Down the Darkest Road

by Kylie Brant

  He certainly wasn’t climbing down one-handed. Cady stuck the phone in her pocket as she rose and stepped cautiously to the edge of the bluff.

  “No farther!” She trained her weapon on the fugitive as she shouted above the noise of the chopper. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Miguel, Ryder, and Rossi as they all took stations along the edge. As if in slow motion, she saw Forrester reach one arm behind him. Then bring it around, holding a weapon. She crouched, her rifle still trained on him. His body jolted as he lost his grip. Limbs scrabbling for purchase, he flailed wildly before he squeezed off a shot in midair. Then his body did a slow plummet to the gorge below.

  Cady stared, stunned. But even the light flurry made it impossible to see more than ten feet down. The chopper dipped and lowered. She shouldered her weapon as she and Miguel rounded the front of the rock formation to meet up with the rest of the team.

  “How the hell did he even think he had a chance climbing down in the dark and in this weather?” Rebedeau was shaking her head, still staring at the darkness below the edge.

  Cady followed her gaze. Someone always has to die. Forrester’s words rang in her head. She still wasn’t sure whether he’d taken a chance or made a choice.

  But the end result was the same.

  Chapter 95

  “We’ve got a situation.” Deputy Miller met Cady at the road when they returned. Her thoughts immediately rushed to Dylan. He hadn’t been in the truck? Or was he . . . Her mind danced away from the thought. “What?”

  “I’ll take you to Everett and Jones. Let them explain it.” She and Agent Rebedeau followed the man to the county SUV, and they turned to drive a quarter mile down the road, pulling up beside another sheriff’s car. Recognizing Deputy Everett, she walked over to him.

  “Marshal,” he said in greeting. “Get your fugitive?”

  “He’s dead,” she said shortly. “The pickup?”

  He raised a finger and pointed to a narrow road twisting through the trees ahead of them. Cady would have missed it if it weren’t for the tire tracks. “Took us a while to find it. Finally picked up a glint off the fender with my flashlight.”

  “And the boy?” She had to force out the words.

  “He’s alive.” Tension streamed out of her. “We called medics. They’re a mile out. But he wouldn’t leave the truck, Marshal. He’s armed, and he wasn’t giving up the weapon willingly. He’s asking to talk to you.”

  “He’s traumatized,” SBI agent Rebedeau said quietly from her stance beside Cady. “Probably doesn’t realize he no longer has to protect himself from Forrester.”

  The boy’s last five and a half years had been one endless trauma, Cady agreed silently. “Take me to him.” She fell in step beside the deputy as they waded through the snow to where the pickup was parked.

  “I gave him blankets. He wrapped up in those, at least. He didn’t threaten us with the weapon. I just . . .” When the man hesitated, Cady looked at him. “I’m worried he’s a threat to himself. Something is off about him.”

  Cady kept her tac light low as she opened the passenger door. Climbed into the truck. She shifted the beam enough to see Dylan’s face. He was huddled in blankets, but both hands were in front of him, the gun clutched in one. “It’s over, Dylan,” she said gently. God knew what kind of abuse he’d gone through during his time with Forrester. On top of the other events of the evening, the boy might have had a breakdown. “Forrester is dead. He can’t hurt you or your family anymore. Give me the gun. Let’s go home.”

  “Forrester said he didn’t kill Trev that night.” The teen’s voice was choked. “He said he wished he’d killed us both but he never killed anyone.”

  He’d said as much to her. “I’m not sure we can believe him.” She glanced away from his face to the weapon again. The boy gripped it tightly. “We’ll figure out the truth, Dylan. And I promise I’ll tell you everything we discover. You have my word.” She inched closer as she spoke.

  The teen moved away from her, pressing against the door.

  “You were clever.” She kept her voice low. Intimate. “The way you got Teeter to tell you everything after you called me. His admissions were damning. He’ll pay for what he did. Neither he nor Forrester will be a threat to anyone ever again.”

  “That doesn’t bring those kids back, does it?”

  “No.” She couldn’t sugarcoat it. He knew the truth as well as she did. “It doesn’t help them. But it’s justice. That’s all we’ve got.”

  “Justice,” he whispered. “Then I should die too.” He brought up the weapon, tucked it snugly beneath his chin. “Because this all started with me. It’s my fault.”

  Cady’s fear for the boy surged. “Put the weapon down. Right now, Dylan. Put it away. I understand how you feel. Better than you could know. But no matter our history, we have two choices in this world, and we alone are in charge of making them. We can wallow in our past actions or we can move beyond them. Make that move now. Hand me the weapon.”

  Time crept to a stop. Cady found herself holding her breath until the boy finally lowered the gun. Held it loosely. She reached out and removed it from his unresisting grip, never taking her eyes from him. There was more here. More even than the cloak of guilt and responsibility he’d worn the first time she met him.

  “You still don’t get it.” She had to strain to hear him. When he lifted his head, she could see the tears staining his cheeks. The misery in his expression. “I was the one who convinced Trev to go to the creek that night. I was the one who persuaded him to stay even after Forrester chased us.”

  A chill of dread was working through her body. “After he chased you?”

  “I still can’t remember more than bits and pieces . . . but . . . I recall the boat’s light in the creek.” His voice was so choked, she had trouble making out the words. “I made him go back after we hid. We were tussling over the boat. I remember a splash.” He was sobbing in earnest now. “I can see him sometimes, his eyes open in the water. I must have pushed him. He could have hit his head on a rock when he fell. All this time I blamed Forrester. But it’s. All. My. Fault.”

  Chapter 96

  She slept only a few hours, but Cady woke refreshed. Ryder had already left the bed. Probably to deal with the dogs. She pulled on a robe, grabbed her phone, and checked her messages on the way to the kitchen, intent on making coffee. A lot of it. Instead, she found Ryder at the breakfast counter, sipping from a mug. With one glance in her direction, he got up and fetched another cup, filled it, and brought it over to her.

  She clasped her hands around its warmth gratefully. “You are a prince among men.”

  “My only claim to royalty.” He waited for her to take several gulps before saying, “The surveillance car is gone.”

  She frowned. “Forrester’s dead, but they haven’t tied that weapon to him.” The rifle found after the shooting at her place was still with the lab. Or . . . She narrowed her eyes. “What haven’t you told me?”

  “I should have checked my email Friday.” He took another sip. “Damn careless of me, really. If I had, I would have known that the lab results on the rifle came back. There was a mess of latents on the weapon. Two of them belonged to Forrester.”

  It took a moment, but then a slow smile curved her lips. “That was careless of you.” Had Allen learned of the results Friday, she’d have been pulled from the warrant on Forrester.

  “Has the search and rescue team brought up the body yet?”

  She winced a little. “Half an hour ago. It had been mauled pretty badly. Maybe by that mountain lion we saw evidence of during our search.”

  “Karma.” He raised his mug to her.

  Maybe, she thought as she sipped from her cup. But Forrester had evaded the punishment he deserved in the most final way possible. It didn’t seem quite fair. The dogs were yapping at the back door, so Cady got up and let them in.

  Hero walked in carefully and pressed against her. She ran her hand along his back. “Only another few da
ys before those stitches are out,” she told him.

  “He’ll probably need to wear the cone awhile longer, to keep him from licking the wound,” Ryder said.

  Still, it’d represent one step closer to recovery. And she’d celebrate that right along with the dog.

  “What’s on for today?” he asked.

  “I need to head to Asheville. John Teeter and Tina Bandy were stabilized at Morganton, then airlifted to Asheville Memorial.” Dylan, according to the text she’d received from Agent Rebedeau, was in a juvenile psych ward in Morganton under suicide watch. Her chest hurt thinking about the boy. “And I want to check on Cassie Zook.” She wondered if the woman’s emotional state had stabilized. Emotionally, at least, she had a long road to recovery. “Then I have to return the rental car I parked at the courthouse after the shooting.”

  “I assume Eric Loomer has lawyered up.”

  She nodded, draining her mug. Setting it down, she added, “It was just a matter of time.” Now the dance would begin, trying to mitigate Loomer’s responsibility for his actions the last several years. She couldn’t even summon her usual irritation at the situation. She was too worried about a teenage boy. Alone in a strange place, burdened with guilt, worried about his mom.

  Forrester got off easy, she thought as she walked to the shower. The boy would carry his guilt for the rest of his life.

  They were on their way to Asheville when she got a video from Special Agent Rebedeau. Cady opened it and let it play so they both could hear it.

  SBI agent Davis was speaking. “Can you state your full name for the record, please?”

  “John Teeter.”

  “Mr. Teeter, please explain the nature of your relationship with Tina Bandy.”

  The man hung his head, wiping his eyes with the back of one hand. “Tina and me was like brother and sister. Ever since her mama came to live with my daddy. Even after they split up, we was still tight.”

  Agent Rebedeau said, “You were living in Fayetteville when she lived in Hope Mills?”

  “Yeah, that’s right.” He sniffled and lifted his head. “Wasn’t easy for her raising those kids by herself. Their daddy had run off by then, left her alone. I helped out when I could.”

  “Were you trying to help her by stealing that weapon from the Fayetteville gun range?”

  At Davis’s words, Teeter looked wary, glancing between the two agents. “They saying I did that?”

  “The ATF investigation points that way, yes.”

  He was silent for a moment. “So here’s the deal. Tina needed extra cash, so she helped Forrester run the drugs some. But he got pissed off at her. Now, I don’t want you to think she did this willingly. But he forced her and Tillis to get rid of a body. Someone he killed. And . . . her necklace broke. Had them beads spelling out her name? And Tillis must have told Forrester, ’cuz he was going to kill her for it. That night in the woods, Forrester had one of her friends call him when they was out with Tina. He grabbed her when she was outside one of the bars having a smoke. He had it all planned. They was gonna do some meth, then hang her. Make people think it was suicide. They had the rope already tied around a branch when she got there.”

  “Who’s ‘they’?”

  “Forrester and Loomer, Tillis and Weber. Then later, Tina heard a ruckus. She didn’t know then Forrester had heard the boys and run ’em off. When the guys were all distracted, she snuck out of the tent and took off. They’d tied her hands but not her feet. She got home, and Colton untied her. Then they jumped in the car and headed to my place.”

  “Without Dylan.”

  Teeter scratched his head. “You gotta understand, she didn’t know the boys were down at the creek. Didn’t know Forrester had chased ’em. Yeah, she saw his bed was empty but figured he was at Boster’s and she needed to leave, pronto.”

  “Mother of the year,” Cady muttered. The more Teeter tried to cover for the woman, the worse he painted her.

  “When did she discover Dylan gone?” asked Davis.

  “The next morning, real early, Mrs. Boster called and asked if Trevor was at Tina’s place. We came back and looked around. Then she called the cops when we didn’t find ’em.”

  “Weber and Tillis never mentioned she was there,” Agent Davis said.

  Teeter’s shoulder bobbed in a shrug. “They was gonna help kill her. Think they’re gonna tell the cops that?”

  “How do you have Forrester’s truck in your possession?”

  Teeter twisted his fingers together on the scarred table. “Someone had to help them. The cops weren’t gonna get the job done. I knew that right away. I stole the truck. Took the weapon he’d used at the gun range a couple of days earlier. Just in case he went after the family. Which he did. The kids must have taken a key out of Forrester’s backpack. Like maybe to a lockbox or something. Tina’d heard he’d been skimming from the boss. We thought maybe she could use that as leverage against him.”

  Cady rubbed her forehead. The woman had all but painted bull’s-eyes on the backs of herself and her family. And it was hard not to consider how the choices of parents could have outsize negative impacts on children.

  Teeter untwined his fingers. Pressed his palms on the table. “I quit my job. Went hunting for Forrester. But the guy was a ghost. I never could get a line on him, even though I figured he was in the state. Because things would be fine for Tina for a while, but then she’d hear from folks that someone was asking ’round about her. It was just a matter of time until he caught up with her. Since I couldn’t find the guy, I needed to motivate you all to get the job done. If you locked him up, Tina would be home clear. And so would Dylan.”

  “You thought killing those boys would light a fire under us? Make us hunt down Forrester faster?” At Davis’s hard tone, the other man hunched his shoulders. Studied the table. “Whose idea was it to try to kill Deputy US Marshal Maddix?”

  “Tina called and said the marshal had been there talking to the boy. I decided shooting at her might get the cops’ attention even more than killing them kids. They’d never rest if they thought a cop was in danger. So I bought one of them GPS thingies. Tina said how she was gonna call to get the marshal to the house to talk. So I drove up there the night before. Stayed at a hotel until the marshal was on her way, then parked behind Tina’s garage. While she was there, I put the GPS on her vehicle. I tracked the marshal on my phone and grabbed it off her vehicle while I waited at her place.” He stopped for a moment before hastily adding, “Tina didn’t know nothing about it.”

  A chill chased down Cady’s spine at the obvious lie. Someone had to alert him when Cady was on her way to meet Tina. It was unsettling to hear the man report every step he’d taken “to protect” the family. To hear the earnestness with which he defended his choices. Regardless of his motivation, Teeter was no better than Forrester.

  Then another realization slammed into her. When Tina Bandy recovered, she’d be going to prison. Even if the courts were merciful to Dylan Castle, he’d have no family to return to.

  It was as if the teen had been born under a dark star.

  “Someone’s getting entirely too rambunctious for still having stitches,” Cady commented as she and Ryder finally rounded up the dogs that evening and got them back into the house. The animals had spent the better part of fifteen minutes chasing each other around the backyard after dinner. It was good to see Hero moving better. But she still dropped to her knees to check his wound after he trotted back inside.

  “Can’t say I blame him.” Ryder headed back toward the recliner where he’d been watching yet another basketball game. “Your phone sounded when you went out to the deck. Maybe it’s your aunt calling you back.”

  Cady had called twice and texted as many times on the way home from Asheville to check on her mom’s progress. Other than a terse message assuring her that Hannah was okay, there’d been silence from Alma. Crossing to where she’d left her cell on the breakfast bar, she picked it up. Listened to the message. It wasn’t from her aunt
, which was unsurprising. It was from her landlady, Dorothy Blong. After listening to it, she went to prop her hip against the side of Ryder’s chair. His arm came out, and somehow she ended up on his lap. The man was sneaky. With his free hand, he picked up the remote beside him and shut off the TV.

  “We packed a lot into the last week or so,” he murmured into her ear. “I have a few ideas for de-stressing.”

  “You are full of ideas,” she agreed. She took a moment, unsure how to broach the news. “That was my landlady. She’s thinking of not stopping at repairs on the rental but doing a full remodel and then putting it up for sale. If I’m interested, she’ll let me dictate how I want things done.”

  He went still. “Are you in the market for a new place?”

  There was something in his tone. Something that set her instincts humming. “I sold my home in Saint Louis, so I have the cash.”

  “Which you could save, if you lived here.”

  She waited for the familiar rush of panic. For the inner alarm bells to shrill. They were there but more muted than usual. And that brought another source of tension. “Another few weeks and you’ll be pushing me out the door.” Her attempt at humor fell flat.

  His hand stroked up her spine. Down again. “I think we both know that isn’t true.”

  “We’ve only known each other for three months.” It was difficult to tell who she was trying to convince. But harder still to consider the enormity of what he was suggesting.

  “And you’ve been building your defenses for decades. They’re force-field strength, for damn good reason.” That amiable tone of his was guileful. “Think I don’t know what I’m asking?”

  He doesn’t, she thought shakily. He couldn’t. Any other man—every other man—would be shown the door the minute they pushed. The instant they expected more than she wanted to give. The hell of it was, for some reason, she’d already allowed Ryder closer than anyone before him. And while she wasn’t doing her usual frantic backpedal, she was at a full stop. “This is too fast for me.”