by Delores Fossen, Rachel Lee, Carol Ericson, Tyler Anne Snell, Rita Herron
“Sorry, Huds, you’re stuck with me until this whole thing gets sorted out.”
Remi hadn’t fought him then, but he was back to fighting her hours later.
They were sitting in the parking lot of Waypoint Bar in Kilwin. He was in his best pair of dark jeans, a black button-up at her request and had on his vacation-only dark blue Stetson. His sheriff’s badge was in his back pocket. The blazer in the back seat would hide his shoulder holster.
Remi wasn’t armed, which didn’t mean she couldn’t do some damage. She was decked out in a sheer white blouse that dipped low and tucked into a pair of navy pants—which he noted matched his hat—with legs so wide Declan had thought it was a long skirt at first. She’d chosen black flats that wrapped around her ankles and lipstick that reminded him of a bull’s-eye. One he very much wanted to hit.
“I wore this to a party one of my clients threw for Towne & Associates after I cleaned up the absolute mess that was their finances,” she’d said after debuting the look. “I packed it on the off chance I could convince Molly to go out while I was in town.”
Now, looking at her in the glow from Waypoint’s lone light at the back of the parking lot, Declan found the outfit to be too much. Just like the plan.
Remi sighed and slapped him lightly on the shoulder.
“Stop it. Stop that broodiness right now. We need to do this and do it right.” She motioned to her outfit and his. Her brows drew in together. She rolled her shoulders back. Then she reminded him why he’d agreed to the bad plan in the first place. “Justin Redman said he was supposed to meet Dean Lawson the day he was attacked. No one ever got around to asking Mr. Lawson what for. Now we can, thanks to your brothers pulling some hefty favors to find this Lawson guy and get us a meeting twenty-five years after the fact.” She motioned to their outfits again. At the movement his attention redirected to the curve of her breast. Remi was nice enough not to call him out for it. “If Lawson can’t give us any information we can use about Justin Redman, then we can leave him be and mingle with the rest of the crowd and see if we can’t at least find something about the man who told Cooper about the note in the wall. If you go in with a sheriff’s badge on your chest, guns blazing, I don’t think we’ll get the response we want. Right now we just look like two people on a date. It’s not like everyone in the city knows you’re the Wildman county sheriff.”
Declan saw the logic in it, but he didn’t have to like it.
Remi let out a frustrated huff.
“You told Julian to keep watch on Madi. You have Desmond with your mom. Caleb is with his wife and son. Jazz is working with your chief deputy to find Lydia and the people who have been attacking strangers and my family home.” She reached out and took his chin in her hand. It was soft and warm. “You told me earlier that you’re not leaving me. I’m telling you right now that I’m not leaving you.”
She kept his gaze for a moment before letting go.
Then she was smiling.
“So, now that that’s out of the way, can we please go in already? I have to pee. Again.”
Despite every reservation he had, which numbered many, Declan chuckled.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Declan had already been told that Waypoint had lost its law enforcement hangout roots, but it was still odd to see in person. What had once been walls covered in framed pictures of fallen heroes, graduating classes, candid stills from on the job and an assortment of police memorabilia had now been swapped for a moodier aesthetic. Posters from old movies, handmade wall art and pictures of people relaxing after, he assumed, a long day on the job surrounded a clientele who were in varying stages of after-work comfort. Declan led Remi past two dartboards mounted against the interior faded brick, a dimly lit pool table, a wall lined with flat screens, clusters of tables, and up to the massive bar that lined the back wall. No one paid them any mind as they walked through. Not even a wayward glace as Remi stopped just shy of the counter and turned to him.
“That’s him,” she whispered, trying and failing to be covert about her head nod. The man in question was sitting hunched over in the middle of the bar, a few feet from them. Declan would have questioned her ability to pick him out so easily from the angle if it hadn’t been for his hair. Stark white and falling past his shoulders. Just as it had been in the picture from his online profile and the several magazine pieces written about him.
Dean Lawson was a businessman, like Desmond. However, unlike Declan’s brother, Lawson was in real estate and was more known for throwing extravagant parties for wealthy clients and driving sports cars with bikini models than charitable giving. His idea of helping the community, as far as Declan could tell from a general Google search, was putting attractive people in expensive houses. The latest article about him had been his announcement that he was passing his business on to his son. They’d been lucky he was visiting Kilwin before heading back to his current home of Miami.
Declan was hoping they’d be even luckier before the night ended.
“How do we play this?” Remi asked. “Good cop, bad cop?”
Declan raised his eyebrow at that.
“We’re just going to see if he knows anything about Justin that can help us. We don’t really need a good cop or a bad cop.”
Remi snorted.
“That’s what they always say.”
“They?” he asked with a laugh. She nodded. Her eyes darted back to Lawson. She was excited. Declan couldn’t much blame her. Just the chance of a lead could get his adrenaline going.
“Okay, there, hotshot, why don’t we sit next to him and just talk first?”
“All right, but if you want me to turn up the heat or to help you, just say ‘coconut.’ That can be our safe word.”
“Coconut? How am I supposed to work that into a conversation?”
Remi shrugged.
“If anything goes wrong, then you’ll find a way.”
She threw him a teasing grin and nodded toward Lawson.
The seats on either side of him were unoccupied. Declan touched the small of Remi’s back before passing her and sliding onto the bar stool to the man’s left while she took the right.
Declan noticed two things about Mr. Lawson from the get-go. One, he was working on at least his third drink. Two empty shot glasses hadn’t been cleared yet from in front of him. The current glass his hand was wrapped around looked to contain whiskey. Two, the man matched the mood of three drinks. His shoulders were drooped over, his elbow propped up on the countertop, and his gaze was on the liquid of his drink. The word dejected popped into Declan’s head at the sight of him.
When he dragged his eyes up to meet Declan’s, his expression was blank.
“Mr. Lawson,” he greeted, offering his hand to shake. “I’m Declan Nash and this is Remi. Thank you for meeting us.”
Dean Lawson’s handshake was a half-hearted affair. One he didn’t extend to Remi, who gave Declan a disapproving look over the man’s shoulder.
“You know, I hadn’t been back to Kilwin in ten years and then I’m in town for less than a week and everyone wants a piece.” He took a sip of his drink. “What a wild ride.”
Again Remi gave Declan a look.
“Well, thank you for coming out to meet us, then,” he said, using his cordial voice reserved for press conferences. “We won’t keep you long.”
Lawson waved his hand dismissively.
“Don’t worry, son, tonight is the last time I worry about managing my time. But whatever you’re going to ask, better go ahead and ask it.”
Declan didn’t like Dean Lawson, he decided. Then again, he didn’t need to like him to ask a question.
“Do you remember a man named Justin Redman?” he started, easing into it.
Lawson nodded.
“I do.”
He didn’t make any attempt to elaborate. Declan kept on.
; “Twenty-five years ago he was attacked at a gas station by an unidentified man. Justin was killed in a car accident before the case could be investigated. The only information we had about the incident was the day it happened Justin said in a statement he was on the way to meet you. Do you remember why?”
Lawson ran his index finger up and down the side of his glass. He didn’t look to Declan as he answered.
“Funnily enough, I don’t remember why exactly he wanted to meet then. I remember the man, though.” His face became pinched. “A child in men’s clothes. That’s what he reminded me of. A man who, for whatever reason, thought he was more than he was. An annoying little twerp.” He laughed. It was unkind.
Remi’s look of concern rivaled Declan’s own confusion. Dean Lawson was showing signs of disgust and hostility for a man who had died over two decades ago.
Lawson took the last long drink of his whiskey and shook the glass at the passing bartender. He was an older man who paid no attention to Declan or Remi. Not that either had planned on drinking, but the oversight added to the list of reasons Declan liked the old Waypoint Bar over the new version of it.
The bartender refilled his glass.
Lawson smiled down at the new drink.
“Did you know that I grew up in Kilwin?” he asked. “Not too far from this bar, actually. My dad was in sales and my mom inherited all of her father’s money in lieu of an actual job. I grew up watching my dad, a proud and honest man, continue to work himself to the bone to provide for a family already provided for while my mother couldn’t understand why he resented her. Then he died and Mom finally understood that all he’d been trying to do was show her the best things in life are earned, not bought.” Lawson gave Declan a look of such loathing he nearly felt it as a physical thing. “So, in a drastic one-eighty to honor my father she decided I wouldn’t see an ounce of her or his money ever. Not a dime, not a penny.” Declan didn’t miss his grip tighten around his glass. “Now, that might seem like an okay and even normal thing for most families but, you have to understand, I’d already spent my life relying on that money. My father was always away on business trips and my mother had already made the choice to make my life as easy as possible. When she decided that was a mistake and one she wouldn’t continue to make? I was days away from striking out on my own.”
He took a drink.
Declan’s body was tensing on reflex, readying for something. He just wasn’t sure what yet. Remi’s body language had changed, too. She sat taller, more rigid. Neither had any idea what was going on.
Lawson finished his most recent drink and shook his head.
“Boy, was I stubborn about still sticking to the plan I’d made when I’d had the money and, boy, was I bad at it. It wasn’t long at all before I was going to bed hungry in a crappy little apartment, filled with worry over what I’d do next. Then one night everything changed. One night I decided something that has been the guiding motivation of everything I’ve ever done since.” Lawson shook his glass with one decisive shake. “There is no honor in starving, so why be honorable if that’s what you’ll get?”
Declan couldn’t stay quiet any longer.
“Why are you telling us this?”
Lawson went back to staring at his drink. When he spoke next he sounded almost wistful.
“Because I wanted someone to know that, while I don’t regret the things I’ve done over the last few decades to build the life I’ve lived, I did want someone to understand why I did them.”
“And what are the things you’ve done?” Remi asked.
He didn’t look up from his drink as he answered her.
“I made money and I protected that money. No matter the cost.”
“Justin Redman didn’t die in an accident, did he?” Declan formed it as a question, but his gut was already telling him it was true. “You killed him.”
Lawson didn’t deny it.
“The man was an idiot. He gets into a fight with one of my suppliers and then has the nerve to give a statement saying he was supposed to be meeting up with me after?” Lawson’s anger was as potent as his loathing had been earlier. Declan readied for anything, including body slamming the man against the ground behind them if he even so much as blinked at Remi now or dropped his hands off the countertop. “Our standing arrangement was supposed to be confidential and only one of the many other confidential things he knew. Once your father was tasked with finding his attacker, I knew it was only a matter of time before Justin slipped up and damned me and everything I’d been working for. Deciding to kill him was easy. It was the other parts that were hard.”
He laughed. It held no humor and sounded weaker than the one before.
“I thought I’d made it out. I really did. I went twenty-five years without ever hearing Justin’s name and, yet, one week back in town and he’s one of several names I’ve heard that I never wanted to again. I shouldn’t have come back home.” He sighed, pushed his drink away from him and grimaced. Then he was looking squarely at Declan. “You know, I saw you and your siblings, out on Main Street when I was in town once. The triplets were tiny, loud little things. Inseparable and a spectacle all in one. Everyone paid attention to them because of how rare triplets are, especially in Overlook. I admit, I was one of them. To this day I’ve not met another triplet set. But you? The eldest brother and singleton? No one paid you any mind. You weren’t special. Not like they were.”
Declan’s hands had balled into fists. He couldn’t look away from the man who would have been his father’s age, staring at him without an ounce of fear of the consequences to what he was saying.
Dean Lawson didn’t waver one bit.
Even when what he said next changed absolutely everything.
“That’s why I paid him to kidnap you, instead. But he didn’t listen to me, did he?”
Chapter Nineteen
Surprised wasn’t the right word.
Angry wasn’t, either.
Remi watched as Declan’s face hardened into an emotion that made her feelings fall somewhere between the two. Fear didn’t even register. Why would it?
Dean Lawson was just a sad man in a bar with a drink never that far from his fingertips.
A sad man who’d just said he had paid to have Declan kidnapped which, as history showed, hadn’t worked out.
“Come again?” Declan’s voice was ice.
Lawson sighed. The hunch he’d already been sitting with became more pronounced.
“Michael Nash was one of those hard-nosed detectives you see on old cop shows. The ones who never lose. If he’d gotten ahold of Justin, he would have gotten ahold of me. There was only one thing in the world that could have distracted him. Taking his kid.” He pointed at Declan and shook his head. “But...” He glanced at the bartender. The older man was staring as he wiped a glass dry. Remi wondered if he had heard the patron’s admission. “Things escalated. And now we’re here.”
Declan moved his blazer. She knew beneath it was his gun. They’d come here to get more insight into Justin Redman, and here they were sitting with the man who had paid to make the abduction possible.
“Who did you pay?” Declan’s voice was unrecognizable.
Lawson shared a look with Remi. Or at least she thought it was with her. Instead, his eyes skirted to the person on the bar stool to the right of her. He had been in a conversation with a woman on the other side of him when they’d first sat down. Now the couple had gone silent and still. The bartender had also changed states. He placed a still-wet glass on the bar top and kept his dishrag in hand.
The hair on the back of Remi’s neck started to stand.
Declan was understandably focused on Lawson, just as she had been, but now other details were blaring. The music that had been somewhat loud when they walked in had now softened. The movement of the bar’s patrons eating, drinking and talking had lessened. The bar was quiet enough fo
r her to hear the TV at the other side of the room.
Now that her focus wasn’t homed in on Lawson’s every word, Remi could tell something was off. Very off.
And Lawson was a part of it.
He wasn’t answering Declan’s question, even though he’d just incriminated himself by supplying information he hadn’t really needed to give.
Surely he knew that Declan and the sheriff’s department would go at him full force now?
Why did he suddenly seem so hesitant?
“I asked a question,” Declan thrummed.
Again, Lawson kept quiet.
Something hit the floor between Lawson and Remi. She glanced down, body already taut with nerves.
Nerves that escalated so quickly it was a struggle not to openly gasp.
Blood.
That was what had hit the ground.
And it was coming from beneath Lawson’s blazer.
“Coconut.” The word came out before Remi could stop it. Then she chanted it. “Coconut. Coconut. Coconut.”
Declan tore his eyes away from Lawson. Remi shook her head. The man between them chuckled. He finally took a long look at her.
That was when Remi really saw it. The pale skin, the pain.
The acceptance.
Now she knew why he’d freely admitted to what he’d done.
He was already dead.
“You can’t escape them,” he said. “He blamed me for complicating his life. He blames the Nashes for ruining it.”
“We need to leave,” Remi whispered across him, urgency making her heartbeat take off in a gallop.
“For over two decades he planned a way to find his justice.” Lawson shook his head. “You’ll only leave this place if it’s a part of that plan. And, boy, is he big on plans.”
Declan was off his bar stool in a flash. The movement seemed to be tied to every person inside the bar. Chairs scraped against wood and glasses clinked against tables as the entirety of Waypoint stood. They all had their guns out before Declan could pull his.
