Booted (Trails of Sin 3)

“I want police records.” I grip Raina’s hand and pull her inside. “Death records. Autopsy reports. Anything you can pull up on Tiana Benally.”

His eyes flit to Raina and harden. “I don’t have access to that, and even if I did—”

“Fletcher?” His wife, Mary, pads into the foyer, wrapping a robe around herself. “Everything okay?”

She looks us over, and the soft wrinkles around her eyes deepen. She’s known us our whole lives. She also knows what the papers printed about me, but I doubt she knows the corruption her husband’s involved in.

“It’s just business, sweetheart.” He steps toward her and kisses her on the forehead. “Go on back to bed.”

“Okay. It’s good to see you boys.” She gives Raina a concerned look and leaves.

Fletcher turns back to us. “Why are you digging up information on a dead girl?”

I explain what happened at the restaurant and the threats John made. His brows knit together, his expression otherwise unreadable.

“Have you heard from John?” I lead Raina to a chair in the office and help her sit.

“No, I told you I’d call if—”

“Pull up the damn police records.” I don’t believe a word out of his mouth. I need to see records loaded from secure databases.

More than that, Raina needs to see them.

He could fight me on this. It’s a risk to his job. But I’m a scarier risk, and he knows it.

With a grunt, he charges toward his desk and powers on the computer. I don’t even know if he has access to this kind of information, but his dirty fingers seem to always find a way.

It doesn’t take long before he shoves back from the desk and points at the screen. “Here it is.”

Raina stands and approaches the computer, her eyes stark with dread.

“Move.” I motion at him to surrender the chair.

He rises, his scowl bending beneath his gray mustache.

As she lowers into the seat, I push her forward and lean over her, eyes on the screen.

Documents line up side by side—a death certificate, a police report about unclaimed remains, and even a testimony by the doctor who was treating Tiana in the hospital. It’s all there.

Tiana died with her doctor as a witness.

“The video he showed me…” Raina touches the screen, her voice brittle.

I crouch beside her and hold her quivering jawline in my palm. “It must’ve been old footage.”

She covers her mouth with a hand, her soundless cry dominated by profound grief. Her eyes shine with deceived pain and the reflection of the screen that inflicts it.

I hear her deeply. I feel every hurt and broken dream as my own.

She wanted so badly to believe John’s lie. He couldn’t have dealt a more agonizing blow. But he underestimates her. She’ll come back from this, because she’s a force unlike anything I’ve ever encountered.

Sliding my arms beneath her, I scoop her out of the chair and carry her to the door.

“If you see John Holsten…” Jarret leans into Fletcher. “If you hear him, smell him, or so much as get a sense that he’s in town, you’ll call us immediately.”

Fletcher sets his jaw and gives a stiff nod.

It’s only a matter of time before he’s slithering behind my back to suck John Holsten’s dick. The day he does will be the worst day of his life.

“Whatever he threatens you with,” I say, “just remember my threat is bigger.” I lower my voice to a harsh whisper. “He doesn’t have what it takes to break your wife into pieces.”

“Don’t you dare threaten me, boy.”

I just did.

Sadness is a river of splintered glass that cuts between the soul and body. Being alone in this pain is the same as being no one at all. That’s the true sadness.

Whenever I hurt, I’ve always been alone.

Until now.

Lorne leads me through the estate and into his suite. The austerity of the space is a stark reminder that I’ve never moved in.

Neither has he.

With his hand clamped around mine, he escorts me into the master bathroom and flicks on the light. Only then does he release me for the first time since we left the sheriff’s house.

I miss his touch instantly.

Digging under the sink, he gathers gauze, mild solution, and antibiotic cream—the things leftover from my first two days here. Before I stole his truck and ran.

That feels like ages ago.

After he treats the cut on the back of my head, he checks my abdomen. The soreness lingers, but it doesn’t compare to the initial shock of the punch.

“Do you want a shower?” He stands close enough to infuse my breaths with his clean masculine scent.

A shower… Is that what a person needs on the night her dead sister resurrects and dies again?

“No.” I want to stay right here with him.

His hand slides beneath my hair, gently combing and lifting. As he slowly releases the strands, he watches them fall, his eyes a velvety green shade of contentment.