Buckled (Trails of Sin 2)

I don’t condone Rogan’s investment methods or his behavior. It makes me violently sick to my stomach. But I never bothered to ask or investigate what he was doing with my money. I was swamped with magazine deadlines. He said he would handle the bills and our retirement, and I trusted him to do that.

Still, that doesn’t give me a pass. I was negligent. Unsuspicious. Blinded by love. That’s on me.

But if he wasn’t purposefully stealing from me, if he had no intention of leaving me, that changes my entire perspective. He could’ve been on his way home that very night to tell me what he was doing.

Or he could’ve truly taken my money and left.

I’ll never be able to ask him.

I’ll never know.

Jarret rises to his full height, his expression predatory as he prowls around the bed. A feral glow flares in his eyes, yet his movements are cautious, restrained, uncertain.

I raise a hand, gulping down breaths and holding back a cry. “Don’t come any closer.”

He stops at the foot of the mattress, and a shadow of hurt crosses his face before he closes it off.

“How?” I back up, keeping the corner of the bed between us, my voice shrill. “How did he die?”

“Don’t, Maybe.” His head angles away, his rigid jaw a dark slash of warning. “Ask me anything but that.”

My mind runs rampant. Was Rogan stabbed? Shot? Strangled? Starved? Dismembered? Beheaded? Drowned? Set on fire? Run over by a truck? Trampled by a horse? Skinned alive?

The more I think about it, the harder the tears fall.

“I can’t do this.” I grip my head and tack my eyes shut as a terrible keening noise escapes my chest. “I’m imagining horrible things, and the images are getting worse and worse. This will eat at me, Jarret. It’ll haunt me into madness.” I find his eyes a few feet away. “Please. I have to know.”

He steps toward me, and I stumble back.

His features harden. “I pushed him into the ravine before we filled it in.”

A cry hides behind the knot in my throat. “He died on impact?”

“No,” he says quietly. “I think his back broke. He was conscious and unable to move.”

Alive. Paralyzed. Defenseless. What were his final thoughts? Did he think about me while he lay in the dirt and confront his death?

Pain and misery drips from my eyes and nose, racking my body with uncontrollable tremors. “What did you do?”

“I had dump trucks on standby, already loaded with dirt.”

I clap a hand over my mouth as saliva rushes in, followed by bile, nausea, the sudden urge to puke.

He closes his eyes, opens them. “I buried him alive.”

I take off at a run, shoving past him and stumbling into the bathroom. I barely make it to the toilet as the contents of my stomach erupt. I heave repeatedly, brutally, sobbing in a convulsion of snot and spit.

He kneels beside me and caresses my back, his eyes burning into the side of my face.

Minutes pass. My stomach settles. My mind dissolves into numb shock. He hands me a towel and a glass of water.

His tenderness fills me with difficult feelings. He’s too close, too overwhelming. Physically and emotionally. I need distance.

I need answers.

I clean my face with the towel, drink the water, and clear my voice. “When did he die?”

“Six months before I met you.”

The time line matches his disappearance.

He’s been dead for a year, the same amount of time I was married to him. And I’ve been sleeping with his killer six of those months.

“Where?” I ask.

“He was in Sandbank, on his way to a meeting with my dad.”

“Did he say anything? Obviously, he didn’t mention me. But did he defend himself or say he needed to get home?”

“We didn’t give him the opportunity.”

“What do you mean?”

“We gagged him immediately to keep him quiet. I’m sorry, Maybe. If I’d known he was married…”

“You would’ve killed him anyway.”

“Yes.”

“If you’d known he was Conor’s brother?”

“She’ll ask the same question, and I’ll give her the same answer. Yes, I would’ve killed him. I’ve hurt her deeply over the past six years. I hate myself for it, but she’s alive. I will never regret that.”

I admire his honor and devotion, even if his methods are vicious and illegal.

“And the other missing people?” I sit back on my heels, clutching the braid of my hair.

“Hit men. Loan sharks. Levi Tibbs. They all threatened Conor’s life, and they’re all in the ravine.”

Another wave of nausea hits my stomach, but I’m empty. Drained. Hollowed out. I have a lot of soul-searching to do, and it’s not going to happen on this bathroom floor.

I move to stand, and he helps me, crowding in, breathing against my neck.

“Jarret.”

“Maybe.”

We watch each other, motionless, drawn together, even now, in a way I’ve never felt with another person.

I hold still, constricted on all sides by reality. Secrets and betrayal. Covered in blood. Smothered by love. Amid it escapes an agonized sob, followed by his soothing shush. Then his arms, his warmth, his lips in my hair.