Oh God, I’m starting to feel like this is a really bad idea.
“So look at this.” Jake nudges me with his shoulder as he points to the top of the log. He’s wearing leather gloves to cover his fingers. “You want to look for cracks in the log, because those are the best places to aim.”
“Okay…”
He picks the axe up from the ground and holds it in his left hand. “You don’t actually swing the axe—you’re really moving it up and down.” He holds it up to show me. “You hold it at the handle with your left hand and cradle it with your right, just below the head. Then you lift it above your head.” He demonstrates the position for me. “You might want to step back now.”
I obey. Quickly.
“It’s not really about strength,” he says as he glances pointedly at my girly arms. “It’s about the correct technique. What you want to do is slide your right hand down until both of your hands are close, gripping the end of the handle. Then bring your hands down and flick your wrists.” He glances at me again. “You want to let gravity do much of the work for you.”
And with those words, he demonstrates. The axe comes down, splitting the log cleanly in half. It looks easy when he does it, but I’m betting it’s not.
“Want to give it a try?” he asks.
I absolutely do not. “Sure.”
He hands over the axe, which is much heavier than I anticipated. Why is everything so heavy out here? He instructs me again on the proper positioning of my hands, then I lift the axe over my head.
He frowns at me. “Your hands are wrong.”
“I put my hands exactly where you told me to.”
“Yeah, but they’re wrong.”
At first, I think he’s going to take the axe back and show me again, but instead, he does something very unexpected. He comes up behind me, his body just barely touching mine, and adjusts my hands on the axe with his.
His body is as warm as it was when we were in the kitchen together. It’s quite cold outside, but not when I’m close to Jake. I find myself leaning against him, absorbing the heat radiating off his chest. He notices and his hands linger on top of mine.
“You’re really warm,” I manage.
“So are you,” he whispers in my ear. Even his breath feels hot against my neck.
Would it really be so wrong to kiss this man? Chase and I are broken up—officially.
But then again, Chase is inside the cabin, searching through Jake’s room as we speak. I don’t know who would be angrier—Chase to find out that I’m out here with Jake’s arms around me, or Jake to find out I let Chase go through his room without telling him, searching for his gun. Somehow, what I’m doing to Jake feels like more of a betrayal, although I’m not sure why.
I need to tell him what Chase is doing. It’s the right thing to do.
“Jake,” I manage.
“Yeah,” he breathes.
If I tell him, he’ll be furious. And this moment will end, which is something I really don’t want. But I’ve got to tell him. I don’t have a choice.
“Listen,” I begin.
Before I can get another word out, we hear a crash coming from inside the house. Jake jumps away from me, a puzzled expression on his face. But then as I turn to look at him, his good eye narrows. “What’s going on in there?”
“Uh,” I say.
Jake yanks the axe out of my hands and pushes past me, heading in the direction of the back door. I race after him as fast as I can go in my impractical boots. I get there just as another crash sounds from the direction of his closed bedroom door. It takes him about half a second to put it together that Chase must be in his room, going through his stuff. His face darkens.
“What the hell?” are his exact words. He flashes me an accusing look. “Is Chase going through my bedroom?”
“Uh,” I say.
He glares at me, and that’s when I notice the axe is still in his right hand. “Did he ask you to keep me busy while he went through my stuff?”
“No.” My cheeks start to burn. “He… well, he just said to keep an eye on you.”
“Jesus Christ.” Jake’s hand tightens around the handle of the axe, and my stomach sinks. “Thanks a lot, Natalie. You two are some houseguests.”
He strides across the room, that scary axe still in his hand. He starts to yank open the door, but before he can get his hand around the doorknob, it swings open on its own accord. And Chase is standing at the doorway. He doesn’t have a rifle in his hands, but he’s got a smile on his face that makes me think maybe he found something better.
“What the fuck were you doing in my room?” Jake growls.
My eyes go to that axe again. If Chase doesn’t have the gun and Jake has that axe, it’s clear who has the upper hand. Actually, Jake would have the upper hand without the axe… even with one hand tied behind his back. Hopefully, he has the self-restraint not to go swinging.
“Now, now, now.” Chase’s smile widens. “Don’t lose your temper, Mr. Decker.”
Jake stops short, his good eye widening.
Chase holds up a brown folder, keeping it just out of Jake’s reach. Jake doesn’t even try to take it back. He just keeps staring at Chase, his jaw twitching under his beard.
“That’s your name, isn’t it?” Chase says. “Jacob Decker? That’s what they called you when you killed those people.”
All the color drains from Jake’s face. He takes a step back and the axe clatters from his hand, which makes me breathe a sigh of relief. He grabs onto a chair for support. “I… I didn’t…”
“I found this at the bottom of your underwear drawer.” Chase clucks his tongue as he waves the folder in the air. “Not exactly where I wanted to be looking, but I wanted to find that rifle. I didn’t find it, but I think this was even better. I learned a lot about you in here, Detective.”
Detective?
Chase notices the confused look on my face, which only seems to make him smile wider. “This man was a cop for the NYPD—a detective. Very impressive.” He opens the file, glancing briefly inside. “Until he was indicted for murdering two witnesses in a crime. And then he just… disappeared. I suppose he didn’t mention any of that when the two of you were getting all cozy in the kitchen.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Jake chokes out.
“Take a look yourself, Natalie.” Chase hands me the thin folder, which I take from him with shaking hands. “The New York Times doesn’t lie.”
I open the folder to find a bunch of newspaper clippings inside. The first one is dated about four years ago and shows a black and white photo of a man in a suit leaving a police station. The photo is grainy, but when I hold it close to my face, I can see it’s undeniably Jake. He looks very different though—he’s clean-shaven and has both eyes in the photo. The headline reads: “Killer Cop Appears Before Grand Jury.”
“Killer Cop,” Chase says. “That’s catchy, Jake. I could see how that sort of nickname might stick. I bet they looked far and wide to try to find you.”
I quickly skim the first article. Jacob Decker, a detective for the NYPD, was accused of murdering two witnesses for a case. Allegedly, he lured them to a secluded location under the pretense of discussing the trial, where he proceeded to kill them both by shooting them point blank. There was money involved. Allegedly.
Jake sinks into a seat at the kitchen table. He bows his head down and pulls at strands of his shorn hair. “What do you want, Hollister?” he manages.
“It’s very simple,” Chase says. “I want you to take me and Natalie to our cabin like I asked you to nicely yesterday. Free of charge. Then we’ll forget you exist.”
Jake lifts his good eye to look up at Chase. For a moment, I’m certain he’s going to tell Chase to go to hell. But then his shoulders sag. “Okay. I’ll take you.”
Chase smiles. “Now how hard was that?”
If looks could kill, Chase would be lying dead on the ground, his guts splayed out all around him.
�
��So when do we leave, Detective?” Chase asks.
“Let me finish digging out the truck and shovel the driveway,” Jake mumbles. “Shouldn’t take more than an hour.”
Chase claps his hands together. “Excellent. And it goes without saying that if you try anything at all, we’ll let the authorities know of your whereabouts.”
He squeezes his good eye shut. “Right. Got it.”
Jake sits at the kitchen table, a dazed look on his face. I study him—the guy who drove around in a blizzard to rescue two strangers he’d never met—and I try to wrap my head around what he did. That guy did not seem like a murderer. But the guy who pointed the rifle at Chase last night was very capable of pulling a trigger.
He’s a murderer. Jake is a murderer. Everything I ever thought about him was wrong.
The desire I felt for him was very wrong.
Of course, if he’s capable of murdering two men in cold blood, what’s to keep him from killing the two of us? Chase never located his rifle, so it’s presumably still in his possession. And even without that rifle, he could do it with the axe. Or even his bare hands, if he wanted.
And in actuality, the smart thing for him to do would be to kill us. That would be the only way to ensure we’ll keep his secret. After all, Chase is exactly the sort of man who would go right to the authorities, in spite of his promises. Especially since he despises Jake.
Jake’s good eye meets mine and a shiver goes through me. I have a bad feeling this isn’t over.
Chapter 19
Jake is outside, shoveling snow, while Chase and I stay in the cabin. Chase is keeping an eye on him out the window while he continues to search the cabin for the rifle. He asked Jake where it was, but that was one thing he wouldn’t give in on. Chase didn’t push the issue, but he’s determined to find that gun.
I don’t blame him. I would feel a lot better if Chase had the gun too. Jake still could decide to eliminate his problem by doing away with us both. The only way to ensure that doesn’t happen is for us to have the gun.
As Chase goes through the couch cushions, his lips purse in frustration. “It’s got to be here somewhere, right?”
“I assume it’s well-hidden.” I duck down to look under the couch, even though I’m certain nothing will be there except dust balls. “If he doesn’t want us to find it, we’re not going to.”
Chase nods, considering this. “He might tell you.”
I take a step back. “Me?”
“Oh, come on.” He rolls his eyes. “You must realize how he looks at you. He hates me, but I have a feeling you could get whatever you want out of him. You just have to ask the right way.”
My cheeks burn. “I’m not going to prostitute myself! What’s wrong with you?”
“I’m not asking you to do anything with him.” He makes a gagging noise. “Ugh. I would never do that. I just think… if you’re nice to him, he’ll tell you whatever you want.”
I shake my head. “Stop, Chase. Please.”
“Fine. Then will you at least ask him how much longer it’s going to be?”
I bundle up and go outside, if only to get away from Chase and his insinuations. Jake is shoveling snow in front of the house, his forehead damp, the veins standing out in his neck. When he sees me approach, he briefly lifts his good eye, then lowers it again.
“Chase wants to know how much longer?” I ask.
“Half an hour,” he grunts.
I look along the path he’s been digging, which seems ample to get the truck on the road. It looks like he could have stopped digging twenty minutes ago. But I don’t comment on that. “Okay.”
I start to turn to leave, but Jake’s voice stops me: “I didn’t do it.”
I pause, not sure what to do or say.
“I’m sure you don’t believe me,” he mumbles. “I wouldn’t. I mean, if I were you, I wouldn’t believe me. But I swear to you. I didn’t murder anyone. I wasn’t a crooked cop.”
“I’m sorry.” I look down at the white snow on the ground. “We don’t know each other very well, so…”
“Right.” He nods. “That’s what I’d be thinking if I were you. I don’t blame you. Even my girlfriend at the time—she and I were together for two years—she thought I did it. She dumped me right after I got arrested. So if she didn’t believe me, I wouldn’t expect that you’d…” He heaves a deep breath. “But… I had to say it. Because there’s nothing worse than being thrown in jail for a crime you didn’t commit.”
“So… you were framed?”
Jake glances at the window to the cabin, maybe keeping an eye out for Chase. “Yes. I was.”
“But… why?”
His lips turn into a straight line. “It’s a long story.”
“I’m listening.”
He stops shoveling for a moment to study my face. He hesitates, then goes back to shoveling. “You ever hear of a guy named Freddy Mancini?”
“Isn’t he, like, some kind of mobster?”
Jake nods. “Right. He’s a mobster. And I was the detective in charge of investigating several of his operations. I had this great sting going—I was going to take that bastard down hard. Throw him in jail for the rest of his life. It was going to make my entire career.” He stares down at the snow. “And it went good. Great, even. Except when we were busting one of his clubs, his son got shot and killed.”
I cover my mouth. “Oh…”
“Mancini held me personally responsible for it,” he says. “It would have been fine if we had managed to nail Mancini, but those two witnesses—the ones I supposedly ‘murdered’—were what I was counting on to make the case. When they were dead, he got out of prison and I got arrested.” He closes his good eye. “It all fucking fell apart.”
“But…” I frown at him. “You got out. You’re here.”
“Bobby Mancini was Freddy’s only son,” Jake says. “Sending me to prison and destroying my career wasn’t enough for him. He wanted something worse for me. So he paid my bail, marched me out to the middle of nowhere in the dead of winter, and shot me in the chest.”
My mouth falls open. “He shot you? In the chest?”
He touches a spot just to the right of his breastbone. “This is where the bullet got me. I dropped into the snow and he told me he was going to watch me bleed to death. So I shut my eyes and prayed he believed I was dead. I knew my only chance was if he left me, but…” He shuts his eyes, shivering at the memory. “It was dark by the time he left. The bullet missed any vital organs—lucky me—but I lost a lot of blood and it was hard to even walk. Instead of bleeding to death, I thought for sure I was going to freeze to death. And then I fell down a snowbank into a bunch of trees and they scratched up my face and my…” He touches the eyepatch covering his right eye. “My right leg got busted in the fall too, but somehow I managed to make it to some guys ice fishing right before I collapsed, and they brought me to a hospital that didn’t ask too many questions. Including my real name.”
He adjusts his grip on the shovel. “The eye couldn’t be saved. But they managed to save my hands, which wasn’t a guarantee when I first got to the hospital. That’s the only thing I remember clearly when I got there—the emergency room doctor saying I’d probably lose both my hands. So after that, I couldn’t be bitter when the surgeon carved off pieces of my fingers. And the set the two broken bones in my right leg, but I’d been walking on it so long, it didn’t heal right. Still hurts every time I take a step.”
He stops shoveling, staring out into the distance. “I picked this cabin to hide out because I wanted to bring down Mancini and I wanted to get my life back.”
“I thought you liked it out here,” I murmur.
“I loved being a detective,” he says softly. “I miss my old life. I miss my parents. My mother and father—they never believed I was guilty. And now… they probably think I’m dead.”
I flinch. “Dead?”
“I’m sure that’s the conclusion everyone drew when I disappeared three years ago. When
they found my blood in the snow.” He looks down at the fresh white powder on the ground. “Makes sense—I would have been dead if that bullet had hit me an inch to the left. I want to call my mother so badly and let her know, but… I can’t. It would give away my location. I need to stay hidden. Here.”
I look around the wilderness—the blanket of snow covering absolutely everything. “But why here? What can you do out here?”
Jake is silent for a moment, as if struggling with whether he should tell me something. When he finally speaks, his voice is very low. “Natalie,” he says. “You know that cabin your ex-boyfriend is bringing you to for the weekend?”
My heart speeds up in my chest. I have a bad feeling I know what he’s going to say. “Yes…”
Jake’s eye meets mine. “That cabin belongs to Freddy Mancini.”
Chapter 20
I have to admit, I am struggling. I am struggling to figure out why Chase would bring me to a cabin owned by a notorious mobster.
There are some rumors about Hollister and Co. That they do some unsavory business. It’s not out of the question that Chase’s father might be friends with a mobster. I could picture it.
But the whole thing definitely gives me pause. If it’s true, that is.
“So you understand now,” Jake says, glancing at the window, “why I was reluctant to take you there.” He gives me a meaningful look. “Nothing good goes on in that cabin. Trust me. I’ve kept watch.”
Those binoculars in his room—guess they weren’t for birdwatching.
I feel like a hand is squeezing my chest. “I… I don’t know what to say…”
Jake continues shoveling, and I realize he’s taking us out of the path of any of the windows, so Chase won’t be able to see us. When he stops, the windows are completely concealed by the bulk of his truck.
“I don’t think you should go with him,” he says in a low voice. “You’re not even with him anymore. Why would you go?”
“What are you talking about?” I hiss at him. “That cabin is the only way for me to make it home. That cabin has a phone.”
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