It felt like a slap in the face, but she didn’t know how to articulate that. Except an unfair rage toward the Wyatts.
Rachel took a deep breath to calm herself. She never let her temper get the better of her. Mom had impressed upon her temper tantrums would never get her what she wanted. “I don’t have anything to do with their trouble.”
“I might have said the same about Felicity and Cecilia, but look what they endured this summer. It won’t do.”
“Dad, teaching those classes—”
“I know they mean a lot to you. And I am sorry. Maybe you could do some tutoring out here?”
“I’m an adult.”
“You’re twenty-two. I know this is a disappointment, but I’m not going to argue about it.” His hand slid off her shoulder and she heard the jangle of keys.
Rachel frowned at how strange this all was. Maybe she was still dreaming. “Are you going somewhere?”
There was a pregnant pause. “Just into town on some errands.”
Her frown deepened. Sarah took care of almost all the errands now that it was just the two of them left living with Duke. Her father almost never ventured into town. And he never gave her unreasonable ultimatums.
“What’s wrong, Dad?” she asked gravely.
“I want my girls safe,” he said, and she heard his retreating footsteps as though that was that.
She fisted her hands on her hips. Oh, no, it was not. And she was going to get some answers. If they wouldn’t come from her father, they’d just have to come from the source of the trouble.
* * *
TUCKER WYATT HAD always loved spending nights at his grandmother’s house. Though he kept an apartment in town, he’d much rather spend time with his family at the Reaves ranch.
Until now.
He sighed. Why had he ever thought his current predicament was a good idea? He was terrible at keeping secrets.
Case in point, he was about 75 percent sure his brother Brady had figured out that Tucker accidentally stumbling into a situation where he could help save Brady’s life from one of their father’s protégés wasn’t so accidental. That it was part of his working beyond his normal job as detective with the Valiant County Sheriff’s Department.
And, since their youngest brother had been kicked out of North Star Group just a few months ago, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what group Tucker might also be working for.
He was going to have to quit. The North Star Group had approached him because of his ties to Ace Wyatt, former head of the dangerous Sons of the Badlands, and a few of Tucker’s cases that involved other high-ranking officials in the Sons.
Cases Tuck had been sure were private and confidential. But those words didn’t mean much to North Star.
They’d wanted him on the Elijah Jones investigation, but then Brady and Cecilia Mills, one of the Knight girls, had gotten in the way.
The only reason Tucker hadn’t been kicked out of North Star, as far as he could see, was because the North Star higher-ups didn’t know his brother and Cecilia were suspicious of Tucker’s involvement.
Which didn’t sit right. Surely they didn’t think his brother, a police officer, didn’t have questions about a mysterious explosion that took Elijah Jones down enough to be restrained, hospitalized and, as of today, transferred to prison.
It had been a mess of a summer all in all, but things would assuredly calm down now. Ace was in maximum-security prison and Elijah was going to jail, along with a variety of his helpers.
But as long as Tucker was part of North Star and their continued efforts to completely and utterly destroy the Sons of the Badlands, he wouldn’t feel totally settled or calm.
The back door that came into the kitchen swung open—not all that unusual. Grandma Pauline always had people coming and going through this entrance, but Tuck was surprised by the appearance of a very angry looking Rachel Knight.
She pointed directly at him, as if he’d done something wrong. “What’s going on with my dad?”
Tuck stared at Rachel in confusion. She looked...pissed, which was not her norm. She was probably the most even-keeled of the whole Knight bunch.
While her sisters had all been fostered or adopted by Duke and Eva Knight, Rachel was their lone biological daughter. She didn’t look much like her father—more favored her late mother, which always gave Tuck a bit of a pang.
His memories of his own mother weren’t pleasant. He’d had Grandma Pauline, who he loved with his whole heart. Her influence on him and his brothers when they’d come to live with her meant the world to him.
But Eva Knight had been a soft, motherly presence in the Reaves-Knight world. Even if she’d been next door and not their mother, she’d treated them like sons. He’d never seen anything that matched it.
Except in her daughter. Tall and slender, Rachel had Eva’s sharp nose and high cheekbones and long black hair. The biggest difference were the scars around Rachel’s eyes, lines of lighter brown against the darker skin color on the rest of her face.
She could see, but not clearly. It always seemed to Tuck that her dark brown eyes were a little too knowing.
At least on this he wasn’t keeping a secret—and failing at it. He had no idea why she’d demand of him anything about Duke Knight.
“Well?” she demanded as he only sat there like a deer caught in headlights.
“I haven’t the slightest idea what’s going on with your father. Why would I?”
“I don’t know. I only know it has something do with you.”
By the way she flung her arms in the air, he could only assume she didn’t mean him personally but the whole of the Wyatts.
“Why don’t we sit down?” He took her elbow gently to lead her to the table. “Back up. Talk about this, you know, calmly.”
She tugged her elbow out of his grasp, clearly not wanting to sit. “He doesn’t want me teaching this fall. He’s worried about our safety. I know it doesn’t have to do with my family. So, it has to do with yours.”
Tucker held himself very still—an old trick he had down to an art these days. Letting his temper get the best of him as a kid had gotten the crap beaten out of him. Routinely.
Ace had told him his emotions would be the death of him if he didn’t learn to control them. Hone them.
Tucker refused to hone them or be anything like his father. Which meant also never letting his temper boil over. He pictured a blue sky, puffy white clouds and a hawk arcing through both.
When he trusted his voice, he spoke and offered a smile. “I guess that’s possible.” He didn’t allow himself to say what he wanted to. Your sisters seem to be getting my brothers in trouble plenty on their own. “I’m not sure specifically what it could be that would have Duke worried about you teaching at the rez. Did something happen? Maybe Cecilia would know.”
“What would I know?” Cecilia asked, walking into the kitchen. She was in her tribal police uniform, likely on her way to work. Though she was still nursing some wounds from her run in with Ace’s protege and hadn’t been cleared for active duty, she’d started in-house hours this week.
Though Duke and Eva Knight had fostered Cecilia, like Rachel she was a blood relation—Eva’s niece. But she had been raised as “one of the Knight girls” as much Rachel’s sister as her cousin.
“Has there been any new trouble at the rez that might make Duke nervous about Rach teaching her upcoming session?” Tucker asked.
Rachel scowled at him. “I wasn’t going to bring her into it, jerk.”
Cecilia’s brow puckered. “I haven’t heard anything. Dad doesn’t want you teaching? Kind of late to have concerns about that, isn’t it? Doesn’t your session start the first of the month? And why didn’t you want to bring me into it?”
Rachel sighed heavily. “Yes, it does, and yes, it’s late.” She looked pointedly in Tucker
’s direction, but when she spoke it was to Cecilia. “I wasn’t going to bring you into it, because obviously it’s not about you. I don’t think it’s about the rez, either. I think it’s about the Wyatts.”
“Look, Rach, I know the Wyatts are an easy target, no offense, Tuck. But if something bad was going on over here, Brady would have told me.”
Because Cecilia and Brady now shared a room at his grandmother’s house, a simple fact Tucker wasn’t used to. Four of his brothers all paired off. And with the Knight girls of all people. It was sudden and weird.
But he just had to keep that to himself. Especially when Brady and Cecilia lived here now. “Well, I’ll let you ladies figure this out. I’ve got a meeting to get to,” Tucker said, quickly slipping past Rachel even as she began to protest.
Whatever was going on with Duke and Rachel was not his business, and he had to meet with his boss at North Star to nip this whole mission in the bud. It wasn’t for him. He was a detective, and a damn good one, but he would never become adept at lying to his family.
He got in his truck, and drove to the agreed upon location. A small diner in Rapid City. Tucker had never met Granger McMillan, the head of the North Star Group. He’d been approached by field operatives and dealt with them solely.
Until now.
Tucker scanned the diner. Granger had said he’d know who he was, and Tucker had thought that was a little over-the-top cloak-and-dagger, but the large man in a cowboy hat and dark angry eyes sitting in the corner was quite familiar.
The man he was sitting across from turned in his seat, looked right at Tucker and gestured him over.
Tucker moved forward feeling a bit like he’d taken a blow to the head. Why was Duke here? What was this?
“You two know each other,” the man, who could only be Granger McMillan, said. Not a question. A statement. “Have a seat, Wyatt. We have a lot to discuss.”
Copyright © 2020 by Nicole Helm
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ISBN-13: 9781488067471
Chain of Custody
Copyright © 2020 by Carol Ericson
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Chain of Custody (Holding The Line Book 2) Page 20
