Page 132 of Wild Sanctuary

“He was the one card I had left to play. Bill had been pulling him deeper into the ranch for a year. Taking a step back and letting him take the reins on the operation. And Wyatt trusted me the way Bill did, so if Bill and Tom were gone and Wyatt took over, I’d have kept running the books clean for another twenty years and nobody would have ever thought to look again.”

He breathes out.

“And if he’d been in that truck—” He stops, and starts afresh. “Wyatt’s not Bill. He’d have fought. He’s the kind of man who walks out of a crash pulling his gun. So Alma arranged a call, and that kept Wyatt on the phone about a flag on the operating loan long enough to get the job done.”

The kitchen is quiet enough to hear the clock on the microwave tick over, while the rage I’ve been swallowing this whole conversation finally surfaces.

If he’s going to say it in his voice, I’m going to make him say it in mine.

“So you had my father killed.”

Marcus flinches as though he’d never considered his actions as anything other than necessary. “I told Stan to⁠—”

“Just say the damn words, Marcus, and stop being such a fucking coward.”

He looks at me as though the cuss personally offends him. His mouth opens and immediately closes while his fingers tighten on the brim of the hat in his lap until the felt crumples.

“I had your father killed.”

I knew he was murdered. I’ve known for months. But knowing and hearing those words said out loud by a man my father trusted is entirely different.

My lungs forget what they’re for, and my hand on the table is the only thing keeping me in the chair.

Daddy, oh God.

The breakfast Wyatt made me an hour ago surges up my throat, and I clamp my teeth together, keeping it down by a thread.

“And Bill.”

“And Bill.”

The silence after it is the silence of a man laying down a weight he has been carrying for three years. Marcus sags into the counter behind him. His eyes go glassy, then he drags a hand down his weary face.

“I tried so hard to keep this from you, sweetheart.”

My entire body revolts at the absolute audacity of this man, and I know my face says exactly what I think when he doubles down.

“I really did. I filed that insurance claim. I gave you the ledgers. I sat with you at the inn and told you every good memory of your daddy I could dig up. I was trying to give you a story you could go home with. A story you could live with.”

His voice is soft and wounded in a way that tells me he fully believes every word he’s saying.

“I prayed every night you’d finish that article and settle back in Denver with that city kid. Prayed on it, Daisy.”

I say nothing. The journalist in me is a recording light, steady red, like the phone on my lap.

“I thought the break-in would send you running back to your city life and your safe, paved streets. Give me back the peace I’d spent three years building. But you just dug in deeper.”

His hands spread helplessly as his eyes widen, the epitome of innocence.

“You have to understand. I didn’t want this. I never wanted this. But you wouldn’t just let it be.”

“You don’t get to put this on me, Marcus.”

“I’m not putting it on you, sweetheart. I’m saying if you’d only stopped digging⁠—”

“Don’t.”

Marcus stops, his hand still half-raised.