Gordon held the gun up and stepped between her and the closest escape.
“I don’t understand,” Millie said again. “What do you want?”
It had been almost four months since Millie had seen Lee Gordon. She’d imagined on occasion that he’d be lounging on the couch, beer in hand, and watching TV, living stress-free and not thinking about Fallon ever again. He’d barely showed interest when he had the case, after all.
But standing there now, Lee Gordon looked like he hadn’t enjoyed an ounce of his retirement. There were bags beneath his eyes, stubble along his jaw and a frown that seemed to drag his entire face down. He didn’t look like the man Millie had loathed after he’d officially closed the investigation into her brother’s disappearance.
“You know, I worked my tail off for years for the chance to not have to work at all,” he said. “I did what I was supposed to and then I did a bit more, just so I could leave it all and not worry about a thing until the day I died. But then you show up and get everyone in a tizzy over a boy who wasn’t even worth the gum on the bottom of a shoe before he got William Reiner mangled.” He shook his head. “I should have said no to it, retired early, but I figured what harm would it do to just tell everyone what they already knew? That Fallon Dean was a runaway.”
He took a moment, but the aim of his gun stayed on her. Millie wasn’t near anything she could use as weapon. Her best hope was to hear the man’s rant and try to stretch it long enough to find a way to escape without being shot.
Gordon laughed.
There was no humor in it.
“That’s where I messed up,” he continued. “I went to talk to Reiner and saw Fallon’s truck under a tarp. Knew it then that he had killed the boy. Justice, if you ask me.”
Millie’s heart squeezed.
She clung to the hope that the note in her pocket had been from Fallon and not an elaborate hoax by Reiner.
“I guess it didn’t matter if I reported it or not. Just being there must have put me on the younger one’s radar.”
“Cole,” Millie couldn’t help but say.
Gordon snorted. “I’d heard he was sniffing around former law enforcement, especially those who hadn’t been caught up in The Flood. But it wasn’t until I had some former acquaintances of mine show up, asking me to fix everything or else, that I realized just how close he’d gotten. That’s when I had to outsource.”
Millie didn’t know why he was giving her a rundown but had to admit she knew from experience how cathartic it felt to vent. She also wanted answers.
“You’re who Donni and Wyatt were working for?”
Gordon made a face. Like his laughter, humor wasn’t the cause of it.
“Working for me would suggest they listen to what I say,” he answered. “All they were ever supposed to do was get back the damn ledger that Cole stole from Jason The Idiot Talbot. But, no, they thought it was a great idea to step in the middle of whichever Reiner-sibling plan involved you and that overblown detective and a boat.”
He shook his head with more force than before.
Then he shook the gun at her.
“But if William wants you so badly, then I’m going to cut through all of this madness and deliver you myself. If he won’t give me the book for covering up the murder of your whiny little brother, then I’ll sweeten the pot with the opportunity to finally destroy all of the family that destroyed William Reiner’s.” He motioned his head to the back door. “The only choice you get now is to come quietly or I’ll make a pit stop to kill your Detective Lovett, since I’ve heard you two have become so close.”
Millie went from standing still, wondering what the heck the ledger was all about, to making another not-so-great choice that day.
She ran.
Right at Gordon.
It caught the man so off guard that he didn’t pull the trigger until Millie’s hands were already pushing his wrist and arm up.
The shot exploded overhead and made an awful noise. Glass shattered. Someone in the store screamed.
Millie didn’t slow down.
Her momentum took them both backward, much like her fight with Jason. This time there was no wall right behind them. There was also a gun in play from the get-go. The ground caught Gordon just as he squeezed off another shot.
Millie recoiled on reflex as the sound pierced her ears.
It was all Gordon needed to throw her off him.
She tried to scramble back but it was too late.
Gordon turned the gun on her—
Then yelled as a man tagged in and threw a punch that redirected Gordon’s aim. The gun dropped from his grip and skidded across the floor.
Millie had hoped her savior was one of two men. Yet, as the newcomer turned, it was neither Foster nor Fallon.
“Cole?”
Millie had never seen Cole Reiner in person, but she’d seen his picture. There was no doubt it was him, dressed down but fiercely focused, and ready to tussle with the former detective.
When he looked her way and yelled, “Run,” Millie decided to let him have that tussle.
She scrambled to her feet and ran half-bent and stumbling to the double doors that led into the store. Once on the other side, she was met by nothing but the sound of ’80s music that looped on the overhead speaker and a commotion from, she guessed, the street. Any employees or shoppers must have run at hearing the obvious shots.
Millie was about to follow.
She tore through the toy aisle as another shot went off behind her.
She didn’t have time to wonder where it hit.
The sound of squeaking tennis shoes against the recently buffed floor shot another dose of adrenaline into her veins. Someone was coming toward her from the front of the store.
More than one someone.
Millie stopped and readied to pivot, going back a few feet to the midstore opening that cut across the middle of the space and aisles, but she ran out of time.
She watched, heart in her throat, as the two people she’d wanted to see most came into view.
Foster looked her up and down in an instant. He held his gun down at his side, and focus unlike any she’d seen yet was evident across his features. He ran toward her, saying something, but Millie didn’t hear it.
Her own focus homed in on the man who she’d been told that morning was dead.
But he wasn’t.
A look of relief and guilt washed over Fallon’s face.
If Millie had the time, she would have cried right then and there.
Instead, the world turned to chaos.
Everything that had slowed when she saw her brother, alive and well, sped up in a whirlwind of violence and sound.
The three of them came together just as the doors to the back banged open.
Millie didn’t look back but knew it wasn’t good.
Another gunshot sounded.
Millie went from trying to run to being caught off guard as Fallon tucked himself around her. Both staggered as Foster yelled out.
One last gunshot went off, but Millie couldn’t tell from where.
Instead, she fell to the ground beneath the weight of her brother.
The deadweight.
She held on to him as pain lit up her backside from hitting the floor.
Fallon wasn’t moving but Foster was.
She watched in what felt like an out-of-body experience as the detective ran down the aisle and right up to Lee Gordon, his discarded gun and the blood around both.
Foster had shot him, just as he had Jason to protect her.
But this time, he hadn’t been the one to take the bullet meant for her.
This time Millie did cry as her brother lay limp in her arms.
* * *
FOSTER SPENT A portion of his life not believing in good luck or bad luck, yet, three mon
ths later he was starting to decide it was okay to change his mind.
The bad luck had already happened, but no one realized how much until Foster had finally managed to get all parties together for a chronological and lengthy explanation of the last six to eight months.
And it had happened to the exact people who deserved it.
It was bad luck for Lee Gordon that, after years of helping a drug supplier in exchange for cuts of the money—which he had used to live an expensive lifestyle after retiring—that he’d covered up the death of none other than Cole Reiner’s childhood friend. A man Cole had decided to avenge by getting justice, even when it included dropping off everyone’s radar to find whoever was the dirty cop.
It was bad luck that William Reiner, who had realized the value of family in the last few years, had become so determined to find his little brother that he’d accepted the help of another little brother who had been looking for redemption.
It was bad luck again when both parties, looking for the same dirty cop, had gone about it by opposite routes. Cole had learned everything he could about those who had been a part of the corruption of The Flood and those who had managed to run from it while William and Fallon had infiltrated the drug scene that stretched across South Alabama to find the exact supplier who had worked with the same dirty cop.
It was bad luck that Millie Dean had refused to give up on her brother, no matter what anyone said, which led both to her and eventually Foster to confuse all sides involved.
And it was an extra dose of bad luck that Millie and Fallon had both missed each other so much near the six-month anniversary of him leaving that both had made impulsive choices.
Fallon had befriended and then stolen from Jason Talbot the one piece of evidence that eventually led to proof that Gordon had been involved in several transactions, deals and cover-ups, while Millie had gone to the woods, making Jason think she was working with her brother.
Everything else that had followed eventually turned into good luck for everyone who deserved it in the end.
William Reiner was reunited with his brother and Cole was able to provide leads to several cold and closed cases that had potentially been tampered with before The Flood happened. He also accepted a job back at the department with every intention of going for detective in the near future. June, his now fiancée, had been beside herself at his homecoming. So much so she’d announced she was ready to go to jail for drugging Millie and Foster.
It was an admission no one accepted and the only area of transparency everyone involved believed could stay a little opaque.
Then the focus turned to Fallon.
For all the trouble he’d put Millie through, Foster should have felt some anger at the young man. Yet the moment Fallon had shielded his sister from Gordon’s last shot in the grocery store, Foster had decided he could never do wrong by him. He’d been as brave as his father had the day he’d shielded Fallon.
And it was only after Millie realized that Foster had given her brother the Just in Case bulletproof vest to wear before they’d gone into the store, that she pulled Foster down to their level with a strong embrace and a passionate kiss.
The good luck had continued from there on by way of the town, county and state covering the intricate story of two sets of siblings fighting for justice and each other with the help of the sheriff’s department. It didn’t make anyone forget about the town’s past, but it was a step in the right direction.
“Keep it up and we might turn this place around yet,” the sheriff had told Foster on the way out.
Foster aimed to do just that.
But not without doing a few things first.
Foster parked outside his house but walked up his neighbor’s drive instead.
The front door opened before he could knock.
Fallon was grinning. “I’m not supposed to say anything yet,” he confessed hurriedly in a whisper. “But Millie just got accepted. Full scholarship. She told me it wasn’t a big deal but when she tells you, make sure to hype it up.”
Foster did a little dance of excitement. Fallon joined in. After the world had settled around her, Millie had decided that she wanted to become a social worker and had applied for an online program that, according to her, was exactly what she hoped to get.
“I love where I am right now,” she’d told him. “And I love the people I’m with. If I can do both, I’d like to try.”
Now Foster didn’t need to promise to be excited for her. He genuinely was.
Both men went quiet as Millie herself appeared in the doorway. She leaned in for a kiss that Foster turned into a dip.
“And that’s my cue to go gag inside,” Fallon said around a bite of laughter. He went inside and told Larissa and Amanda, loudly, that his sister was making out with her boyfriend on the front porch.
Millie shook her head, smiling when the kiss was done.
“Are you sure you want to switch houses with him?” she asked for the fifth time that week. “Living with me and having my brother as a next-door neighbor? That’s almost a comically bad idea.”
Foster grinned. “Don’t you know? I eat bad ideas for breakfast.”
Millie rolled her eyes. “The only thing you eat for breakfast is scrambled eggs with spoons because, for whatever reason, you keep throwing away your forks.”
He let out a howl of laughter at that.
“You caught me doing it one time and now I’m marked for life!”
“All I’m saying is that when you officially get all moved in, I’m going to make sure my forks are already counted up,” she said, hands going onto her hips. “I will not stand a fork thief!”
Foster got a squeal out of her as he pulled her in against him. The kiss they shared next quieted them both in the best way.
He wouldn’t say it for three months—the night they’d get engaged—but in that moment Foster knew one thing with absolute certainty.
His luck had changed for good the moment he’d met Millie.
* * *
Look for the next book in Tyler Anne Snell’s
The Saving Kelby Creek Series
when Searching for Evidence goes on sale
in August 2021. You’ll find it wherever
Harlequin Intrigue books are sold!
Keep reading for an excerpt from K-9 Hideout by Elizabeth Heiter.
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K-9 Hideout
by Elizabeth Heiter
Chapter One
Desparre, Alaska, was so far off the grid, it wasn’t even listed on most maps. But after two years of running and hiding, Desparre made Sabrina Jones feel safe again.
She didn’t know quite when it had happened, but slowly, the ever-present anxiety in her chest had eased. The need to relentlessly scan her surroundings every morning when she woke, every time she left the house, had faded, too. She didn’t remember exactly when the nightmares had stopped, but it had been over a month since she’d jerked upright in the middle of the night, sweating and certain someone was about to kill her like they’d killed Dylan.
Sabrina walked to the back of the tiny cabin she’d rented six months ago, one more hiding place in a series of endless, out-of-the-way spots. Except this one felt different.
Opening the sliding-glass door, she stepped outside onto the raised deck and immediately shivered. Even in July, Desparre rarely reached above seventy degrees. In the mornings, it was closer to fifty. But it didn’t matter. Not when she could stand here and listen to the birds chirping in the distance and breathe in the crisp, fresh air so different from the exhaust-filled city air she’d inhaled most of her life.
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The thick woods behind her cabin seemed to stretch forever, and the isolation had given her the kind of peace none of the other small towns she’d found over the years could match. No one lived within a mile of her in any direction. The unpaved driveway leading up to the cabin was long, the cabin itself well hidden in the woods unless you knew it was there. It was several miles from downtown, and she heard cars passing by periodically, but she rarely saw them.
Here, finally, it felt like she was really alone, no possibility of anyone watching her from a distance, plotting and planning.
After a year and a half of living in run-down motels and fearing each morning as much as she feared putting her head on her pillow at night, she’d desperately needed a change. She hadn’t expected to end up here. She’d driven north for days, finally stopping because heavy snowfall had made traveling farther impossible. And for the past six months, she’d stayed. There was something magical about Desparre.
It was far from the kind of place anyone who’d known her as a sun-loving city girl would have expected her to end up. Far from anywhere she would have expected to ever call home.
But damn, did she love it. If she had to spend the rest of her life in solitude, this was where she wanted to do it.
Tipping her head back, she closed her eyes and let the crisp, cool Alaskan air refresh her. With a smile, she pulled out her phone to check the time. Although she had nowhere to be, she wanted to run into town early, then get back to do some work.
As soon as she saw the date on her phone display, her smile dropped under the force of her shock. Today marked exactly two years since she’d left New York City. Two years since she’d left behind everything and everyone she knew. Two years of missed birthdays and holidays. Two years of not being able to talk to her mother or her brother, not being able to see her friends.
A familiar ache welled up, one that only Alaska had been able to keep somewhat at bay.
Uncovering Small Town Secrets Page 19
