Chapter 1
Jake’s phone vibrated on the bedside table. He grabbed it from the charger and jammed his index finger on the fingerprint reader to unlock it. He squinted at the text message:
You and Trent were wrong
about the car.
Jake frowned down at Ryan's text. What did this cryptic nonsense mean?
He glanced over at Chelsea, sound asleep on her stomach, one arm thrown over her head. Her back rose and fell, rose and fell. Peaceful, relaxed, safe. Her slumber was a point of personal pride for him. She was able to sleep because she knew he had her six. Literally.
Every night since her escape from Vance Asher's basement, she'd slept in Jake's bed. And every night, he parked himself in the chair in the corner of his bedroom and watched her back rise and fall, rise and fall. Only when she was in a deep sleep state did he leave his post and slide into bed beside her.
He ignored the ribbing at the office about how tired he looked and what might be keeping him up at night. Chelsea shrugged off the questions and innuendo, too. It didn’t matter what anyone else thought. They were rebuilding their relationship from the ground up, and there was no reason to rush. They were adults. They knew what they wanted, really wanted, and jumping each other’s bones wasn’t the way to get there.
He smoothed a hand over the honey-colored tangle of hair that fell across Chelsea’s shoulders in an absent-minded gesture as he parsed the one-line message. What car? He and Trent talked about a lot of cars. Trent headed up Potomac’s defensive and evasive driving programs, and all the company vehicles were under his purview.
He searched his memory, trying to think of an automotive issue that would also involve his in-house lawyer. Were they being sued by a student? No. Were they suing a car manufacturer? Also no. They did have that mountain of speeding tickets from the local police, but Ryan and Jake never bothered fighting them. If Potomac’s employees weren’t guilty of the specific motor vehicle violations that were slapped with, Jake knew they were guilty of something. So Jake paid them without complaint.
He scrubbed his hand over his face. You and Trent were wrong about the car. His brain gave him nothing. He was at a loss. He thumbed out a response:
What car?
He eased his body out of the bed, then padded silently across the room and out into his open kitchen/living area. The wood floor was like ice under his bare feet. The cold air pebbled his bare chest. He lit a fire in the massive stacked stone fireplace and checked the phone. Three bubbles blinked at him to let him know Ryan was composing a response.
He hit the button to start the coffeemaker and pulled a set of mugs down from the cupboard. Then he leaned against the counter and waited—for the coffee to brew or for Ryan to answer his question, whichever came first.
Ryan beat the coffeemaker by a full minute. Jake blinked down at the wall of tiny text that filled his phone’s display:
A copy of Vance Asher’s
guilty plea just hit my
email in-box thanks to a
friend in the DA’s office.
I forwarded you the statement.
It’s detailed, thorough.
He really wants the deal they’re dangling. He gives
a minute-by-minute account
of everything he did from the
time he bolted from the hospital until he tried to grab the flash drive
from C in front of the PD.
Okay? So?
The timeline matches
everything you, Trent,
and Chelsea gave in
your statements.
Except for one thing:
He didn’t move Chelsea’s Forester from under that tarp.
The coffeemaker beeped, signaling the completion of its task, and he poured the steaming coffee into a mug. He filled a second mug for Chelsea and set it aside while he sipped the scalding liquid and composed a response to Trent.
He’s lying.
He’s gotta be.
Ryan’s response was immediate, almost as if he’d begun composing his rebuttal before Trent even sent his message.
He wouldn’t.
He knows the smallest
inaccuracy means the deal’s off. He admits hiding the car
under the tarp. He admits
snatching C, smacking her, choking her, holding her in
his basement. He admits
lying in wait to grab the
drive from her.
Why cop to all that
and lie about this?
Jake furrowed his brow and drank his coffee. Ryan had a point. Why would Asher lie about something so minor? He couldn’t concoct a reason that made a lick of sense. Finally, he shook his head.
No clue. I can’t think
of any reason.
Right. The only thing
that makes sense is
he’s not lying.
Jake huffed out a frustrated breath.
I know what I saw
with my own damn eyes.
The car was there.
Then it wasn’t.
Trent will back
me up.
Sure, but that
doesn’t mean
Asher moved it.
Who else would
move it? Who else
would even know
it was there?
As his fingers formed the words, a band of ice squeezed his chest. He plunked the mug down on the counter and hit the button to call Ryan’s number.
“Yeah?” Ryan answered on the first ring in an early morning voice. Scratchy and low.
“First off, why are you reviewing witness statements at six-thirty in the morning? The sun’s not even up yet, Hayes.”
Ryan gave a short laugh devoid of humor. “I’m a one-man legal department, Jake. When else am I gonna do it? Asher’s sentencing is tomorrow. If we have outstanding questions, this is the time to raise them—we have maximum leverage now. Besides, I know you want to shield Chelsea from as much of this crap as you can. So I have to satisfy myself that the prosecutor has enough to put Asher away for a long time without getting a victim’s impact statement from her.”
The band around his chest squeezed tighter. “Does he?”
“She. Kristen Flank caught the case, which is good. She’s tough and smart. So, yeah, she has Vance admitting to all the acts that go to the charges of terrorizing Chelsea. He admits he choked her out. Hit her hard enough to draw blood. Kept her—”
“That’s enough. I don’t need a refresher.” Jake’s voice was clipped but calm. He fisted his free hand and dug his nails into his palm to maintain that calm facade.
“Sorry.” After a brief, awkward pause, Ryan continued, “So, no, she doesn’t need to give a statement. She doesn’t even need to come to the sentencing—unless she wants to.”
“Why would she want to?”
Ryan cleared his throat. “Some crime victims need to get closure. Some don’t. But that’s a personal thing. She knew Asher for years. Trusted him, liked him. She might want the story to come full circle—or not. But it needs to be up to her.”
Jake slumped his shoulders and let the rage dissipate. Ryan was right. He could shield Chelsea, but he couldn’t bubble wrap her.
“Yeah, okay. I hear you. You should talk to her today. See what she wants to do.”
“I will. Now, about the car—”
“You don’t think that discrepancy will cast doubt over the whole confession, do you?” Jake wasn’t exactly sure how that worked. Would the judge throw out the deal over a minor detail?
“No. It’s a small point, as far as Vance Asher’s sentence is concerned. But …”
Jake waited, but the heavy silence on the other end of the phone dragged out. Ryan didn’t want to be the one to give voice to the undeniable truth.
Jake forced out the words. “If Asher didn’t move her car, then someone else did. Someone who was watching Vance then and is probably watching Chelsea now. Someone who knows, or at least suspects, that we didn’t turn over the hard wallet to the authorities.”
Ryan started to answer, coughed, then tried again. “She’s still in danger.”
Jake swallowed. He already knew that. They all did. But, up until now, the threat to Chelsea had been an amorphous, cloudy possibility. The hammer of his pulse in his neck told him that the threat was taking shape, gathering force, and coming straight at them.
“Thanks for the heads up. Come see me when you get into the office this morning.”
“Sure. Are you okay?”
Jake shoved Ryan’s concern back at him. “I’m fine. I’ll let Chelsea know to expect a call from you today. I gotta go.”
He ended the call before Ryan could probe his mental state further. Then he carried his coffee out onto the wide plank porch and stood, barefoot and bare-chested, and watched the pale winter sun struggle up over the snow-covered mountains and frost-dipped valley below.
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