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“Yeah, trouble is,” Rhett actually has the nerve to grin, “he’s not dead.”
I whip around to face him fully. The guns don’t matter, this fight doesn’t matter, nothing matters if I heard him right.
“What did you say?” My breathless question only deepens his grin, like it’s the gift he’s always wished he could give me.
“Sunny,” Rhett’s voice softens for me, “he’s not dead. He’s at the ranch, hurt but healing.” Rhett’s attention snaps back to the gun men inching closer to us from the far side of the shop. “He knows one of you helped his wife in her plot, but he’s not sure which one. I figure we’ll let the cops decide.”
I hate to think it could be true. Either one of them would be a deep betrayal. Anderson, my greatest protector, or Tucker, my loyal friend.
“You’re bluffing! Walter can’t be alive. I saw the blood. I know he’s dead.” Something clicks in Tucker’s mind. He turns his head, staring at his brother in disbelief. “But you were the only other one home that night besides Mom.”
“What are you talking about?” Anderson hardly pauses in his deadly descent on our position. “Eliza was home. She’s the one who did this. Whether it was attempted or not, that doesn’t matter. She did it.”
“You’d want them to think that, wouldn’t you?” Tucker shakes his head, attention shifting to his brother. “But I was knocked out by someone, and I was staring at Eliza when that happened. That was you, wasn’t it?”
Anderson’s face pales as the gun shifts to point at him. “Tucker, stop it. You know I didn’t have anything to do with this.”
The volume rises as they keep fighting. Voice blends and tangle together, unintelligible in their meaning, but the rage feeds more venom between them. I catch Rhett’s eye, his desperate need to reach me. Above it all though, I feel the truth.
Dad is alive.
We may never get the whole story out of my stepbrothers, but they weren’t the only ones there that night. My eyes fall shut. My mind lets go, and the memory rushes around me.
Chapter 29
Rhett
T
They haven’t seen Nick hey haven’t seen Nick yet. Like a small dog, he’s crouched at my feet, trying to weasel his way to Sunny. Carl waits outside the shop, positioned to take a shot if I need him to. Using the same signal as last time, he’ll fire off a warning if I raise my left arm.
I ache to reach out to Sunny. Sweat beads over her forehead. Eyes squeezed shut again, she looks close to shattering. The fight rages on between the two members of her family bent on her demise. The deafening roar of hatred shifting from one brother to the other feels poisonous to my soul. How did she get caught up in this? How can I free her? I don’t know how to get to her. I don’t know how to save her from this disaster. But just as my heart feels like it might crack under the load, her eyes snap open.
For the first time ever, she looks completely at peace, as though she’s silenced the demons once and for all. Nick takes his chance and scrambles along the foot of the workbench to stop at her side still undetected. Sunny ducks down and retrieves something from beneath the workbench.
“You want the gun?” She shouts over her brother’s argument. “Then come get it.”
Without another word, she drops to her knees and out sight.
Without her to use as a target, both guns twist to face me. I dive out of the way just as a barrage of bullets fire. I hit the ground, rolling to ease the fall. Oil, grease and brake dust cling to my skin and clothes. Cursing my height, I don’t dare crouch. I’ll still be tall enough to see. Crawling on my belly, I pull myself around one of the cars.
I’m alive, but I’m too far away to help Sunny.
My guts clench with anxiety.
She’s on her own.
Sunny
“Are you suicidal?” Nick’s raspy whisper burns my ears. But I don’t care. If my memory can be trusted, and I think it can, then I know who pulled the trigger. I know the puppet master in this whole game. And I know how to prove it.
“I know what I’m doing.” I nudge him with my foot. “But I need your help.”
“If it gets me out of here, then you’ve got it.” Nick tosses a scarf over his shoulder to signify his bravery. I’m not sure it’s doing what he thinks it will for my confidence. I don’t have to see them to know that Tucker and Anderson are slowly moving in on our position.
“Do you have something that will destroy a gun in seconds in here? Some battery acid, maybe a tub of lye?”
“This is a mechanic shop, not an evil villain’s lair.” But he looks around as if trying to see the lair I need. “I guess you could use the Smash 2000. It’s a hydraulic press I modified to drop at extremely fast rates.”
