The Man Who Loved Cole Flores (Dig Two Graves 1)

“Shush. They won’t hang you,” Cole whispered, pushing his hand through the bars to slide it into Adam’s matted hair.

The relief on Adam’s battered face prompted Ned to squeeze his hand when it was offered, but the icy fingers twitched when Cole pulled Adam against the bars and stabbed his neck. Then, he did it again.

And again.

And again.

Blood bubbled at Adam’s mouth and spilled down his chin, but he couldn’t voice his terror when several holes opened on his throat like lips in a silent scream. The air filled with the scent of iron, leaving Ned too stunned to react at first. Cole’s face was cold and hard as steel as he made a few more thrusts and finally let go of his victim.

Adam’s fingers went limp in Ned’s hand, and he dropped like a pig carcass when Cole released his hair. The man who’d been alive and speaking to them heartbeats ago, splashed into the water filling the dark basement cell. Ned couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. Just stared at the emptiness behind bars with lips parted and his heart in his throat.

Next to him, Cole wiped his knife on the leg of his pants and replaced it in the sheath before rising to his feet, to tower over Ned like the grim reaper about to take another head.

When Ned looked up and met two blocks of stone instead of the twinkling eyes he was so used to, he realized the aggression behind the brutal stabs that ended Adam’s life had been meant for him.

“They tortured him,” Ned kept his voice down, struggling for air. “He was our friend.”

“I’ve been in his shoes twice. And I never ratted anyone out,” Cole barked and walked past Ned, away from the jail. “We survive because we don’t talk.”

Ned gritted his teeth and staggered back to his feet. He stole one more glance at the barred window, but it was too dark in there to spot the body of the man who’d played the guitar for them and had a fiancée waiting for him with hope in her heart.

Cole deserved that bounty on his head. And in truth, Ned did too.

The torrential rain might wash blood off Cole’s hands, but his soul would remain stained, just like the deaths of Ned’s parents couldn’t be cleansed from Butcher Tom’s conscience.

Ned was numb as they mounted up moments later, but the farther from town they rode, the more it struck him that he too had changed, and like Tom and Cole, he had no way of taking back his actions. And it tore him up from the inside.

He’d kept excusing his lack of interest in telegraphing the Pinkerton agents with Cole’s constant presence, but the truth was that he’d been seduced. Not just by Cole’s body, but by the lies the gang members told themselves in order to sleep at night. He’d befriended some of them, happy to remain ignorant of the things they did out of an ill-perceived sense of justice, which in reality was about little more than greed.

And yet, he followed the dark silhouette in front of him, because if he stopped now, the things he’d already done would have been for nothing. The heroic man on the train, the defenseless woman, Adam Wild, the people the gang had robbed—their lives had been sacrificed for a bigger cause, and Ned wouldn’t give up on his goal, no matter how much the journey changed him.

Chapter 14

As the train of wagons and horses moved ahead, ravines tucked between tall rocky mountains gave way to grassy hills dotted with shrubs and trees. The day following Adam Wild’s death opened with gray clouds, but the sky cleared by morning, and it stayed that way throughout the journey.

Once again, the end of the month was fast approaching, and Ned had nothing to show the Pinkertons. The caravan had moved ever farther from Iron Trail City and its bank, and the Craigs hadn’t received a single telegram from their inside man. Instead of sending valuable information, Ned had left behind a trail of three dead people and dozens of frightened passengers. He doubted the Pinkerton agents would have appreciated any of those things, even if they never found out about the transgression that gnawed at Ned’s conscience most.

He couldn’t believe he’d had illicit relations with a murderer.

Because that was what Cole had always been, no matter how many smiles he had for Ned, or how he looked out for him. Their friendship had been tainted from the start, and if Ned was to save his soul from descending into complete corruption, he needed to cling to normalcy in at least some aspects of this new life beyond the bounds of law. Which was why he’d been initially glad that Cole got his message and hadn’t talked to him since.