I held his gaze, unflinching.
He continued. “And now you’re stuck in a disaster of my creation. You wanted to stop being Lady, and I wouldn’t let you.”
My irritation softened. “Sure, you coerced me in the beginning, but I chose to continue. To help you.”
He shook his head with a bitter laugh. “So you could save that sorry bastard who left you as soon as he was safe.”
“Even so, it was by choice. You didn’t coerce me.”
He kept his gaze on the tree line for a moment before turning to face me. By then, his melancholy had been replaced with determination. “I can’t change my previous selfishness, but I’m damned by it now.” He strode toward me and cupped both sides of my face with his hands. “Let me claim you. Then I can give you my full protection.”
“You and I both know that will make me more of a target, not less. This is the safest way—to appear neutral.”
He dropped his hands and took a step back. “I will not let you pay with your life for my own greed.”
I gave him a soft smile. “I’m too stubborn to let someone kill me.”
He released a laugh, but it sounded forlorn. “I almost believe that.”
“Good.” I took a breath, steeling myself, then said, “Now you need to go.”
He gave me a look of pained surprise.
“I’ve missed you more than you can possibly know,” I said, “but the longer you stay here, the more danger I’m in. What if Wagner finds out you’re here and thinks I’ve given this mysterious file to you? I assured him that if I found it, I’d give it to him, but we both know he doesn’t trust my word.”
His brow lowered. “You shouldn’t have told him that.”
“If it’s his file, then of course I will. Just like I gave Buck Reynolds back his necklace.”
He moved next to me, close enough for his chest to touch mine. His voice was a low growl. “And what if whatever’s in that file is harmful? What if it’s a hit list? What if it’s dirt on me? Worse yet, what if it’s something that could hurt Neely Kate? Would you be so willing to give it back then?”
I stared up at him in horror, but the look on his face wasn’t gloating. It was sympathetic.
“Livin’ in the gray area’s not so easy, is it?” When I didn’t respond, he wrapped me in his arms, placed a gentle kiss on my forehead, then got into his car and drove away.
Chapter 13
Jed and Neely Kate were sitting on the sofa when I walked inside.
“Everything okay?” Neely Kate asked with a worried look.
Everything was far from okay, but I suspected that wasn’t what she was asking. “James left of his own volition. He wants to claim me to protect me, but I told him that I’ll be safer if I continue to paint myself as neutral.” I turned my gaze to Jed. “What’s your opinion? Do you think I’m as deluded and naïve as James does?”
He gave me a long look. I trusted his opinion more than anyone else’s on this situation. James was too close to be objective, and while Jed was close, he was also far enough removed to hopefully keep most of his feelings out of it.
“No. I think you’re right. You’ll have a definite target on your back if he claims you. Most people would give pause before doin’ something, but we all know the world is full of ruthless people. Fenton County’s no different than anywhere else. Men are starting to recognize your neutrality—that much is obvious if the boy showed up lookin’ for sanctuary. We just need to give it time.”
I nodded. “Thanks.” I pushed out a breath, then glanced toward the stairs. “I’m going to ask Marshall some questions. Want to come help me?” I asked Neely Kate.
She hopped up. “Definitely.”
I turned my attention back to Jed. “You are to stay away from this kid. Can you abide by that rule?”
He gave me a hard stare. “For now.”
I put a hand on my hip. “What’s that mean?”
“It means that if a situation arises that requires me to talk to him, I will.” When I started to protest, he held up his hand. “Rose, I plan to abide by your rules, but I refuse to swear that I’ll have absolutely no contact with him. I’m not gonna paint myself into that corner. I promise I’ll only do it as a last resort.”
It was hard to argue with that. “Are you plannin’ on spendin’ the night?”
He shot a look at Neely Kate and then glanced at me. “If you’ll allow it.”
I gave him a tight smile. “I’d prefer it.”
“Good,” he said with a brisk nod. “You girls head up and see what you can find out, and I’ll wait for Witt.”
The mention of Witt’s name made my stomach twist. I dreaded facing him.
We headed up the stairs. Since the clock on the living room wall said it was close to eleven o’clock, I expected to walk into a dark room, but Marshall had turned on the bedside table lamp and was curled up in his bed, clutching his cell phone.
“We’ll take that,” Neely Kate said, snatching it from him.
“That’s mine!” he protested.
She ignored him as she started tapping and scrolling on his screen. Then she held it up and pointed it toward him. “What are these two calls? Becky called an hour ago and you called her back.” Her gaze jerked up to his. “You weren’t supposed to have contact with anyone.”
“She’s my girlfriend.” He looked scared. “She left me a voicemail and told me it was important for us to talk. So I texted instead.”
“What was so important?” Neely Kate asked.
“She told me that Rusty, the friend who dropped me off here last night, was murdered. She was worried about me.”
“And did Becky want to come see you?” Neely Kate asked, still holding up the phone.
His gaze dropped to his hands. “Yeah.”
Neely Kate gave me a look of disbelief, then turned back to Marshall. “And you told her where you were.” When Marshall started to protest, she shook her head in disgust. “I know you did. It wasn’t a question. Was the plan for her to come right away?”
“She said she was coming tomorrow morning after you two left for work.”
“I thought we told you no calls and no visitors,” Neely Kate said.
“I know, but she’s scared, and I get lonely here all by myself.” He cringed and shot a glance at me. “No offense to your dog.”
I nodded. “No offense taken, but you’re gonna have to call her and tell her you’ll get evicted if you have any visitors.”
“I was gonna leave with her. We talked about goin’ to Little Rock,” he said. “But now she won’t answer my calls, and I’m scared for her.” He sniffed, obviously distraught. “She don’t know anything.”
My heart softened. “Marshall, how old are you? The truth this time. I know you were in Fenton County High School last spring.”
His gaze flicked up to me then back down. “I’m eighteen, I swear. My birthday was last month.”
I grabbed the chair in the corner and dragged it next to the bed. When I sat down, I said, “Look, I’m not sure if you heard everything that happened downstairs, but Kip Wagner showed up looking for you, and I risked my life to keep you safe. So in exchange, you’re gonna tell me everything you know, startin’ with how you got shot.”
“I can’t.”
“Can’t?” Neely Kate said, giving him a look that made him shrink into the bed. “You mean won’t. You showed up in our barn lookin’ for help, and we gave it to you, no questions asked, and now you refuse to tell us what you know.” She sucked in a breath, then looked at the phone screen. “Do you have Kip Wagner’s number in your contacts? No,” she said with a frown. “No worries. I’m sure we can find it and tell him to come haul your booty away.”
“No!” he protested. “Don’t call him!”
“Then start talkin’.”
“Okay!” he shouted in a panic. “Okay! But you gotta make sure Becky’s okay. You gotta protect her.”
“We don’t gotta do nothin’,” Neely Kate said, keeping up
her bad-cop routine, but I heard her voice waver.
I resisted the urge to sigh. “Okay, here’s what we’re gonna do. You tell us everything you know, and we’ll check on Becky.”
“No!” he shouted, rising off the bed. “That’s not good enough! You have to protect her!”
“Marshall,” I said in a gentle tone, “I can’t guarantee anything. I suspect Kip Wagner and his friends got to her and found out where you were from her.” When I thought about the timing of his call to her and Kip Wagner’s drop-in visit, I was nearly certain of it. “For all I know, they’re holding her hostage to get you to cooperate. Or . . .” I hesitated, wondering if I should tell him the next part, but he needed to understand the severity of the situation. Lord knew I should have been more straightforward with Jeanne. I certainly shouldn’t have made promises I couldn’t keep. “Or she might be dead.”
I had another suspicion, but I had a notion he wasn’t ready to hear it yet.
“No!” he wailed.
“But we’ll look for her, okay?” Neely Kate said, caving when she saw his anguish. “That’s all we can promise.” He nodded, and she added, “But the more you tell us, the better our chances of findin’ her. So start spillin’.”
He nodded at her again and wiped his face with the back of his hand. “It was Rusty’s idea to rob the pawn shop.”
“Why?” I asked.
“He’s always wanted to live life on the wild side . . . well, I guess he used to want to, on account of he’s dead now.” Then he teared up again.
“Rusty’s dead because of his own stupidity,” Neely Kate said. “And you got shot for the same.”
The boy’s eyes flew wide, but he didn’t argue.
I needed to keep this confession moving. “You know about Skeeter Malcolm and you know about the Lady in Black, so you already have a foot in Fenton County’s seedy underbelly. Who are you loyal to?”
He stared at me, still wide-eyed.
“Come on,” Neely Kate said. “It wasn’t a hard question.”
He swallowed, looking nervous, before he said, “I’m not.”
“You’re not what?” Neely Kate asked.
“I’m not loyal to anyone.”
“I suppose it’s possible,” I said to Neely Kate. “Look at Witt.”
Neely Kate put her hand on her hip and narrowed her eyes at the boy. “Yeah, but he’s not old enough to know about the crime world unless he’s loyal to someone in it.”
“I’m not,” he insisted.
“Okay,” I said. “If you’re not loyal to anyone, then how do you know those things?”
“Rusty. He’s the one who knew things. He’d been hangin’ out with Wagner’s guys. I guess he was loyal to him.”
Neely Kate snorted. “He couldn’t have been very loyal if he robbed the guy.”
“Rusty said Wagner had something he needed, and he said if he got it, Skeeter Malcolm would finally listen to him.”
That caught my attention. “Listen to him about what?”
“About lettin’ him join his group.”
“If Rusty wanted to join Skeeter Malcolm’s group,” I said, “then why wouldn’t you let me call him?”
“Because I’ve heard how mean he is.” He nodded toward me. “And I heard about you too. Rusty said you had a special arrangement with Malcolm, but you sided with Reynolds a few weeks ago, which made everyone think you might be neutral.”
“You didn’t hear this yourself?” I asked.
“No,” Neely Kate said, turning to face me. “Because Marshall here wasn’t hangin’ out with Wagner’s men. Everything he’s heard is secondhand from Rusty, who was hangin’ out with them and braggin’ to his buddy.”
“Is that true?” I asked.
He gave me a sheepish look and nodded.
I sat back in my chair and collected my thoughts. “Why did you agree to help Rusty rob the pawn shop? You had to know it was a fool’s venture.”
“I did it for Becky.”
“Becky?” Neely Kate asked in surprise. “Why would you rob a pawn shop for your girlfriend?”
His face flushed. “She was livin’ with this guy, and she wanted to get away, but she needed money to do it.”
Neely Kate’s face lost color.
I gave her a curious look, then leaned forward. “If she was livin’ with a guy, how is she your girlfriend?”
He lowered his gaze, his face turning a deeper shade of crimson. “She isn’t exactly my girlfriend—yet. She said she can’t be my girlfriend so long as she’s living with Bubba. So I told her I’d get the money to help her escape.” He was silent for a moment, then added with some attitude, “We weren’t stupid. We knew robbin’ the pawn shop would be hard. That’s why we robbed it on a Sunday afternoon on account of no one’s there.”
“Surely Kip Wagner has cameras,” I said.
“He does, but we wore ski masks.”
“You forgot about the cameras in the parking lot,” Neely Kate said. “I bet he got your license plate number.”
Marshall shook his head. “We took off the plates, and we weren’t driving either one of our cars.”
“Then how’d he know you robbed him?”
“I don’t know,” Marshall said, his voice shaking.
“Okay,” I said, “let’s back up. Rusty tells you he wants to rob the pawn shop, and you agree, knowin’ Becky needs help.”
“Not exactly,” he said. “At first I said no, no way, but he kept askin’, and then I realized Becky needed my help . . .”
“And you said yes,” I finished. Men the world over had been known to do stupid things for women.
“I couldn’t stand to see her hurt anymore.”
“Hurt?” I asked in surprise. “You mean physically hurt?”
He nodded. “She showed up at the convenience store with bruises, but last week they were really bad. I couldn’t stand to see her hurt anymore, so I called Rusty that night and said I was in.”
“Convenience store?” I said in confusion.
“That’s where I work. She’d been comin’ in every day for the last month, always at the same time. After a while, we started talkin’ and she told me the reason she always comes in at the same time is because that’s when Bubba isn’t watchin’ her. She said she wished she had a man who would be sweet to her.” He swallowed. “I guess I always knew I didn’t stand a chance with her. She’s beautiful, and she’s twenty-two—what would she want with a kid like me? But I still wanted to help her.”
“We’ll find her,” Neely Kate said with a determination that caught me by surprise. “But we’ll need to know where you worked, where she lived, and anything else that can help us.”
His mouth sagged. “You will?”
“Yeah. I promise.”
“Neely Kate,” I said in a stern voice.
She shot me a defiant look—not in a hateful way, but more of an I’ll do this with or without you way. Of course if she felt this strongly about it, I’d help her, no questions asked. I just couldn’t figure out why it was so important to her . . . and then I felt like a fool.
I’d bet my truck she’d been in a similar situation back in Ardmore.
“I work at the Stop-N-Go, and I don’t know for sure where she lives. She don’t have a car, so she walks to the convenience store every day from the apartments about a quarter mile down the road.”
“Did you ever see her boyfriend?” I asked.
He shook his head. “No. She said he didn’t know she visited the store as often as she did.”
“His name is Bubba?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“Does she have a job?” I asked.
“None that I knew about. I asked her a few times, and she said Bubba doesn’t like her to leave the apartment.”
“Do you have a photo of Becky on your phone?” Neely Kate asked. “We can use it to ask around about her.”
“Yeah,” he said, then opened his photos and showed us a picture.
Becky was a tiny gi
rl with shoulder-length dark hair and a few scattered freckles. She would have been pretty in a girl-next-door way if not for the vacant look in her eyes.
Neely Kate took a long look, her expression distraught.
“We need you to send that to us,” I said.
He tapped on his phone, and mine buzzed with the incoming text. “Can you think of anything else that might help us?”
“No,” he said, lying back on his pillow and looking exhausted.
I gave Neely Kate a warning glance before I said, “We’ll do everything we can to find her, but right now, we need to know what you and your buddy pulled out of the safe.”
“A whole lot of nothin’,” he said. “Rusty thought there would be more money in there, but there was only a couple hundred dollars and a bunch of papers. He stuffed everything inside a pillow case. Then we smashed a few cases and grabbed some jewelry and cells phones to sell.”
“Where’d you go?” I asked.
“To Rusty’s grandma’s house. She was at some church picnic, and then she was goin’ over to a friend’s house. She rode with her friend, so we left Rusty’s truck at her place and took her car to the pawn shop. The plan was to split the loot, get Rusty’s truck, and head home, but Rusty said he had something to sell first. He told me to stay at his grandma’s place while he took care of it. Said we shouldn’t be seen together.”
Neely Kate and I exchanged looks.
“Those papers he took from the safe have to be the file Wagner is lookin’ for,” I said. I turned to Marshall. “Who’d he go meet?”
“I dunno.”
“Think hard, Marshall,” Neely Kate said, sounding gruff. “I suspect your life might depend on gettin’ those papers back.”
Terror filled his eyes. “I dunno.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Uh . . . he made a call, but I don’t know who to. Then he said he had to take the papers to the buyer and left.”
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