The Heart You Break (Wilde Ways Book 4)

by Cynthia Eden

  He didn’t drive. He should have been racing to the potential bomb scene, but his narrowed gaze swept over her. “I’ve got to ask, what is it that you think I’m going to do with that phone?”

  “Just drive, all right?”

  His gaze widened. “You…you think I’m going to trigger a bomb, don’t you? I mean, that’s how they do it on the TV shows. The bad guys can use phones to trigger the detonations.” Voice strangled, he bit out, “I’m the fucking sheriff! I’m Bran’s friend!”

  Yes, sure, it sounded crazy and maybe she was being over the top, but why were they still sitting there?

  “Keep the fucking thing if it makes you feel better.” Gideon shifted the car into drive.

  She kept the fucking thing. It did make her feel better.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Rick’s phone rang. He glanced down at it, recognized the number, and turned the call on speaker so Bran could hear what was happening. “Cole?” Rick said. “What have you got for me?”

  Bran edged closer to him.

  “No sign of the other shooter.” Static crackled. “No gun left behind. Nothing. Like the guy just vanished into the night.”

  Hell. That wasn’t what Rick wanted to hear. “He must’ve run through the woods,” Rick muttered. “If you didn’t hear the sound of a vehicle driving away, the perp has to be on foot. We need tracking dogs out there ASAP.”

  “It’s pitch black out here. If he’s running, then the guy has to know these woods very, very well. He’ll have one major advantage over us…”

  Bran stiffened.

  Rick’s head whipped toward him. “What?”

  Bran took a step back. “Nothing.”

  “Rock star, you got something to say, you say it.”

  “It’s just…Gideon knows the woods well. Very well. Better than anyone else in the whole county.”

  ***

  “Keep the phone if it makes you feel safe. I mean, if you think I’m some kind of freak who puts bombs at his own sheriff’s station, then, hell, yes, keep the phone.”

  Julia bit her lower lip. He sure sounded pissed. And I don’t care. Bran’s life is on the line, and I’m trusting no one but my team.

  “Keep the phone…because I don’t really need it,” Gideon added quietly. “At least, not while I have this.”

  He fired his gun.

  She didn’t expect it. Hadn’t even noticed the gun that he’d snaked into his hand. He’d yanked the gun up and fired it at her left leg before she even knew what was happening. The bullet tore through the top of her thigh, and Julia screamed at the wild, burning pain.

  Gideon slammed on the brakes. She flew forward until the seatbelt whipped her back. And when it did…

  He had his gun pointed right at her head.

  “Didn’t have to be this way.” He’d snatched the phone from her right after the bullet had hit her. He’d moved so fast.

  He’d planned the attack. Probably worked it all out while we were driving.

  “I mean, I did warn you to stay away from Bran, but you didn’t listen. You should’ve listened. So you really have no one to blame but yourself.”

  His left hand gripped the phone. His right pointed the gun straight at her head.

  “I have a confession,” Gideon told her with a cold smile.

  “A little late for that. I think I already figured out that you’re the bad guy.” The bullet in the thigh had been a big tip-off.

  But Gideon laughed.

  She hated his laugh.

  “My confession…is that I never had a bomb at the sheriff’s station. Why would I do that? Why blow up the place where I work? Why hurt my men? That was just a lie for Geneva.”

  Ice covered her.

  “No, the bomb is somewhere else. And it’s time for hell to reign down on your rock star.”

  No, no, no!

  But the fingers of his left hand were moving over his phone.

  His gun was pointed straight at her forehead.

  She had to do something. The bomb is at the bed and breakfast! He probably set it when he was there before! Shit, shit!

  She couldn’t let Bran die. Couldn’t.

  “No!” Julia screamed. She lunged forward, trying to shove the gun away with one hand and grab for his phone—

  The gun fired.

  ***

  The bed and breakfast exploded. The windows shattered. Fire billowed into the sky, and thick smoke covered the wreckage.

  Voices were rising and falling. Someone was crying.

  And the place just kept burning.

  “How the hell did you know?” Rick clamped a hand on Bran’s shoulder.

  They’d barely gotten out of there in time. Bran had grabbed Rick. Shouted for the other agents to haul ass, and they’d fled.

  “This is the second time I’ve barely gotten out of an explosion.” Bran cleared his throat. “I don’t want to go for a third time. Not sure my luck will hold again.”

  Rick’s hand tightened. “How did you know?”

  Because he’d felt off? Because as he’d heard Cole talking about how the perp had just disappeared into the woods without a trace…how there had been no sound of a vehicle driving away…

  Bran swallowed and tasted smoke. “Gideon had access to the study. I left him alone in there. He came in with a duffel bag earlier, and I didn’t even think a damn thing about it.” The fire twisted in the night. “I…sent him into the woods. He told me that he knew his way out there perfectly. He was supposed to stop and look at the coordinates that the stalker had given to Julia, he was supposed to check the laptop, but I didn’t remember him doing that. He just ran out. The more I thought about it, I realized he knew where to go.”

  Rick swore.

  Bran stared at Rick. “He was my friend. He was…Fiona’s friend, back in the day. The three of us grew up together. That’s why I trusted him when I came here. He always had my back.”

  Rick’s expression was grim. “No, man, he didn’t.” Then Rick was hauling him off the street. Shoving him into the passenger seat of some dark SUV.

  “What the hell are you—” Bran began.

  “You’re dead.”

  No, he was alive. Fucking furious. And fucking scared. Because…where was Julia? She’d been with Gideon, hadn’t she? Cole had told them that she’d gone back to town with the sheriff.

  “Gideon isn’t here. He doesn’t know that you got out of the blast. As far as he’s concerned…you’re dead.”

  Bran shook his head. “There were people on the street. People who saw me.” Probably people with phones and cameras filming. Everyone was always taking videos and pics these days.

  “I didn’t see any phones. I just saw shock.” Rick gunned the engine. “You’re dead. You’re staying that way until we can lock up the bastard sheriff.”

  “We have to get Julia!” Screw everything else. She was the only thing that mattered. He needed a phone. Needed to call her. Right the hell now. He sucked in a breath, then another. Another…

  Julia had to be okay. There wasn’t an alternative for him. Julia was fine. She was safe, and he was going to rip apart Gideon.

  His friend. His friend. Part of Bran wanted to deny the truth. He could come up with other explanations. Someone else had set the bomb at the bed and breakfast—

  But only Wilde agents and Gideon were allowed inside.

  Maybe Gideon had checked the laptop and gotten the coordinates—

  But he didn’t have time. And the laptop was still closed and shut down when he left.

  So what if Gideon had known Fiona? He’d been in another country when she was killed—

  And maybe the guilt of that wrecked him. Turned a good man into a killer.

  Rick was driving hell fast. The headlights from his vehicle cut through the darkness. “I have to get you to a safe location,” Rick spoke a little too quickly. “Promised Julia I’d take care of you, but you were the one who saved my ass. Have to get you to a—”

  “Stop!” Bran bell
owed.

  The headlights had fallen on a car on the side of the road.

  The sheriff’s official vehicle.

  Rick slammed on the brakes. The SUV lurched, and Bran’s hand hit the dashboard.

  “Stay here,” Rick snapped as he shoved open his door.

  Screw that. Bran jumped out of the vehicle, and he ran toward the parked car. On the shoulder of the road, not too far from the bed and breakfast. Abandoned? And—

  Rick grabbed him. “What part of ‘you’re supposed to be dead’ did you miss?”

  Bran shoved him away. There was something about the vehicle. The windshield…

  “Shit,” Rick muttered. “That’s a bullet hole.”

  Bran lurched forward and yanked open the driver’s side door. The interior lights immediately flooded the vehicle with illumination, and Bran could see the blood.

  Oh, God, he could see the blood. Blood that soaked the passenger seat of the patrol car.

  Gideon would’ve been driving. Julia would have sat in the passenger seat. He thought his knees were going to give way right then and there. Bran clutched the driver’s side door, holding himself upright as pain clawed its way to his heart. “No.” He shook his head. “No!”

  Julia wasn’t dead. No way. She wasn’t dead. She was…

  “No!” Bran roared.

  Rick whirled him around. “Take a breath.”

  There was no breath. There was only rage and fury and pain. I will kill him. I will rip the fucker apart. I will—

  “Her body isn’t here. That’s a good sign. If she was dead, he could’ve just left her here. He took her with him. That means something.”

  Bran couldn’t speak. Rage and pain had turned him into a wild animal.

  “Take a breath. Listen to me! Julia had her new phone on her. I saw her take it when she left. As long as she has that phone, she’s low-jacked, man. We’ll track her. We’ll find her. I swear, we’re going to get her back.”

  They had to get her back. Bran took a breath and vowed, “I’m going to kill him.”

  ***

  A hand slid tenderly over her cheek.

  Julia’s eyes flew open as she sucked in a sharp breath. Then she screamed as loudly as she could.

  “Jesus! Got quite a set of lungs on you, huh?” Gideon clamped a hand over her lips and muffled her screams. “Look, no one is close enough to hear you—no one but me. So why don’t you stop that shit so I don’t have to gag you?”

  Her hands were tied behind her back. She was sitting in some kind of wobbly, wooden chair, and each of her ankles had been bound to a chair leg.

  Her left ear was ringing. Probably because the SOB had fired his gun right next to her freaking ear. After that shot, she’d shoved the gun to the side, and it had exploded again. She vaguely remembered hearing glass break. Had he fired again after that as they’d struggled? Maybe.

  “We good? You going to stay quiet or do I need to gag you?”

  She stopped screaming—or trying to scream, anyway. For the moment. Her gaze darted around as she attempted to figure out where she was. Looked like an old cabin. Dusty. Smelled stale. Lanterns were circling her on the floor.

  “Great.” He dropped his hand. Stepped back. “I have to decide what the hell to do with you.”

  She knew what he was going to do with her. Kill her. That was his only option. That—or get his ass thrown in prison. “Where’s…Bran?” Her voice came out in a rough rasp.

  “He’s gone.”

  Pain hit her. Sharper, harder, deeper than anything had hit her before. Even harder than Daniel’s betrayal. This fresh, savage pain pierced her straight to the core, and Julia shook her head because Gideon was wrong. He was lying. He had to be wrong. “No.”

  “The bed and breakfast blew up. I’d set the explosives when I was there earlier. No one was even paying attention to me. Piece of cake.”

  God, no. A tear leaked down her cheek. Not Bran.

  “I turned on the police scanner while you were knocked out. Heard ‘em say there were no survivors.”

  “No.” Another tear slid down her cheek. “You’re wrong.”

  “Why would Bran have suspected me? Why would he think I’d hurt him?” Now a smile came and went on Gideon’s face. “I’m the good guy, after all. The sheriff. I’m the—”

  “Hero,” Julia finished softly.

  He nodded. “Damn straight that’s who I am. That’s why I had to punish Bran, don’t you see? The guy is a user. He destroys lives, just like he destroyed Fiona’s life.”

  They were back to Fiona Hawke? “He didn’t kill Fiona.”

  “He left her. Went to Nashville. And she freaking followed him.” He began to pace. His gun was holstered at his side. “I talked to her the night before she died, did you know that?”

  How in the hell would she have known that?

  “I told her I was coming home. Told her I wanted us to make a go of things when I got back. I loved her. Always did. She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. Absolute perfection. But…but she said she had other plans.” His hands clenched and released. “Said she was going to earn herself some fast money so she could get damn photos taken of herself. That Bran’s agent had hooked her up. She was going places…” He swallowed. “That’s the last thing she said to me. That she was going places. I don’t know what she was going to do to get that money, but she wound up dead. Some asshole slit her throat and left her outside of a club. Her killer was never caught, and do you think Bran cared?”

  “Yes, actually, I do.” She yanked at the rope around her wrists. Her thigh still burned and bled, and Julia didn’t want to think about how much blood she’d lost.

  “He didn’t. He’s the one who put her on that path. He’s the one who—”

  “Listen, crazy train, the man responsible for killing Fiona Hawke is the guy who slit her throat. Find him. Bran didn’t do anything.”

  “He did everything! She left me because of him! He was going to give her a connection to a new life. A life without me!”

  The rope wasn’t giving. It just bit into her wrists with every twist of her hands.

  “He was a user. He went through women like they didn’t matter. You didn’t matter to him. Didn’t you see that? That’s why I told you to leave him.”

  “Yeah, just so we’re clear…you were the one sending the emails? Not Geneva?”

  He smirked. “She sent the last ones to you.”

  “From where I’m sitting,” she told him, angling up her chin, “you were the user. You used Geneva to do your dirty work, didn’t you? She told me that Bran had been contacting her for months, but he wasn’t. My money says you were.”

  “I needed someone to take the fall. Trust me, she was too happy to join the game.”

  “Someone to take the fall…” Her lips twisted. “Right, because you’re the hero.” She yanked harder on the ropes. Still no give. “Got to tell you, Gideon, I’ve met your type before.”

  He snatched his gun out of the holster. Pointed it toward her.

  A quick glance down revealed that while she’d been knocked out—the asshole had hit her with the butt of his gun back when they’d been in the car—he’d taken off her bullet-proof vest. That action totally screamed…I’m not going to hurt you. I’ll set you free soon. Uh, no, it didn’t.

  “You’ve never met anyone like me,” Gideon seethed.

  “Unfortunately, I have. I actually dated a jackass like you once.”

  “Shut up!”

  Make me.

  “My ex Daniel liked to be seen as the hero, too. Only he wasn’t. He did bad, terrible things that got people killed. But he didn’t want to be blamed for those deaths. He only wanted everyone to look up to him, to tell him how great he was.”

  Gideon’s face mottled.

  “You killed Geneva Ruby. You were the one shooting in the woods. That’s why Cole couldn’t find the perp—you were standing in front of us. What did you do…run back to your car? Put your rifle in the trunk, then cir
cle back to us?”

  “That’s exactly what I did! And don’t act like Geneva was some innocent. She was only too happy to set your friend Cole’s cabin on fire.”

  “She might not have been innocent, but that still doesn’t mean she deserved to die.” Her heart burned. “And neither did Bran, you sonofabitch!”

  Now he blinked at her. “You seriously cared about him?”

  “Yes,” she shouted. The rope wouldn’t give. Dammit!

  “You think you loved him?”

  She didn’t think it. “I know I did.”

  “You just met him. He would’ve grown bored with you. Bran was used to super models and famous actresses. Used to living the high life and doing whatever the hell he wanted.” A pitying shake of his head. “He wouldn’t have kept wanting you. I saved you pain.”

  He’d given her pain. She’d be sure and repay him.

  “I left my car,” he muttered. “One of the shots went through the dash and hit the motor. Had to leave it there, but I’ll come up with a story to cover it.” He nodded, smiled. “Hell, I’ve already got it. I’ll say it was Geneva’s accomplice. He is the one who fired the shots in my car. He forced us out at gunpoint. He had another vehicle waiting close by…”

  “You mean you had another vehicle close by,” she snapped.

  “Pays to be prepared. This is my town, after all. I know which residents are gone. Which cabins are empty. Which empty place might have a car waiting in a driveway, just ready for the taking.”

  Wasn’t he the prepared psychopath?

  He seemed to ignore her as his gaze turned inward. “Yes, that’s what I’ll say. Geneva’s mystery partner…He’s the one who killed her. He’s the one who…killed you.”

  Like she hadn’t seen that coming.

  He focused on her once more. “I managed to get away,” he said with a quick nod as he continued spinning his cover story for her. “I’ll lead everyone back to your body. I’ll be—”

  “The hero,” she finished in disgust.

  Gideon shrugged. “Sorry it has to be this way. I didn’t intend to kill you.”

  Liar, liar, pants on fire.

  “Well, I did consider it. When I saw that Bran seemed to care about you, I briefly toyed with killing you and letting him live but then…” Another shrug. “I realized he didn’t really love you. I don’t think he can love anyone. Your death would be a fleeting pain for Bran. Better to just end him.”