Riley and Gage traded glances. “You sure?” she asked. “I don’t know how we’d have gotten through those first weeks without him.”
“You got the right fella?” Adele asked.
Riley told her the address they’d staked out that morning.
“That’s the place. Haven’t seen him in a spell, though.”
“You know where we might find him?”
“He had a boy living with him.” Adele paused and called to one of the guys down the counter. “Bobby? Tom still have that boy living with him?”
“Ain’t seen him,” came the reply.
“Well, he did have a fella living with him. Not much came by way of rumor, if you can believe it, so that’s about all I know.”
“Maybe we’ll just go knock on the door, then,” Gage said. “Sure would like to thank him for all he did.”
That earned another snort from the guy down the counter.
“Interesting,” Gage said under his breath, just before filling his mouth with a forkful of eggs. When Riley didn’t look away, he smiled. The gesture was so simple, so normal, it warmed her.
In the moment, she forgot to be mad…or maybe she just didn’t want to be. The feeling tangled with the first moments of real peace she’d experienced since the accident, and the irony didn’t get past her. Only she and Gage could reach a pinnacle of their relationship on the heels of two murders while sidestepping—if not flat out running from—the law. She hadn’t asked for specifics on their legal status, and she didn’t particularly want to know.
They finished breakfast, and Gage left a tip larger than the bill itself. “Maybe that extra cash will buy us some favor with them, should anyone ask questions down the road,” he said under his breath once they were out of earshot of the locals. He held the door open for her.
The late morning air already felt like an oven.
“Yeah,” Riley said, falling in step beside him. “Although it doesn’t sound like their loyalties side with Tom, anyway.”
“Sure doesn’t sound like he’s the charitable type. I guess he could have them fooled, but not many folks try to hide the good with the bad.”
They climbed in the truck, Riley shifting so she angled toward him. “Maybe he thought he’d ruin his bad reputation if word of the good stuff got out.”
“Isn’t that what I just said?” he asked, firing the engine and heading back in the direction of Tom’s house.
“No, you said people probably wouldn’t pretend they were jackasses when they weren’t. I said maybe he wanted to protect his jackass reputation.”
“There’s a difference?”
“It’s a nuance.”
Gage snorted. “I’d tell you I’ve missed this about you, but the last thing you need is encouragement.”
“Too late, Lawton. You wear your heart on your sleeve.”
“So much for protecting my jackass reputation then,” he said, smiling. “At any rate, Tom doesn’t sound like the generous type. Something was definitely going on between him and Colt.”
To that, Riley would have to agree. She just couldn’t say it. There was already enough blame and suspicion darkening her world. She didn’t want to think Colt could have anything to do with the missing gun, but the alternatives numbered few. It was either Colt or her father, and the latter was less likely than the first.
The options sickened her.
This time, Gage parked several houses away alongside a patch of trees, likely planted to shade the playground—overgrown and seemingly long abandoned—at their roots. He tucked his gun in his waistband, shifting so he could do so before exiting the truck. “If you want to stay out here…”
“Forget it,” she said.
“Figured as much.” He grinned, sending tingles of awareness cajoling with the nerves she was already wrestling. Their unspoken truce strengthened under the warmth of his gaze. “We should be able to follow the tree line to the house,” he said as they climbed out. “Maybe if anyone sees us, they won’t connect us to the truck.”
“So we’re just regular loitering burglar types. That makes me feel better,” she said. Her stomach turned at the idea of coming face-to-face with Tom.
Gage responded by lacing his fingers through hers. It felt right.
Too right.
The trip through the shallow stand of trees was short and uneventful, aside from the butterflies in her stomach caused by strolling hand in hand with Gage. Nevertheless, as they approached the house, Riley grew tense, her senses on edge. She couldn’t decide if she wanted Tom to answer the door or not. All jokes aside, he didn’t sound like the greatest of characters, and she had no idea what kind of mood he might be in—or whether her connection to Colt was a good or bad thing.
She followed Gage across the unkempt lawn—at some points thigh deep in weeds—and tried not to wonder how many snakes might be under foot. “You just gonna knock?” she asked as they rounded the side of the house toward the front door.
“Yes, I’m just going to knock. I don’t think anyone’s home, but maybe it’ll keep the old biddy across the street happy.”
“Old biddy? Nice.”
“Hey, you saw how she was looking into my truck. She’s a one-woman neighborhood watch.”
Riley didn’t respond. Picking her way through the junk on the front porch required all of her attention.
“Here goes nothing.” Gage rapped his knuckles on the dull aluminum screen door. After a minute, with no signs of life from inside, he leaned over and peered through a rip in the curtain. “Don’t see anything but a mess,” he said.
“Not surprising, considering the state of affairs on the porch.”
He knocked again, but didn’t wait by the door. Instead, he herded her off the porch. “Let’s check out the rest of the house.”
She sighed and turned, walking ahead of him. When she reached the broken sidewalk, she gestured for him to lead the way. “What are we going to do? Look in the windows?”
“Exactly,” he said, as if there wasn’t a thing in the world wrong with adding trespassing to their list of crimes.
“Yeah, because walking the perimeter with our faces pressed to the glass won’t look at all suspicious. What are we looking for?”
“A reason for him to visit Colt.”
“You think you’re going to find that squinting through dirty window panes?”
He appraised her with laughing eyes. “Do you have a better idea?”
To her relief, he skipped the front windows, sparing the neighbor lady any easy entertainment value.
Riley figured the old woman would have the cops on their heels the second she saw them round the corner of the house, but she followed him anyway. Whatever Gage thought they’d get away with, Riley figured it was better to be at his side than not.
The first two windows revealed more junk. “You think he actually lives here?” she asked. “Looks more like storage.”
“I’ve seen worse living conditions.” Gage snorted. “What, you think this is his vacation home or something?”
“Maybe it’s an unwanted inheritance. Could be sleeping in his truck or on a buddy’s sofa.”
“True, but why? His name is on the deed. I’d hang out at my own place before I’d crash elsewhere. Last thing a guy needs is his buddies dogging him for not having his own roof.” Gage stood on tiptoe to peer through a high window.
“Bathroom?” Riley guessed, her curiosity piqued by his dogged interest in what lay beyond the dirty glass.
“No.”
Silence.
“You want me to keep guessing?”
“No need to. We’re going inside.”
“Inside the house?” Clearly she wasn’t up for a life as a career criminal.
“As opposed to…”
Lacking other options, she ignored the question. “What do you s
ee?”
“A reason to go in the house.”
Riley tamped down the urge to smack him across the back of the head. “You realize this is actual breaking and entering this time, right? Or do you have a key here too?”
Gage made his way through the tall grass to the back door, pausing only a moment to squint through another window. “Is it my fault if he forgot to lock the back door? And it just happens to open when I knock?”
“And the odds of that are what? Besides, it’s still not legal.”
Gage tossed a disarming smile in her direction. “Says the woman wanted by the law.”
“Which is whose fault?”
The grin disappeared. “Tom Rigby better hope like hell it’s not his.” Gage tried the knob but it didn’t turn. “Hmm.” Armed with another smug grin, he kicked the door.
It flew inward, the broken lock hitting the linoleum beneath.
Great.
She followed him into a dated, cluttered kitchen. Once they cleared the path of the door, they found piles of stuff teetered every which way, leaving her gulping stale air with unease. Thirty seconds in and she’d had enough. “Okay, what was so interesting?”
He looked around for just a moment before turning left, in the direction of whatever was on the other side of the window.
The hairs on the back of Riley’s neck stood up. The towering junk in the small house threatened to suffocate, choking the oxygen from the space. The air smelled of infestation, and the meager footpath weaving from one room to the next disappeared. They were left to search for footing through stacks of boxes, many of which had spilled their contents into unruly heaps. There was plenty to bother her, but obvious discomforts aside, something didn’t feel right.
“Damn.” He couldn’t move out of the way, but he turned so she could see past him. There, in the center of the room in a clearing of sorts, was a hospital bed. “Coincidence?” he asked, but he didn’t wait for an answer. He climbed over a minefield of toppled boxes, Riley close on his heels.
“So he’s got a hospital bed. Could have belonged to a relative.” Riley took a deep breath, this time sucking in more than the scent of vermin. “Gage, I smell smoke.”
The scent grew stronger with every passing second. There hadn’t been a trace of it when they walked through the back door, and already the odor was unmistakable.
He paused, his hand on a stack of papers. “Me too. Out, now.”
She whirled around, swallowing panic when she saw the sea of boxes and junk they’d climbed over blocking the way to the door. Smoke navigated the ceiling-high junk like clouds maneuvering mountaintops, the acrid scent thickening and growing heavy in the air.
Seconds later, flames followed, attacking both exits once.
They were trapped.
Chapter Eight
Time froze, but the flames did not. Through the smoke and the squalor, the fire inexplicably licked both of the room’s doorways—one near the front of the house, and the one Riley and Gage had entered near the back.
It made no sense. What kind of fire started everywhere at once? Gage jerked around, his attention immediately drawn to a window. He tugged on the back of Riley’s shirt.
She spun, eyes wide. She’d already pulled her shirt over her mouth and nose, but the dry fabric wouldn’t help long.
He pointed to the window and without waiting for a response, waded through the junk, falling twice, fighting coughs, and trying not to breathe. An upended wooden chair made for a nice battering ram, so he grabbed and shoved it through the glass. Then, without missing a beat, he yanked the flimsy metal curtain rod from the wall. He ran the pole across the bottom of the pane in an effort to knock out the remaining shards of glass, grateful the cheap casements held one big thin panel, which saved them valuable time.
With the escape route as clear as it was going to get, he turned to Riley. The flames were spreading fast, the smoke so thick he didn’t see her at first. One, then two desperate steps back and he saw her, crouched near the floor. He waved at her to approach, then ushered her ahead to their improvised escape.
Riley pushed her feet through the opening, kicking loose glass off the sill as she went. Seeing that she’d rolled to safety, Gage followed after her. The drop was meager, but the shock of fresh air was almost startling—as much as he wanted stop and feast on it, he didn’t. Instead, he stayed on Riley’s heels, first crawling, and then fleeing the burning house.
“Trees.” Still gasping for breath, he choked on the word. His gunshot arm burned as much as his lungs did. He focused on staving off a coughing fit. Just get to the trees, he told himself. Then we can worry about the rest. He was no expert on fires, but he’d bet his good arm there’d been an accelerant in that house—even with the boxes and papers all over the place, fire didn’t simultaneously land in two spots at once—and he wasn’t taking chances an explosion wouldn’t follow.
Something more than coincidence triggered that fire. Tom Rigby had something to hide, and he was doing an impressive job of hiding it.
Riley stopped at the tree line, edging into the shadows. When she turned to Gage, her eyes were rimmed with red, her skin streaked with dirt.
He wrapped his arms around her, burying his face in her hair. She smelled of smoke and that frightened him, made him realize how close they came to the unthinkable. He could not—would not—lose her again. “You okay?”
She nodded. “That was close,” she said, echoing his thoughts.
“Too close. You ready to make a run for the truck?”
“Is that wise? Fleeing the scene?”
Even tacked with fear, her voice hadn’t lost that wry quality he adored. Gage held her tighter, scared at how he felt in that moment. He loved her. God, he loved her. But he laughed, trying to settle his own nerves and hoping he’d ease hers in the process. “Versus what?” he asked. “Waiting for the authorities to arrive?”
“Don’t you think that woman reported your license plate by now? I bet she had it memorized before the sun came up. Even if she hasn’t noticed we’re back, I kind of doubt she’ll chalk this up to an unrelated incident.”
Gage snorted. He reached for her hand as he stepped away. Threading his fingers through hers, he gave a tug and she followed, matching his fast pace.
“Truck is registered to a Chuck Weston. He’s an upstanding citizen without any arrest warrants, nor is he a person of interest in a murder investigation.”
“What if they track down the truck and ask for a driver’s license to go with that registration?”
“They probably won’t have the chance, but I can assure you, it looks good. And it’s not mine, other than the photo.”
“Then why not wait and tell your side of the story? His house is burning down, Gage. I feel terrible.” She sounded watery, on the verge of tears.
“Because,” he said, nearing the edge of the woods. “Once they get Chuck in their system, Maverick’s got to set up a whole new good ol’ boy identity. We’re not supposed to use them unless we have to.”
“And if—or should I say when—they run the license plate?”
He sighed. “Right. Let’s just stay off the radar if we can. No need to make it any worse. There is the little matter of breaking and entering.”
Riley snorted. “Now it’s breaking and entering.”
Gage turned to look at the house. The fire was still contained within the walls, only a wisp of smoke trailing upward from the backside of the house where he’d broken the window. Unless Old Biddy had her binoculars keyed in, the fire might not be obvious…yet. They still had time.
Twenty yards stood between them and escape. “Try to look casual,” he said. “We’re going to get in the truck and go. We’ll call the fire department once we’re on the road.”
“Shouldn’t you call them now? Before the whole house burns down?”
“Nope.”
<
br /> “Gage—”
“That fire was rigged. There’s no way it just happened to catch fire with us in it, especially not all over at once. Did you see how the fire almost instantly blocked both doors—one at the front, one at the back? Not an accident.”
“Okay, a coincidence might be a stretch, but how does that work? Rigging a fire, I mean.”
He shrugged. “No telling. My guess is either some sort of a trip-wire or a motion detector. I don’t know about you, but with all of that junk in there I wouldn’t have noticed a trigger mechanism. Hell, if the guy is good, it’s not something a person would notice even without the stuff everywhere.”
They reached the truck. The street was still quiet, but the house was beginning to show outward signs of fire. The calm wouldn’t last.
She didn’t say anything until her seat belt was on. “Trip wires? Motion detectors? Where do you come up with this stuff?”
He placed his gun in the cardboard box console and slid his phone from his pocket. Handing it to Riley, he said, “Call it in. Anonymously.”
She took it, hesitating. “The fire…we caused it, then? We’re the reason his house is burning down?”
“There was something in there he didn’t want anyone to see. Burning to the ground is exactly what Tom Rigby wanted. The house and whatever damned secrets went with it.”
Maverick’s ability to spew profanity had improved significantly in the handful of months since Gage signed on. It took a good sixty seconds before Gage could understand a word Maverick said…or maybe it just took that long for him to say anything intelligible. Either way, it was impressive.
“What the hell were you thinking going into his house? I told you—”
“You told me not to kill him,” Gage said, cutting him off and earning a sharp look of alarm from Riley. “And I didn’t touch him.”
“You burned down his house.”
“No, he burned down his house. The question is, why.”
Forsaken Page 8
