Page 32 of I Found You (Wilder #1)

Wyatt

What even was my life anymore? Two days ago, I was the one babysitting when Jane got so sick she needed to be hospitalized.

Yesterday, my brother came to me, despondent that the woman he thought he was going to spend the rest of his life with dumped him.

Last night, I had an out-of-body sexual experience with a woman I really liked, admired, and respected.

It was fucking bliss. Until it came crashing and burning for what was still an unknown reason.

Maeve locked herself in the bathroom and refused to come out.

She slept on the couch, for Christ’s sake.

The only thing I could think of—and it absolutely gutted me to even think it—was that she hadn’t wanted that.

She seemed like she did. She was the one who initiated it.

She’d participated enthusiastically while it was happening.

Her every moan, her every breath was burned into my memory.

But afterward, I had never felt like more of a dick in my life because she very clearly regretted it immediately.

And then there was this morning. After waking up to an empty bed, I found Maeve on the couch, still in her dress from last night, and tucked the blanket around her. She wouldn’t even look at me when I woke her up.

And my day just got worse from there.

The garage was torn apart when I got here.

Someone had come here, either yesterday or last night, and destroyed the place.

All of my small tools were gone. Cars that I had in my shop were smashed up.

Headlights looked like someone took a baseball bat to them.

Windows were shattered. There was oil and grease everywhere, like whoever did this just dumped every liquid I kept in the garage onto the floor.

Jackson.

I left him in charge yesterday to finish up the tasks I had assigned him and lock up if I wasn’t back yet. Not exactly difficult directions to follow. Either he didn’t lock up, or he was involved.

He better fucking not be involved.

I called Luke as soon as I got here this morning.

He was cranky that I always called him directly and not 911, but what was the point of having a brother on the police force if I couldn’t get an inside track?

Plus, he was clearly hungover from last night’s revelry, which probably contributed to his bad mood.

Luke called it in and came straight over to document the scene.

While he and a small team of police were doing that, I called Maeve.

I needed to check on her after her reaction last night.

Apologizing was going to be gut-wrenching, but I needed to do it.

I needed to talk to her. She didn’t answer, so I switched gears and called Wes instead.

“How are you feeling this morning?” Wes said as he answered the phone, his deep voice held a note of amusement. “Starting to hit you that you’re not in your twenties anymore? ”

“I’m feeling pissed. Fucking fuming, actually,” I told him.

“What have you got for me?” Any humor from a moment ago was gone.

“Someone or multiple someones broke into my garage last night. It’s completely trashed, as is every single vehicle I had in there. Except for one. Do you want to guess which vehicle looks like a million fucking bucks?”

“You think Jackson trashed the place? Why would he do that? Did you give him attitude about something?”

“Are you telling me that if I gave the kid some lip, I deserved the thousands of dollars of damage?” I raked my hand through my hair as I paced back and forth in the front lot. I wasn’t allowed in the building while the police were doing their thing, so I had taken to pacing.

“No. That is not what I said. I was trying to ascertain if the kid would think that property destruction was a valid retaliatory course of action. As far as I know, you’ve been nothing but good to him. Why would he want to do this?”

“Fuck it if I know,” I said, sounding slightly less furious and more resigned.

Wes was right. He usually was, but I wouldn’t tell him that.

Jackson didn’t have any reason to do this much damage.

Plus, the fact that his truck was the only vehicle not touched in this entire space looked awfully suspicious.

Too suspicious that even an amateur would know better than to leave his shit spotless in the middle of all this chaos.

I gave Wes all the information I had, which wasn’t much at this point.

“Listen, I’m on a job right now, so I can’t get down there right away. Take pictures of everything and send them to me. You ever get your cameras fixed?”

“No,” I growled. It was a small-town mechanics shop. I had never used the cameras, and when they went offline months ago, I hadn’t made it a priority to get them operational again.

Jackson called as I was finishing up with Wes, so I ended the call with him, switching over to make sure I didn’t miss Jackson’s.

“Jackson.” My voice was eerily calm.

“What’s going on over there? I was just coming in, but the cops are everywhere.”

I could hear someone in the background talking. “You don’t want to be anywhere near that. Let’s just go.”

“Hold up,” he said, talking to his buddy. “Wyatt?”

“Get here.” I ended the call and pocketed my phone. I had never been so furious in my life.

The police should be gone soon, and I had a boatload of cleanup ahead of me. A second pair of hands would certainly help, not to mention I wanted to see his face, gauge his reaction to all of this.

He walked from somewhere around the corner where his buddy must have dropped him off.

I didn’t like it. I knew police could make some folks skittish, especially if they knew the police would take an interest in them.

Jackson’s group of friends would fall into that category, but the police were all inside, and he wouldn’t drive by the place just to let his friend out.

“So, what’s going on?” Jackson said. His eyes darted around between the cruisers, the garage, and me.

He shifted his backpack on his shoulder and shoved his hands in his pockets.

He was trying to talk to me, but as much as I wanted him here so I could gauge his reaction, I wasn’t ready to deal with him yet.

“Just stay here,” I told him, walking away to resume my pacing.

I called Maeve again, silently praying she would pick up so I could at least hear her voice.

I could feel myself spiraling, as much from everything going on around me as from last night.

No answer, again. I was itching to send off a text, but what was I going to say?

“Sorry for fucking you against the wall. I thought we both wanted it. I guess not, my bad.” Jesus shitballs, this was bad.

It took everything in me not to hurl my phone into the concrete building. With my fury worked back up again, I figured now was as good a time as any to question Jackson.

“What the fuck happened here?” I snapped.

His deer-in-headlight eyes met my lethal glare.

I wasn’t even one hundred percent sure he was involved, but I wasn’t letting him off the hook until I knew that he wasn’t.

This wasn’t a court of law; there was no innocent until proven guilty. I was coming in with guns glazing.

“I don’t know. I was trying to ask you that.”

“I left here yesterday to a clean shop with everything in one piece, except for what we were working on. I came in to this.”

“Is there, like, a dead guy inside or something?” he whispered.

“No. Christ, Jackson. At least, I don’t think so, but it was hard to tell with everything being completely torn apart.

” At that moment, police started to file out of the garage, some nodding their heads at me as they passed.

When everyone was out except for Luke, I figured that meant I was allowed back in.

“Go inside, see for yourself what I’m dealing with.

” Gesturing for Jackson to go ahead of me.

He opened the door, and I heard him suck in a breath.

His steps stuttered, nearly making him trip .

I moved in front of him, making my way to Luke.

Before I got too far though, I turned to look at Jackson as he took in all of the destruction.

His head shot to the right where his truck was, and he let out a sigh of relief when he saw it was untouched.

The moment he registered what that might look like to me or even the police, his eyes rounded, and his head swiveled to find me.

“I had nothing to do with this,” he pleaded.

“You and I are going to have a talk just as soon as I finish up here with the police,” I told him. “Understand?”

“Fuck that. This has nothing to do with me.” He turned around and started toward the door.

“Walk out that door, Jackson, and see what happens.” I didn’t bother to wait and watch him. He would either stay or go, but I had a feeling I knew which one he would choose. At nineteen, he thought he was a tough guy, but he was all bluster.

I figured I would let him stew with that for a few minutes while Luke debriefed me on the next steps.

“We will take care of it, Wyatt. We will find whoever did this and make sure they’re brought to justice.

” His voice held a warning I knew all too well: Don’t get Wes involved.

Don’t take this into our own hands. Too late for that, but what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

I had too much on my plate already. I didn’t have it in me to deal with my brother’s hissy fit.

“Thanks for your help today,” I told Luke, walking him back out to his cruiser.

“I can come by after I get off shift, help you clean this shit up.”