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Fifty-one

“WHERE TO FIRST?” she asked. Joy at telling Greyson she loved him was liberating. No matter his response.

“We should get a hotel room. We need a base and some fresh clothes and such. Who knows how long we’re going to be stuck here.”

She bit her bottom lip. Stuck in the mire and muck of my nightmares. Seeing the first of the hotels on the strip radically shifted her thoughts of loving Greyson to shadows of her past back to haunt her.

He reached over and clutched her hand. “I’m so sorry we have to be here,” he whispered, caressing her hand. “I can always stay and wait for your brothers and put you on a plane home.”

“Not on your life.” She wasn’t running scared. She’d left Vegas that way once as a child. She refused to do it as an adult despite the echoes of fear riddling through her.

“I figured.” He held up her hand and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. “My brave lady.” He exhaled. “But I had to offer. I’d do anything to spare you pain.”

“I know.” She squeezed his hand. “And I love you for it.”

“You guys picked a hotel yet?” the driver asked.

“Any place other than the MGM,” she said, her muscles coiling just at the name. “Why don’t we stay at the Argo?” she suggested.

“Where Kelly worked before she moved to New Mexico. Smart,” Grey said.

“I have my moments.” She smiled. Something she never thought she’d do in Vegas, but she had Greyson, and he wouldn’t let anything happen to her. She wouldn’t let anything happen to her. She wasn’t that scared little girl anymore, despite how the feelings and heightened sensations roller-coastered through her.

“You okay?” he asked under his breath as they traveled down the strip.

She nodded. “The Argo is just another block that way. Let’s get checked in, grab a meal”—her stomach growled as if on cue—“and grab some stuff from the stores downstairs, then we can start hunting.”

“It’s a plan,” he said.

“Do you think Brent is still on their trail? I mean, we only saw one plane take off.”

“True. But even if they eluded him for a while, I doubt it will be for long. I’d bet Brent is already on the ground.”

“I wonder how he’s tracking them. Maybe AirTags like they did with us?” she suggested.

“Maybe, but if they’re smart, they’d have figured that out by now. Could be malware on their phones.”

“Or maybe Julie or this Ralph Masters guy has the funds to buy the passenger lists from an airline. It’s the easiest way to get the information needed to start tracking someone.” It was downright scary the information she could garner from the passengers’ flight and booking information she bought from airlines when stuck on a case.

“For that matter”—Grey shifted, the pleather seat squeaking beneath him—“they could be using it to track us.”

She exhaled. “True.” That was a horrible thought.

“The Argo,” their Uber driver said, wedging his way through traffic into the hotel drop-off lane.

“Thanks,” Grey said, tipping the driver as a man from the hotel opened Riley’s door.

She took his gloved hand, and he helped her out.

“Welcome to the Argo,” he said with a smile.

Welcome wasn’t the word she’d use, but she thanked the man all the same.

Her cell rang. She stepped to the side of the long line of doors to the casino hotel.

“Hey, kid,” Deckard said when she answered. “I’ve got an update.”

“Okay.” She moved farther from the entryway to the single exit door and beyond, covering her other ear with her hand. “What’s up?”

“I hear Vegas in the background.”

“Yeah. Its sounds are pretty memorable.” Just the wrong kind.

“Are you sure you don’t want Grey to—”

“No. I’m staying.”

“Okay. Can’t blame me for trying to look out for you.”

“I know, and I appreciate it.”

He chuckled. “No, you don’t.”

She’d been hearing that a lot lately. “So what’s up?”

“Sheriff Gaines and his deputy went to talk to Masters. His housekeeper said he’d left and let them look around. Apparently, it looked like Masters left in a hurry, and so far, there’s no sign of him.”

“Great, we’ve got the guy who is probably behind all this on the loose.”

“Yeah. And there’s something else I found. Ralph Masters didn’t exist before six years ago.”

****

The house sat quiet except for a lone crow perched on the barbwire fence pole.

“It’s clear,” Jared said, hunched on the dirt beside the old shed, the weather vane rattling in the burgeoning wind.

“I don’t know,” Kelly said, crouching beside him, the metal siding cool against her skin, anxiety rushing heat through her limbs. “I just have this bad feeling.” Though if she were honest with herself, she knew what it was, and it had nothing to do with whether Claire’s parents’ house was clear for the money drop.

“Where are we dropping it?” Jared asked, his head pivoting as she scanned the desolate ranch at the far edge of the county.

It’d been six years since she’d stood on Claire’s family land, and it’d grown barren and still. Just like they all had when they stood at Claire’s graveside. Silent and torn asunder.

Heat surged through her afresh, her resolve fortified. Lance couldn’t get away with it. Not again. He’d murdered Claire, even if he hadn’t pulled the trigger. He’d murdered her all the same. By the time she’d fled the cult and gotten away from the horrid, scheming con, it’d been too late. The kidney disease he’d promised he’d healed, most likely so he could have the exorbitant amount of money she’d spent on the medicine—the same medicine that her mom took and the cost of which was clearly breaking them—had ravaged her body. She’d died within days, her ex-boyfriend Tate at her side. She’d left him for the cult, breaking his heart, but he never stopped loving her or she him. They were reconciled before she faded away. That day, Tate vowed with them to do whatever it took to make things right, and he’d played his role as a diversion for the case to perfection. He’d kept Riley and Greyson looking into him long enough for them to get a solid head start. It’d all worked so well.

“You okay?” Jared nudged her arm.

“Sorry.” She shook off the painful memories, even more convinced of what she had to do. Money alone wasn’t enough. Not anymore. She swiped her nose. “I’m good.” She scanned the arid land, wind lashing the storm door and spinning the weather vane. “I say we leave it on the passenger seat of her dad’s truck. I’m worried if we leave it on the front stoop, it could get seriously tossed about in this wind.” It whipped her hair about her face as if to say she was right.

“Okay, but how can we make sure they see it?”

“I’ll turn the wipers on.”

“Smart.”

“And I’ll hit the bell and run. I can be behind the shed and in the car before they make it to the door.” With the older couple’s bad health, it wouldn’t be hard to outpace them.

“You ready?” he asked as she gripped the thick canvas bag full of cash. Cash that had been laundered just to be safe. They couldn’t risk anyone coming after Mr. and Mrs. Greaves.

She rocked back and forth on her haunches, preparing for flight. “Ready.” She didn’t wait for any kind of response or well wishes. She dashed across the small patch of land separating the house from the shed.

The old red Dodge pickup sat parked at an angle to the door, the windshield fully visible. A creak reverberated through her ears as she opened the driver’s door. She shoved the bag onto the seat, did a quick hot-wire, then hit the wipers. They screeched across the bone-dry glass.

Holding her breath, she looked toward the door, praying no one had heard a thing, but she was being foolish—the sounds louder in her mind than they must really be. She bumped the truck door shut with her hip.

She crept up the front steps leading to the house, a piece of loose siding flapping in the wind. Her finger shaking, she hit the bell, then jumped down the steps in one fell swoop. She bolted back behind the shed and hopped into their friend Carl’s car.

The engine purred.

“Wait,” she said. “Inch the car forward. I want to be certain they got it.”

“We’re risking being seen,” Jared said, grasping the wheel.

She laid her hand atop his, stilling him. “I want to see.”

With a sigh, he did as instructed, inching the car forward in time to see Mr. Greaves hitching down the front steps. He hollered something over his shoulder, moving for the truck. He opened the door and reared back, then he lowered his head to his hands and started weeping.

Kelly’s chest warmed. “We can go now,” she said. “Take the back road.”

Jared eased the car back and then pulled slowly down the road, not really hitting the gas hard until they were past the copse of lonesome trees. “We did it!” He banged the wheel with a smile. “We did it.”

She looked over and smiled. Only part of it.