Backcountry Escape (Badlands Cops Book 3) Read online

  “Well. Hell.”

  She grinned up at him, brushed a kiss over his mouth. “Come on, I’ll make you some breakfast before I go.”

  He slid his arms around her waist, pulling her close, nuzzling into her hair. “I have some different ideas.”

  She leaned into him for a second, then gave him a little push. “I’m hungry.” She laughed, sounding a bit bewildered, as if she couldn’t quite believe this was all happening. “But maybe after.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  It took a few days to work out, especially without any of the Wyatt boys being tipped off. They wouldn’t let her do this thing, and she had to do it.

  It required a secrecy she wasn’t very good at, and then waiting for her own day off to align with when she could accomplish the task.

  Getting back to work had been good. It kept her mind busy, and though she struggled to forget everything that had happened at her cabin or on the trails, it was better to struggle than to avoid.

  Routines were good. Having a plan was better.

  Now she was going to enact it. She felt sick and nervous leading up to it but it had to be done. When it was over, maybe she would tell Gage, even if it made him mad.

  She couldn’t tell him before. He’d stop her, and she would not be stopped on this.

  Luckily, Gage was back at work, though he was relegated to desk duty until he had his checkup next week. He’d grumbled about it all morning. Felicity had let him grumble, made him breakfast, then sent him on his way.

  It was a bit like... Well, she didn’t like to think about it too deeply, but waking up with him, whether at his apartment or her cabin, felt a bit like living together.

  She shook her head as she got out of her car. Thoughts for another time. Today wasn’t about Gage or how good she felt there. It was about closing the book on the unfinished chapter that still weighed on her, even if Gage allowed her to take a considerable amount of that weight off at any given time.

  She tried not to think too hard about Gage as she pulled into the jail parking lot. He would hate this. He wouldn’t understand it, and he was going to be so ticked off when he found out.

  He had no one to blame but himself, though. He’d been the one to tell her she didn’t have to be happy just because everyone expected her to be. He’d been the one to help her find the courage to do this.

  He’d hate that even more.

  Now she was here, and she was ready. She’d close the door on this, if she could, and then her life wouldn’t feel like it was in an awful limbo.

  Felicity stepped into the jail, followed the instructions to be a visitor, and then was taken into a room with plexiglass partitions. She took a seat and waited. She breathed through her nerves and focused on portraying a calm, unflappable exterior.

  It didn’t matter if she was a riot of nerves inside. If Ace didn’t see it, it wouldn’t matter at all.

  It didn’t take long for Ace to be escorted to the other side of the glass. He was handcuffed and in a prison uniform. He looked haggard and pale, his face more hollow than lean in that dangerous predator type of way. He wasn’t having the best recovery from his gunshot wound here in jail.

  Good.

  When their gazes met, he smiled just like he had back at her cabin, as if he had all the control and power in the world.

  She wouldn’t let that rattle her. She had the power now. She kept her expression neutral and her posture as relaxed as she could muster. “Hello, Ace.”

  “Felicity Harrison. This is a surprise. My would-be murderer wants to speak to me. I could hardly resist my curiosity.”

  “You mean the opportunity to try to mess with my mind?”

  Ace’s smile didn’t dim. If anything it deepened so that he looked normal. Like a kind man happy to see someone. Not even a prisoner happy to have a visitor to talk to, but like a man at a family Christmas dinner.

  The fact it could look real was far more chilling than him calling her his would-be murderer.

  “Care to take a guess as to why I’m here?” she asked. She’d practiced this. Perfected what she would say, how she would broach the topic. Being too direct would give him a kind of ammunition. She didn’t know what Ace could still do to her, especially with his impending move to a federal facility, but she wouldn’t take any chances.

  “So many reasons. But I note you’re alone, which means not one of my sons, and probably not one of your little Knights, knows you’re here. They wouldn’t let you do this alone.”

  “I’m not afraid of doing anything alone.” It wasn’t totally true. She’d told Cecilia. Just in case something happened, though she couldn’t think of anything that would. Still, she’d realized that someone needed to know, and Cecilia was the only one who’d be true to her word not to tell anyone unless she needed to.

  Ace didn’t need to know that. Let him think she was alone. Let him know she could handle it. “I shot you without anyone’s help.”

  “Good. That’s good.” Ace leaned back and chuckled. “I like you, Felicity. I do.” His gaze sharpened. “You don’t like that, though. Gage wouldn’t be too keen on me liking you, would he?”

  Her blood ran cold, but she kept her mouth curved and forced a little laugh out herself. “Yeah, he’s that gullible. He’d drop me because you said you liked me. And I’m that pathetic, I came here to talk to you about your son.”

  “Fancy yourself a strong woman now?” Ace’s smile got a sharp quality that no one would be fooled into thinking was kind. “You shot me, Felicity. But I’m still here.”

  “Yeah. Looking a little rough around the edges, though.” Felicity leaned forward, trying for his fake kind smile. “Not sure how federal prison is going to agree with you, but I can’t wait to find out.”

  “I can’t wait to drag you into a long, painful trial. You and Gage. It’ll be a real joy. To taint your lives for years. To always be the dark cloud over your future. To twist and bend the law to my will until I’m walking free again. And when I am—”

  It sent a cold shudder through her, but she kept her expression neutral and shoulders relaxed. “The law can be tricky, it’s true, and it fails a lot of people.”

  “When I’m free—”

  “But we won’t let it fail you. Trust me on that.”

  Ace yawned, gave an exaggerated stretch. He pushed away from the table in front of him. “Well, if that’s all.”

  She knew she shouldn’t blurt it out, but he was standing up. She should let him go. Come back another time. Play his little game, because if she didn’t, he’d end up playing her.

  But she had to know. She had to.

  “My father didn’t know about the dead woman.”

  Ace stood there, smiling like he’d just been crowned the King of England.

  Felicity had to swallow at the bile rising in her throat. She’d lost. Already. She should give in and leave.

  But she had to know. Mind games or not, she had to know.

  Ace sat back down and leaned forward. He clasped his hands together on the little table in front of him and pretended to look thoughtful. “Did you two end up having a little chat?”

  She refused to answer.

  “Was it tearful? Did your heart just swell right up, being reunited with your daddy?”

  She couldn’t affect nonchalance, but she could keep her mouth shut, and she did, even if she looked at him with a black fury coating her insides.

  “The state never should have taken you away. Is that what you’d like to think? He was misunderstood. It was just the once. He really, truly loves you deep down underneath all his problems.”

  It stung because once upon a time that had been her fantasy. That there’d been a mistake. That her memories were made up. The way Ace said it made it seem so possible.

  But she remembered now. That hike in the Badlands, hiding from her father, it had rem
inded her of a truth she’d known and hadn’t wanted.

  She knew what her father was.

  She just had to know for sure what he’d done. “He said you forced him to help you. He didn’t know about the murder. He didn’t know what I was talking about.”

  Ace sat back into his chair, lounged really, rangy and feral even with the sick pallor of his skin.

  She’d shot this man and he still held the cards.

  “So, you’ve come in search of the truth,” Ace said thoughtfully. “Without my son.”

  “It’s my truth.” He wouldn’t use it against her. She wouldn’t let him.

  “He won’t see it that way. You and I both know that. Nothing is yours once you’re involved with a Wyatt. They fancy themselves better than me, but they’re the same. Their name means everything. Their vengeance is all that matters. Every woman they’ve ever brought into the circle gets swept right up into the Wyatt drama—don’t they? Liza and Nina, your sisters, banished because of your boyfriend’s brothers.”

  It wasn’t true, but he voiced it so reasonably. Because he believed it. In his warped brain, that was true, and love and duty had nothing to do with it.

  Because he had no love, and no duty other than his own evil. It would be sad if he wasn’t such a monster.

  “My father came to visit you here,” Felicity said, keeping her voice bland and steady. She would get to the bottom of things, no matter Ace’s tangents. “Before you two showed up at my cabin to enact your little failure. You have a connection.”

  Ace inclined his head. “He did come. He did indeed. Came to visit. We had a good chat about some things. Then, as fate would have it, Michael was the one who helped me out when the tornado, my divine intervention, set me free. Michael has been a good friend.”

  “If the tornado was divine intervention, what was that bullet I put in you?” she asked, and didn’t try to smile or laugh. She let the disgust—and her win over him—show all over her face.

  Ace smiled. “The divine requires payment. Suffering. I didn’t become what I am until I had been abandoned, until I suffered and nearly died. This is only my second coming, Felicity. I hope you’re prepared.”

  She shook her head. He struck fear in her and she hadn’t come here to be brainwashed. To be made afraid. She’d come here for answers, and that had been stupid. Ace would never give her real answers. Which made her more tired than afraid.

  “You know what? Never mind.” She had started to get up, when Ace spoke. Quickly and hurriedly as if, for once, desperate.

  “Two possibilities, right, Felicity? One, your father was the bumbling idiot he portrayed himself to be. I used his weakness and stupidity to get to you. He didn’t murder his own daughter. It was all me and I framed you both, or at least the people who work for me did. It’s a nice story. I know it’s one you’d like to believe. But I think you know... I think you know there’s another story. Another truth.”

  She should walk away. He was lying. He had to be lying.

  “Once upon a time a man came to visit me. I owed him a favor, from a long time ago. Your father wasn’t so much in the Sons as he was an associate, one who’d saved me from a particularly bad run-in once. I knew your mother.”

  She made a sound. Couldn’t help it. She knew nothing about her mother, except that she had died. But Ace, this monster, had known her.

  “I knew your mother very well.”

  She almost retched right there.

  “But I digress. Your father, excuse me, this man, came to see me in jail a few weeks ago. He’d been holding out asking for the favor returned until he really needed it. Apparently, he’d accidentally, or so he said, killed his daughter. He needed an alibi. A sure thing so it never came back to him—murder would certainly put him in jail for the rest of his life. He wanted me to use my Sons influence to make sure that didn’t happen.”

  Felicity absorbed his words. She didn’t want the second story to be true, and maybe it was a lie. Ace was nothing if not a liar.

  But it made more sense. Unfortunately, the dead body in this scenario, and her connection to Felicity and Michael, made the most sense out of anything.

  “Well, I left him to die,” Felicity said, knowing her voice wasn’t as strong as it had been. “So I suppose it doesn’t matter.”

  “Nightmares never die, little girl. I’m living proof of that. Your father played the fool well, but he was no fool. The truth is, I don’t know the truth. I know I didn’t kill that girl. Whether she was your sister or not, I don’t know. Michael and my resources collaborated to try and make it look like you did it, sure, but you deserved a slap back after getting involved in Wyatt business. As for the murder itself.” He held up his hands. “All I know is it didn’t have a thing to do with me. So, I guess you’ll have to have a conversation with him.”

  Ace grinned when Felicity said nothing. “Oh, I forgot. He’s missing. Very convenient.”

  “He’s dead,” Felicity said flatly. She believed that. She did.

  Or had. Until talking to Ace.

  “That’d be easy, wouldn’t it?”

  Felicity knew those words would haunt her, and that was her cue to leave. Maybe she didn’t have answers, but she’d gotten what she’d come for.

  Her father was no hapless pawn of Ace’s. But he was dead. Had to be.

  * * *

  GAGE CHUGGED THE bottle of water he’d pulled out of his pack. He wouldn’t admit to Brady his head was pounding and that he wished they’d quit two miles ago. Not when he’d been the one to insist on another two miles.

  The search for Michael Harrison was fruitless. Worst of it was, he hadn’t told Felicity that’s what he’d planned on doing today. He didn’t want her getting her hopes up. He’d made a good choice there. This was utterly useless.

  “Need a break?” Brady asked mildly.

  “Nah. We can head back. Rest up. Try again tomorrow.”

  “I have to sleep sometime. Some of us aren’t on desk duty. And you’re not coming out here alone. Not until that doctor clears you.”

  Gage wouldn’t be stupid on this, though it was tempting. “I’ll see if Tuck or Cody can come with me.”

  “Be sure that you do. That is, if you make it through the hike back.”

  “He’s got to be out here somewhere,” Gage said, using his sleeve to wipe the sweat off his forehead. “Even if he’s dead...he didn’t just evaporate.”

  “You’ve got the winds, animals, caves. Plenty of people disappear without a trace in plenty of places. Especially if they’re dead.”

  “You’ve always been Mr. Positivity.”

  “Reality isn’t often very positive. You know that, Gage.”

  Gage followed Brady’s path back, scanning the area around them. Not a hint of Michael Harrison where Felicity had left him—or in the miles around where she’d left him, and the worst part was Brady was exactly right.

  There were a lot of ways to disappear—dead or alive.

  Gage just wanted to give Felicity some piece of closure. It ate at him that he might not ever be able to and that it would weigh on her. Forever.

  Gage sighed. Life sucked sometimes. He’d accepted that a long time ago. It was harder to accept for the people you loved, he was coming to find. Growing up, there’d been nothing to do about Ace. Even now there was only so much to be done. He was who he was and his sons were what they were. There was no option of shielding or protecting his brothers—that ship had sailed probably before Gage and Brady had been born.

  But finding Michael for Felicity felt doable, and the fact he couldn’t do it might drive him crazy.

  He could tell when he and Brady got into cell range because both their phones started sounding notifications like crazy.

  “That can’t be good,” Brady said grimly.

  Gage pulled his phone out. Ten texts. Five missed calls. Three voice
mails. “No. Not good.” He opened the texts, read them. Listened to his messages, all variations of the same theme: call me.

  What he couldn’t figure out was why they were all from Cecilia. She was a tribal police officer on the rez, and spent way more time there than out at the ranch. Of all the Knight girls, Gage had the least to do with her on a personal level, though sometimes their lives intersected on a professional one.

  Maybe it was that. Maybe it was something to do with one of her cases on the rez. Relief coursed through him at the solid explanation. “I’ll call her, assuming all your messages are from Cecilia.”

  “Yeah.”

  He hit Call Back and Cecilia picked up before the first ring had finished sounding. “Gage.”

  “Hey, Cecilia, what’s up?”

  “Don’t be mad.” She sounded breathless and worried, which was the antithesis of Cecilia’s usual demeanor—which was either cool as a cucumber or hotheaded as all get-out. Cecilia had no in-between.

  His nerves were humming. “Gee, that’s a good way to ensure that I’m going to be really, really mad.”

  “Felicity’s missing.”

  Gage went cold, despite the oppressive heat of the day. “What?”

  “She went to visit Ace. I—”

  He gripped the phone so hard it was a wonder it didn’t crumble. “She did what?”

  “I can’t get it out if you don’t listen to me. She went to visit him in jail. That all went fine. But after? She was supposed to call and check in. She didn’t. I can’t get ahold of her. I already called Tuck, and Jamison for that matter. We’ve checked in with the jail, and they’re working to figure out what happened between leaving the jail and...not coming home. We’re handling it, but I knew you’d want to know.”

  “You’re handling it?” He wanted to rage and punch something, but all he could do was grip the phone. “It’s hardly handled if she’s missing.”

  “Gage.”

  “You knew about this. You knew and—”