His eyes slowly swiveled to meet mine, and what I saw in the depths of them told me he might not return.
“Okay. I guess we’d better get started.”
I shuffled the contract to the side and pulled up a new document on my computer. Fuck, it had been a long time sinceI’d made a will, but I was going to be doing a lot of things I didn’t normally do if I was working in a small town.
“So, first things first. For a will, you usually have a beneficiary. Did you have someone in mind?”
He glanced at the wall, his jaw clenching hard before giving a tight nod. “Yeah, I’ve got someone in mind.”
“Alright, let’s get to work.”
Archer signed the will,then shoved out of his seat, pulling a few hundred from his wallet before tossing it on the desk.
It wasn’t normally the way I did business, but with a man like Archer, I wasn’t going to argue. Whatever he was planning on doing, it must be fucking dangerous. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be in here making a will before going out of town.
“I’ll take care of everything else,” I said, getting to my feet. “Anything else I can help you with?”
“No one sees that, right?”
“Nope. I’ll secure the document in the safe. Upon your death, and only upon your death, I’ll make sure your last wishes are carried out.”
With a swift nod, he exited.
“Okay,” I muttered to myself, picking up the document and carrying it to the wall safe. I was going to have to have a walk-in safe installed to better secure client information. But for now, this would work.
I locked it up tight and spun the dial on the combination after closing the door.
“Ryder!” a panicked male voice called out from the other room.
“Fuck,” I groaned, staring up at the ceiling for all of two seconds. I was never gonna get out of here.
Michael Parker rushed into my office, his face filled with panic. He didn’t even say anything as he shoved a paper in my face.
Emergency court hearing.
“For Wesley,” I said to myself.
“Someone just shoved that in my face and said I’d been served. What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means you have to appear in court in two days at ten o’clock with Blake.”
“But what the hell is this? It can’t be the parents. They don’t give a shit about him!”
I scanned through the paperwork again, this time catching the name…Simmons… “It’s his grandparents. It looks like they’re going to sue for custody.”
“Can they do that? They haven’t been in his life for fucking years!” he said, his voice laced with panic.
“They can, but that doesn’t mean they’ll win. Look, this is just an emergency hearing.”
“But for what? Why so soon?”
“Has anything happened recently that would lead the grandparents to believe that you’ve put Wesley in danger?”
“No! Of course not—” His face paled as he turned, running his fingers through his hair. “Shit.”
“What? What is it?”
Cursing under his breath, he turned to me. “About a year and a half ago, there was a little girl missing. The whole town was looking for her. Wes followed Blake out to the Callahan ranch. Remember John had a twin?”
