Chapter Twenty-Four

“I’m sorry,” Tess whispered, her heart constricting as she looked up into the glacial blue of Eric’s eyes.

Only inches separated them as he towered over her, but he might as well have been standing on the far side of the earth, so great was the emotional distance between them.

A chill raced up her spine, and her body began to tremble. The room had gone cold, frigid even, and she had the answer to her question. Any chance that he might have loved her someday was gone. The name she’d spoken had obliterated any possibility of that happening.

Harley Gant.

The satanic bane of her entire godforsaken life.

Slowly, Eric released the armrests and stood. The derisive look he gave her said it all. He hates me. She squeezed her eyes shut, not blaming him one bit and despising herself more for deceiving him.

His voice was low and controlled, yet there was no doubt from his rigid posture that he was angry. Beyond angry.

“You knew how important Gant was to me. He murdered my friends in cold blood. I watched them die, and when it was over there wasn’t a scrap of flesh left on their bones that wasn’t burned to a crisp.” He shut his eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath, clearly struggling for control.

Her heart went out to him, but there was nothing she could do to ease his pain. Gant had killed his friends and severely injured him. He might have recovered from his physical wounds, but her stepfather had inflicted lasting emotional pain. Now—years later—her actions were hurting Eric deeply as well. He wanted revenge on Gant, and she may very well have denied him the opportunity to make things right.

“If you’ve withheld anything else critical to this investigation,” he continued in a cool tone, “you can be charged with obstruction of justice.”

“What?” She jumped to her feet, barely able to contain her outrage. “Don’t you see? This is exactly why I didn’t tell you the truth about who my stepfather is. You’re looking at me as if I’m the lowest piece of garbage on the planet. Because I had the misfortune to wind up with him as my stepfather, you assume that I condone who and what he is, and that I know something about the bomb that I’m not telling you. I don’t, and neither does Jesse.” She ran her hands through her hair. How in the world can he think that of us?

“My brother is a pawn in all of this,” she continued. “He’s no more violent than a butterfly, but you’ve already tried and convicted us. If we’d told the truth earlier, you would have sent Jesse directly to jail without asking a single question. He would have been guilty no matter how much we helped you, and you damn well know it.”

With her chest heaving, she stared at him, desperately hoping for some indication that she’d gotten through to him, but his handsome face was dispassionate, as if he’d pulled a sheet over his head. She didn’t know the man standing before her. This one had cut off all human emotion.

This was her worst nightmare coming true with painful clarity.

Physically, she might have left Harley, Pritchard, and every other aspect of her life in Alabama a decade ago, but she’d never faced those horrible monsters and defeated them. She’d been an idiot, a fool for thinking she could ever break free of her past. It would always be there, like a cancer that had gone into remission, biding its time before rearing its ugly head again.

Exhausted, she sat back on the chair, staring at a tiny smudge on the dark gray carpet. Gone were her tears, dried up by the fiery anger with which she’d delivered her speech. One that had clearly fallen on deaf ears.

“Do you have any idea what it’s like,” she said without looking up, “to have a past that so completely defines your future that no matter how much you strive to change it, or how hard and fast you run from it, it follows you everywhere?”

Several moments of silence followed, then Eric sat in the chair opposite her.

“Why exactly did you leave Alabama?” he asked. “And if it was so horrible, why didn’t you take your brother with you?” He eyed her with mild curiosity, the way a scientist observes a rat stumbling through a maze.

Why not? Outing more lovely bits of her and Jesse’s childhoods couldn’t possibly do more damage than Harley had already.

“I already told you,” she began, “my father—my real father—disappeared without a trace. That was fifteen years ago. We thought he loved us. I guess we were wrong.”

Who was she to know what love was? There’d been a time when she’d thought that was what had been sizzling between her and Eric. A quick glance at the detached expression on his face now told her the only thing he truly cared about was revenge against Harley. Ironically, she was beginning to have more than a passing commiseration.

“Less than a year later, Harley came into our lives. All polished and refined. Little did we know what lurked beneath all that shiny polish.” She made a disgusted sound. “Eventually, he and my mother married. Jesse and I were never sure if she loved him, but she needed the financial support he could provide. We didn’t really know where his money came from, but he got us what we needed. Food. Clothes. Toys for Jesse. Things were okay for a while, until my mother got sick. Six months after being diagnosed with cancer, she was gone.” And with it, the now-obvious pretenses Harley had displayed while she’d been alive.

“The day after we laid her to rest, things changed. I was thirteen and Jesse was only three. He seemed to take Jesse under his wing, but he pulled me out of school and told my teachers he was homeschooling me.” Her laugh sounded more like a sob. “He wasn’t. His idea of homeschooling was ordering me to clean the house and cook for him and his friends, including Mark Pritchard. He taught me to shoot, so I could go out and get food for the table. One day, I told him I was going out to hunt rabbits. I left the rifle in the woods behind our house then snuck off to see one of my friends. He caught me coming out of her house. When we got home, he punched me in the face. I fell and hit my head.” She touched the scar. The same one Eric had questioned her about.

A muscle in Eric’s cheek ticked.

“That was the last time he let me leave the property. I never graduated from high school. I had to get a GED online.”

“Couldn’t you have found a way to sneak off and go to the sheriff’s office for help, or at least tell one of your friends’ parents what was going on?”

She smacked her hand on the armrest. “I did go to the sheriff’s office. You know what they did to help? They called Harley and told him I was there. The deputy was in Harley’s pocket, so forgive me if I didn’t implicitly trust you. As for going to my friends’ parents for help, Harley said if I ever tried to leave the property again, he’d hunt down every one of my friends and kill them. I was only a kid. I believed him.” Knowing Harley, he might have meant it.

“Sonofabitch.” Eric pressed a hand to his forehead. “What drove you to leave?”

Before continuing, she could already taste the bile in her throat. She didn’t want to relive it, but maybe it was time. Like so many other things I’ve put off.

“When I turned sixteen, one of my stepfather’s friends—Pritchard—began hanging around our house. A lot. Then, he started touching me. At first, it was only on my arm and my shoulder. I tried avoiding him, but that only made him more determined. He started groping me. My breasts, then my ass, and when he tried to kiss me, I screamed. Harley came running and started yelling at Pritchard, threatening him. I thought that meant I would be safe.”

She’d been wrong.

Unable to bear Eric’s intense scrutiny, she squeezed her eyes shut, but that only brought the horrible memories to life, making her shudder with revulsion. When she opened them, she stared at the clock on the far wall. It was the only way she could keep going.

“Harley told Pritchard he understood the lure and attraction, but that he wouldn’t let him touch me until I turned eighteen. Then, he could have me.”

Eric’s expression hadn’t changed, but he’d uncrossed his arms and was now gripping the armrests of the chair so tightly the muscles in his forearms and biceps flexed.

A loud crack shattered the silence, and she flinched.

One of the armrests Eric had been gripping split in two, the pieces falling to the carpet. So much rage burned in his eyes, he looked as if he wanted to kill someone. “So you left home before your eighteenth birthday,” he said in a choked voice.

She nodded, remembering that moment as clearly as if it had happened only yesterday. “Jesse was only eight at the time, but even at that age he understood what Pritchard was, and what he would do to me if I stayed. I wanted to take Jesse with me, but I had nothing. No money, no place to go. I didn’t know how I could support myself, let alone a little boy.”

Fresh, hot tears trickled down her cheeks. Her voice trembled, but she couldn’t stop. Venting her story for the first time was oddly cathartic. “Jesse told me I should go. It was his courage and sacrifice that gave me the strength to leave, and I swore that as soon as I got set up somewhere, I’d find a way to get him back. With a friend’s help, I managed to get a message to him, and we started communicating through email that he could access at school or the library. A couple of years later, when I could afford a cell phone, I sent him my number, but he never used it. After that, I sent him money, begging him to let me help him leave Harley.”

Eric’s tone softened. “Why didn’t he?”

“Over time, the tone of his emails changed, and I could read between the lines. He’d essentially been brainwashed.” She stared at her hands in her lap, feeling cowardly and kicking herself for not dragging Jesse with her the night she’d left. “You said it. Living with Harley was like being in a cult, and no self-respecting cult lets anyone leave without a fight. Until he called me last week, I hadn’t spoken to Jesse in ten years. We were talking on the phone for the first time that day when you”—she lifted her gaze to find his countenance was still as hard as stone, but his eyes held a new emotion, one she couldn’t identify—“pulled him over and arrested him. He said he wanted out, that he wanted to come live with me.”

“What changed that he wanted out all of a sudden?”

“A dog.” Tess uttered a laugh. “Jesse found a stray dog in the woods behind the house. He started feeding it and even built a small shelter for it. Harley hated dogs, so he couldn’t bring it home. One day, when he went to feed the dog, it was gone. My brother thinks Harley killed the animal because Jesse loved it. That was his wakeup call. Harley would kill anything or anyone that my brother loved. That dog had no way of knowing it, but its sacrifice saved Jesse’s life.”

In a way that I never did.

The room was so silent she could hear the ticking of the clock on the wall. A reminder that time was running out.

“Don’t you see?” Fresh tears streamed down her face. He reached for the box of tissues on the table that she hadn’t even realized was there. When he held it in front of her, she grabbed one and wiped her face, but it couldn’t wipe away the pain in her heart. “I ran away and left my little brother behind. Do you have any idea of the guilt I’ve been living with? I owe him so much, and I’d do anything to protect him. Including lying for him. I’m sorry I lied, but I’d do it again if I thought it would help my brother.”

Eric took a deep breath, stretching the black polo shirt across his broad chest and calling attention to the large embroidered gold badge. It was over between them, but he was a federal officer, therefore he had to help her.

“I’m sorry.” She crumpled the tissue in her hand. “I never wanted to deceive you. Please, believe that. I’ll do anything you ask of me to help you get to Gant. But I need your help, too.”

“My help?” He uttered a sarcastic laugh. “With what?”

Sniffing back the tears, she called on every ounce of emotional fortitude she could harness. I won’t take no for an answer. “He’s taken Jesse. Harley showed up at the hospital and forced my brother to leave with him.”

Eric’s eyes narrowed to glittery blue slits. “Jesse is over eighteen. How do you know he didn’t go with Gant willingly?”

“Because I know.” She clenched her hands in her lap. “He never would have told me he wanted out if he planned on going back to Alabama. As soon as we finished helping you, we were going to start a new life somewhere.”

Eric’s lips compressed, and she reached out to grab his forearm. “Please,” she cried. The steely muscles beneath her hand tightened, but he didn’t pull away. “Help me get him back. I don’t know what Harley will do to him now that he knows he was cooperating with you. That we both were. You know he didn’t go willingly. You know that.”

When he spoke, Eric’s voice was no longer cold. It was…dead. “I don’t know anything anymore. How can I?”

“Because I—” Love you. Those were the words she wanted to say, but they would only push him further away. “Because I was going to stay,” she whispered instead. “In Flemington. With you.”

His brow furrowed, and for a brief moment, his eyes seemed to soften. When he rested his hand on hers where she still gripped his forearm, she thought she’d gotten through to him. Then, he curled his fingers beneath hers and very deliberately detached her hand from his arm. “I just need…space. Nailing Gant is my priority right now. It has to be. Lives depend on it.”

The immense weight of everything happening around her was too much to bear. It’s over. It’s really over. Eric sat no more than two feet away, but she’d never felt more alone in her entire life. Including the night she’d fled Alabama by herself, with no one there to hold her hand or whisper reassurances that everything would be okay.

My heart is breaking, and he feels nothing for me.

“Who really ordered Jesse to drive those drums to New Jersey?” His voice was low, completely devoid of emotion. “Was it Gant? I need to know if you were both lying to me about that, too.”

“No, I swear it,” she cried. “Jesse didn’t know the man. He only wanted the money, and he was going to use it to get away from Harley. What does it even matter at this point?”

“What does it matter?” His face twisted with disbelief. “The ATF has resources. I have resources. If we’d known earlier that Gant and Pritchard were behind this, we could have been tracking them. We could have gotten in front of this thing, and now we’re fighting to catch up. We might even have known by now where they’re making the bomb and what the target is.”

Oh, no. What have I done?

As she clamped a hand over her mouth, the awful truth hit her. She hadn’t realized that by withholding her and Jesse’s familial affiliation, she’d hindered Eric’s investigation. The only reason she’d done it was to protect Jesse. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Now, people could die from her mistake.

I have to do something. I have to fix this. But how?

The door whipped open. Dayne stood on the threshold. Like Eric, the man didn’t exhibit much emotion, maybe less so, but the glint in his eyes didn’t hide the fact that something was wrong. “We lost Pritchard and the other men. Surveillance teams saw all three get into Pritchard’s SUV then followed them from the hotel. The teams stopped at a railroad crossing and got stuck behind a truck while Pritchard made it across the tracks. A hundred-car freight train rolled through, and when the safety barriers went up, the SUV was long gone.”

Eric shot to his feet, shoving a hand through his hair. “Were the teams made?”

“Doesn’t sound like it. They’ll keep searching.”

Eric’s chest expanded with a deep breath. “We could put a chopper up, but all SUVs look pretty much the same from the air. Until we can reacquire it on the ground, the chopper won’t be much help. Let’s get one on standby anyway.”

“Already done,” Dayne said.

“Did the teams get those trackers on the vehicles yet?”

“Negative.” Dayne shook his head. “We just received the signed warrant. Trackers were en route when this went down.”

“Great.” Eric’s lips compressed into a tight line. “We’re up a creek without any leads. We’re totally fucked. That seems to be a theme, lately.”

“What do you mean? We still have eyes on the drums. Sooner or later, someone will go back to the barn.” Dayne paused to scowl at Tess. “Or not, I’m guessing.”

“Not,” Eric gritted out. “Not only is Harley Gant Tess and Jesse’s stepfather, but he now knows they’re working with us. Those drums are as good as abandoned.”

“You’re right.” Dayne dragged a hand down his face. “We’re fucked.”

“Maybe not.” Tess looked from Dayne to Eric. “There’s something else I haven’t told you.”

Eric let out an exasperated breath. “Let’s hear it.”

“Harley called me.” She braced for the expected look of renewed fury on Eric’s face, and he didn’t disappoint. “He wants a deal.”

“Not gonna happen.” He shook his head. “The federal government doesn’t negotiate with terrorists, and that’s exactly what Gant is.”

“Not a deal with you. A deal with me,” she threw back. “You wanted a way in to Gant, you got it. In exchange for letting Jesse go, I’m turning myself over to him, and I’m going alone.”