“What have you done?’ I ask, my feet crunching across the shattered glass as he guides me into the passenger seat, shutting the door and rounding the front, dropping into the driver’s seat. His gun is placed in his lap. The safety is engaged. Something’s amiss here. I stare at his profile, my mind turning in circles, and I’m jolted forward when he reverses fast, reaching up to wipe his brow.
He drives erratically, and half the journey is spent with me silent, trying to untangle the mindfuck going on, as well as ignoring my vibrating phone. “Nath, what’s going on?” I eventually ask, and he looks across the car at me like I might have just stepped out of a circus.
“You’re in danger, Beau.” He returns his attention to the road. “Why didn’t you answer my messages? Did you watch the footage I sent you?”
“Yes, I watched the footage.”
“Then why didn’t you answer me?”
“Because I was busy holding my boyfriend at gunpoint,” I mutter. And finding out I’m pregnant.
“He was there, Beau. You were right all along. Jaz’s death was covered up. Who the fuck is James Kelly, and why did he want your mom dead?”
I turn in my seat to face him, my head hurting. “Nath, James had nothing to do with Mom’s death.”
“Yes!” he yells, smacking the steering wheel. “You saw, Beau. He was there, and to cover his ass, he’s trying to convince you I had something to do with it.”
My head finds my hands. Things aren’t adding up. None of it. “Are you telling me you had nothing to do with Mom’s death?”
He laughs, and it gets right under my skin. “I don’t believe this. You have the nerve to ask me that? Me, your friend, your mom’s friend, but a man you’ve known mere weeks and who is seen clear as fucking day on the surveillance cameras isn’t under suspicion at all? What the fuck was he doing there, then? Who the fuck is he? And how the fuck do you know him, Beau? How did you meet him?”
I begin to sweat. There’s no reasonable explanation, nothing to justify my reasoning, except the truth. And if Nath is telling the truth, I can’t tell him the truth. Who James really is. Why he was there. Fuck. “You didn’t follow us from the graveyard?” I ask.
“What?”
“You had nothing to do with the two men sent to James’s apartment to murder him?”
Nath starts laughing hysterically. “Are you serious?”
“Yes, I’m bloody serious!”
“Two men in James’s apartment sent there to kill him?” He looks across to me, grave. “Then how the fuck is he still alive, Beau?”
I rest back in my seat, snapping my mouth closed. Because he killed them instead. Shit. “Is this some rescue attempt?” I divert quickly. He’s ambushed James’s apartment, held Goldie at gunpoint, because he thinks I need rescuing?
“Something’s going on,” he says to the road. “I looked into the car thing you mentioned. Checked the records. Nothing. But when I called the dealership, they confirmed Jaz’s car was booked in that day. So I dug deeper. Visited a few people.” He looks at me, and I hate the haunted glaze in his eyes.
“What?”
“A tattoo place over the road from the store. Cameras outside with a perfect view over the parking lot, but there was no CCTV footage in the case file. So I paid the owner a visit. Apparently, the night of Jaz’s death, the police turned up and seized the footage.”
The footage with James in it. “So how did you get it?”
“A few threats, a peek of my badge. The owner managed to salvage some. Not all, but enough to prove James was there.”
But not enough to show him saving me. Trying to save Mom. The police seized the footage. What the fuck is going on? “When you saw the recording, how did you know it was James? You’ve never met him.”
He looks at me out the corner of his eye. “Ollie,” he mutters. “I showed it to Ollie.”
My mouth falls open. “Ollie?” I breathe.
“Yes, Ollie.”
So now Ollie knows James was at the scene of my mom’s death too? “Oh Jesus, Nath, you’ve made this so much worse.” I run my hand over my forehead, my brain heavy with a million questions, a million worries. If not Nath, then who? But by taking me, rescuing me, he’s put himself in the frame even more.
“How have I made this worse?” he asks as he pulls a left at the lights.
“You need to take me back. Let me explain to James.” It’ll be okay. I think.
“No, Beau.”
“Don’t you think Goldie’s going to tell him where I am? Don’t you think he’ll come find me?”
“I know nothing right now.”
“And where the hell are you taking me?”
“I don’t know, Beau!” he yells, looking up at his rearview mirror as we pull off the main street. “Fuck.”
“What?”
“Cops.”
I look over my shoulder. “You’re driving like a dick. I’m not surprised you’ve been pulled.”
Nath signals and starts to slow, pulling over at the side of the road. “I’ll deal with it.”
“And then what? Are you kidnapping me?” I ask, incredulous, smacking the door with my cast and immediately wincing in pain. The door slams, and my eyes follow Nath as he strides around the back of his BMW toward the cop car, pulling out his badge as he goes. I sink into my seat and look at my cell when it rings yet again. I can’t even begin to imagine James’s mental state. “I’m okay,” I say when I answer. “And Nath isn’t dirty, James.”
“I know,” he breathes. “I fucking know.”
What? I look into the side mirror, seeing one of the cops laughing with Nath, the other with his ass resting on the hood of his car. “How do you know, James?” I ask.
“It’s not safe there, Beau,” he says, ignoring me. “With Nath, it’s not safe.”
“He’s FBI,” I argue.
“Where are you?”
“We’ve been pulled over.”
“Why?”
“Because . . .” I fade off, my eyes returning to the side mirror, my heart slowing, ice gliding through my veins.
“Because what, Beau?”
“He’s been pulled over by the police,” I whisper.
His inhale is loud and sharp. “Get the fuck out of there now!”
I sit frozen, my cell limp at my ear as James bellows his orders down the line, my stare rooted to the mirror.
“Beau!”
Nath lifts a hand in goodbye to the cops. Turns. Walks away, smiling, but I can still see the stress all over his face.
“Beau!” James roars. “For fuck’s sake, get the fuck out of there.”
I see the cop who’s on the hood reach for his belt. “No,” I murmur. “No, no, no.”
“Beau!”
“Nath,” I scream, startling at the sound of a gunshot. Nath drops like lead to the ground. “Oh my God.” My hand goes over my mouth, suppressing my wretched cry. Panicked and hardly able to see through my tears, I scramble to get the door handle, hearing James still yelling. I get out of the car. Both cops look my way. Both look surprised to see me. And both reach for their belts.