to me. " I stand slowly, feeling the weight of every mistake I've made settling on my shoulders.
