I would’ve stood there until my skin pruned if the temperature hadn’t kept lurching between scalding and freezing. My muscles ached, my head pounded, and my chest felt like someone had wrapped a vice around it and kept cranking it tighter.
I toweled off, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, and dragged a comb through my wet hair until it stopped dripping.
Then I crawled into bed.
Exhaustion hit me like a freight train, but my mind refused to shut down. It kept cycling through everything that had happened. Bruce and Wayne Henderson’s bodies, sprawled across that kitchen floor. Bob actually shooting at me. Frank’s brutal confessions. The murdered runaway named Kat. Ancient handprints on cave walls. The Branson siblings closing ranks like a damn fortress every time I’d asked a question.
And Kayden.
Always Kayden.
He drifted through my thoughts like a tornado, fierce and wild and impossible to ignore.
I punched the pillow and rolled onto my side, trying to force my brain into neutral.
It didn’t work.
His face kept surfacing. That stupid grin when he’d yelled yeehaw. The way he’d looked at me under those stars, like he had a thousand things to say and no idea how to start.
How he’d taken the bullet and kept moving like it was nothing.
Shit. He was wounded. I sat bolt upright.
I’d been so focused on getting answers and finding Frank and Bob that I’d completely forgotten Kayden had been shot today. The wound had still been bleeding when he walked out of the kitchen. I bet that stubborn bugger still hadn’t treated it.
I should check on him. Make sure he’d cleaned it properly. Bandaged it.
I groaned and flopped back down.
No. He’s a grown man, Sapphire. He can sort his own shit out.
Besides, he’s a liar. And a damn good one.
That’s what kept niggling at me. How easy it had been for him to lie to my face. How smoothly he and his siblings had clammed up the second I’d started asking the right questions, protecting each other, protecting their mounting secrets. They were a tight family, I’d give them that.
Except for Frank. The hatred they showed for him was genuine. I believed that completely. Hell, after hearing those confessions, it was more than justified. Frank Branson had been a monster parading as a hardworking cowboy.
Bob was a lying bastard, too.
My jaw clenched so hard my teeth ached.
Bob had lied to me for years, conducting criminal activities right under my nose while I’d been looking up to him and learning from him. Hell, I’d wanted to be an amazing cop, just like him. There had to have been signs, red flags I’d missed because I’d been too focused on being grateful that he’d given me a shot as a police officer.
I felt like a complete fool.
But come lunchtime tomorrow, I’d have both those bastards in handcuffs. Frank and Bob. Justice for the young runaway, Kat. Justice for Bruce and Wayne. Answers to all that laundered money. An end to this nightmare.
We just had to find those cunning bastards. I hoped that cave was the right place.
A thought slammed into me, and I bolted upright.
What if Kayden and the others took the chopper to the cave tonight? What if they were planning to leave without me?
I threw back the sheet.
No damn way was that happening.
I needed a plan. Something that didn’t make me look paranoid or desperate.
