Page 43

chapter

twenty-one

Better Man – Pearl Jam

FONTANA

“Well, there she is. Right on time.”

Fontana stopped at the edge of her garden, taking in the changes in the gaunt, balding man standing beneath her gazebo, framed in a crimson sunset glow, a color that haunted her dreams.

A violent gust ripped across the field, tugging at her coat and his grimy shirttail, pushing her back a step, as if Mother Nature were saying, Now, girl, think on this a moment.

Her stomach twisted at the sight of Alias Quinn in a place she’d fought to transform from desolate oblivion into something real.

Something beautiful and alive, a reflection of the changes happening within herself.

She and this spit of land had grown together.

This place was healing, and he’d only fuck that up if she let him.

Alias trailed his fingers along a beam, his hand quivering like an ornament on a Christmas tree .

Fontana smiled. Feeble. Aged. Unhinged.

This , she could work with.

“Where is she?” he asked, his voice as jagged as a knife tearing through a can.

“Always putting yourself in front. Playing big sister. Protecting what’s mine in a way you never were.

You hear me, girl? I want to talk to her.

Tell her the truth about her daddy. Tell her the truth about you .

” He shifted his weight, one dirty boot scraping the ground, jaw flexing like the words burned on their way out.

“For having me locked up, cut off from God and family. Well, that’s something I can never forgive. No matter what the Good Book says.”

Fontana’s breath rushed out as the scent of a distant fireplace settled over her like a hush. Mine in a way you never were…

He turned on unsteady feet, bumped into the railing behind him, then slumped against it. “You never knew. Never suspected. I don’t know why all those teachers thought you were the smart one. You couldn’t even see why I wanted to hit something every time I looked at you.”

The relief was so glorious, Fontana blinked back tears of joy.

She wasn’t his blood. She wasn’t his anything .

And somehow, like wiping dust from glass, it made everything clear—a past she could finally see through. “I’m going to speak slowly so you understand every word. I’ll use little ones if it helps. Nothing over six letters.”

His face flushed, color rising from his ears until even his lips burned bright red. He stumbled a step closer, hands fisting. She knew he couldn’t catch her, but running wouldn’t serve her purpose.

No more running from this man.

“I gave you what I’d call a golden opportunity with the facility, Alias.

Jail was on the table if Hannah and I had pushed.

Your instability made that one tricky, but we could’ve made it work.

And then there’s door number three.” Reaching back, Fontana slid the Ruger from its snug spot in her waistband with the kind of confidence earned through far more time at the shooting range than the bastard across from her could imagine.

She’d been skilled enough years ago. But now, she was ready.

Because she had too much to lose.

She leveled the gun, arms extended, steadier than his had been since 1970.

“You’re going to sit down until the police arrive, and you’re never, ever getting near Hannah again.

Killing a man who threatens my sister—a man who isn’t my father—would leave me with less than an ounce of regret.

You throw biblical mercy in my face like a handful of dirt.

You always have.” She closed one eye, sighting him.

“And I’m telling you, I’ve only got seconds of mercy left. ”

Snarling, he came down the stairs at a clip.

Fontana fired into the dirt a foot in front of him, stopping him cold. “Don’t test me, old man. I’ve done the required range time and then some. I’ve got seven more, and getting closer only ups my odds of success. And they were fine from the gazebo.”

“You little bitch, I should’ve taken care of you when I had the chance. Believe you me, I thought about it plenty. Romans 12:19: leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written.”

“Right back ’atcha,” she murmured, resetting him dead-center in her sights as the scream of sirens rose in the distance.

In the end, he was too irrational to listen. The flash of silver as he drew a knife from his coat wasn’t unexpected, but Fontana’s quick adjustment, lowering the gun to take out his left kneecap instead of his heart, was.

He howled in pain and lurched forward another foot, slashing her forearm as he went down.

Taking a gulp of woodsmoke and turned earth, Fontana crossed to him, wedged her boot over his windpipe, and kicked the knife from his hand. Blood streamed down his leg, soaking the withered grass in crimson the color of the sunset surrounding them.

“I’m the devil who just made sure you’ll never walk again,” she whispered as a police car charged down the cottage’s drive. “And that’s nothing compared to what I’ll do next time. You better take door number one. Understand?”

Sighing, she glanced at the ragged sleeve of her new jean jacket. Great .

And it hurt like hell.

“You let,” he coughed, panted, “me live.”

Because you’re her father, you bastard.

“I wouldn’t count on that, the way you’re bleeding,” she muttered, moving away from Alias Quinn for the last time as Promise’s two-person police department tumbled into her garden.

CAMPBELL

Campbell crossed the pitted hospital parking lot at a jog, the past snapping at his heels like an eager pup with very sharp teeth. The last time he’d been here—riding in the back of his mom’s ambulance—he’d been a petrified kid.

That kid was gone now. And the man standing in his place was working to strip confusion and misery from his life, one step at a time.

He shivered as he approached, pulling his jacket close. The sky was jet. No stars, no moonlight. A black wash spitting rain, the kind that slid beneath your skin and stole the breath and any warmth from you.

The automatic doors swooshed open, and the smell hit him—sterile, putrid, antiseptic. He wondered how anyone could work here. Then he remembered what his darkroom smelled like and laughed to himself, even though he’d never felt less like laughing.

Jaime flagged him the moment he stepped inside, leaning against an unoccupied visitor’s desk. He looked as unkempt as Campbell had ever seen him—shirt untucked, blood on the knee of his jeans, hair springing in twelve directions—which did nothing to ease Campbell’s anxiety.

“Room 105,” Jaime said, grabbing his sleeve. “But calm down before you go in, okay? She’s going to be fine, a few stitches, but you look like you want to yell at someone. And I’m worried that someone is Fontana.”

Campbell held up his hands, a helpless gesture of what he wasn’t sure.

Surrender?

In one of those blind panics he prided himself on never having, he’d driven like a maniac, telling himself the whole way she’d be fine, because she had to be.

He’d finally found his soulmate, a trite expression, but the one that fit, only to have her taken away?

It wasn’t until he stopped at the Georgia–South Carolina border to use a payphone, going nuts imagining the worst, that he knew she was going to be all right.

He closed his eyes and let his head fall back. Releasing a breath he’d been holding for hours, he swallowed, throat clicking, the taste of sickness and fear rising up.

He’d never been so scared in his life .

“Maybe you should go home, Campbell. Change clothes, shower. I can sign her out when?—”

“Oh, fuck, no.” He shoved off the wall he’d leaned on for two seconds of comfort.

“She’d love that. I show up after everything’s calm, crisis over.

When I didn’t know anything about this, how bad it was.

She never…” He slid his glasses high, pinched the bridge of his nose, and blew out a tight groan.

“She never told me he was coming for her if he got out. The looking-over-the-shoulder thing, the nightmares. I didn’t know, so I left her alone.

I ran away, actually, and he found her.”

A blender-mix of pity and compassion settled over Jaime’s face. “She didn’t tell me either, Camp. Not like that. Not all of it.”

“Who am I kidding?” he whispered, sliding his glasses into place. “She’s never going to trust me.”

She had a weapon she knew how to use. A plan for if her father showed up. A strategy. And the willingness to sacrifice herself if it came to that, which it almost had.

No matter what their relationship felt like to him, she’d been going it alone the entire time. She would’ve laid her life on the line for Hannah, proof she’d known how to be a sister long before he ever figured out how to be a brother.

Jaime reached inside his coat, pulled out a flask, and tapped it against Campbell’s arm. When Campbell waved him off, he lifted it to his lips and drank like he’d been denied for years.

“I’m still hanging by a thread from last night,” Campbell explained, the thought of alcohol making him want to crawl into a corner and die a slow death.

Jaime nodded, took another sip, then tucked the flask away. “Ah yes, the gallery incident.”

Campbell dragged a hand through his hair and muttered an oath under his breath. “Listen, I know I’ve got to get used to the small-town carousel, but I have to admit, it’s a definite downside to moving back to Promise.”

Jaime’s eyes widened, his lips twitching with a smile he tried—and mostly failed—to hide. Grasping Campbell’s shoulder, he turned him in the opposite direction and gave him a gentle nudge. “Room 105. Third door, left.”