A flicker of emotion crossed his face before the jefe in him took over. “What do you think driving around town like some idiota is going to do?”
“I can’t stay here and do nothing. What if it were Eden?”
“Harcourt,” he yelled across the room, motioning Brody out of his chair. “Pull your shit together. We’re chasing a rat.”
Retrieving his phone, Brody fell in line behind us, and just as he closed the door to his apartment, it rang.
“It’s my mother,” he said, staring at the screen.
Val dipped his chin. “Answer it.”
“Mom?” he asked, our eyes locking, “what’s wrong?” Lines deepened in his forehead as I heard a frantic voice filter through the line. “Wait, calm down. I can’t understand you. Who’s hurt?”
He didn’t have to say her name. I saw it in his face.
Leighton.
“Fire?” His vacant eyes sharpened with one word. “Mom, leave your phone on. I can track it.” Disconnecting the call, he ran down the stairs bypassing both Val and me.
Ten minutes later, I sat behind the wheel of Val’s Land Rover driving north on I-69, unable to take it anymore. As he texted all available nearby soldiers to meet up with us, I lost it.
“What the hell is going on, Harcourt?”
His hand tightened around his phone as his eyes remained glued to the dot on the GPS map we were tracking. “I don’t know exactly. My mother was hysterical. From what I could get out of her, Leighton called her and said to meet her off Lauder Road. When she got there, it was on fire.”
“But she got out, right?”
Brody didn’t answer. He just kept staring at that damn red dot. I hated that dot.
“Brody,” I exploded, slamming my fist against the headrest, “where the fuck is Leighton?”
Still nothing.
“Brody!”
Slamming his fist into the dashboard, he turned around, his face ravaged. “She didn’t make it out, all right?”
Denial was a funny thing. Sometimes it drove a man to the darkest depths of depravity, and sometimes it propelled him into blissful ignorance.
Right now, I chose ignorance.
Because in ignorance, my angel still walked the earth.
Brody was the first one out of the car. His footing wasn’t stable, and if I gave half a shit to be near Lilith Donovan, I could’ve had her facedown with a bullet in her brain before he closed his door. But I didn’t. I knew she’d put on a show first.
Ignorance still fueled me. Leighton was alive, and until I knew differently, no one would convince me otherwise.
Lilith lay sprawled out in the middle of a deserted field like farm roadkill. Val was the first one to notice and point out the plume of smoke rising above the trees. Without a word, I headed back to the Land Rover when he stopped me with a hard arm across my chest.
“We have men who are closer.” Pressing a button on his phone, he instantly connected with one. “There’s a fire on the Grayson property.” He held my gaze. “Get everyone out—dead or alive.”
As his last words hung in the air, I turned toward Brody. I had to hand it to him; he played the concerned son role so well, I almost bought it.
Squatting beside Lilith, he called her name repeatedly. “Mom? Mom? Mom!” She finally stopped moaning long enough to reach for him, but Brody tensed and pulled back. “Where’s Leighton?”
Flailing her arm, she pointed diagonally to the right. “I couldn’t save her. He turned my baby girl into a monster,” she howled, rolling around again. “Then he killed her.”
I’d had enough. “Who killed her?”
“Emilio Reyes!”
“What are you saying?” Brody asked. “Leighton would never hurt anyone. And what does Emilio have to do with all this?” He was baiting her—trying to push her buttons into slipping the noose around her own neck.
“You,” she accused, pointing a shaking finger at me. “You brainwashed her. You brought her into your sick world, and he got in her head. You turned her against her own family.”
“Mom, stop!”
“Don’t believe me? She called me and lured me here. You can hear her for yourself.” Pulling her phone out of the pocket of her pantsuit, she cued up the message and put it on speaker.
“Hello?”
“I think we can help each other. I’m not as stupid as you think I am, but that’s okay, neither are you. It’s time to cut the crap and be who we are, don’t you think?”
“But...”
“I said, cut the crap. I know everything. Meet me at three o’clock. I’ll text you the address.”
“And you went?” he asked. “Why not call the police?”
“She’s my daughter, Brody! There was no time. If there was one last chance to save her from them, don’t you think I’d try? Plus, I had to tell her that I’d found out that...”
“What?”
“The San Marcos PD couldn’t get in touch with Leighton, so they called me. Your grandparents were murdered, and your niece is missing.”
My heart seized then slammed against my chest until I thought it would explode.
Stella...
“Isn’t it obvious what’s happened?” she continued. “Our family has been their target since your father’s death. Emilio Reyes tried to use Leighton against me. Now she’s gone, and...” Letting out another wail, she managed to squeeze out a few tears. “God knows if little Della will ever be found.”
I clenched my teeth. “Stella.”
She popped an eye open. “Of course, Stella.”
I would go insane if I thought about losing my wife and daughter right now. Brody was one question away from splintering, so I had to take control.
Focus on Leighton now. Find Stella after. Kill everyone later.
“Did you see her?” I asked, stepping in between them. “You don’t have a scratch on you, Mayor Donovan.”
“If I could’ve gotten in the door, don’t you think I would’ve?” she hissed. “I suppose something didn’t go as planned. When I got there, the whole house was already in flames.” I bit my tongue as she wiped invisible tears. “I couldn’t save her.”
I felt robotic. I saw the smoke, but I refused to believe it. Maybe the need for her to be okay had filled me with such rage there wasn’t room for acceptance.
“No!” Brody finally shouted. “You’re wrong.”
Climbing to her knees, Lilith reached into her pocket, pulling out a thin gold chain stained with dark brown splotches. “I found this outside.”
As soon as Brody took it from her, the gold “L” slipped between his fingers, and his tortured wail drowned out the sound of two SUVs pulling up. Glancing over my shoulder, I watched four of our men walk up to Val, their expressions somber.
Val wasted no time. “Casualties?”
“We lost three men going in. No one’s called the fire department. This far out, people just assume it’s just a brush fire.”
“Not us, idiota,” he muttered.
The soldier nodded. “Three charred bodies.”
“It seems we have an extra player in this game.” Val noted with interest.