He hadn’t accused his brother of hurting her. Not yet. But he hadn’t not done so, either.
He was still holding out hope that he was wrong—not that he’d given Harper that impression. He needed her to believe it was possible that Bruce was guilty, so she’d help him find out, one way or the other.
He was holding out hope, but he didn’t think he was wrong. No matter how much he wished differently.
Miriam drew. Rearranged the cards in her hand. Discarded. He waited for her to ask about Bruce’s response and found it telling that she didn’t.
“He’ll find me.”
“He won’t get in.”
Gram looked at him, her green eyes filled with the intelligence he’d known all his life. “He’s a decorated cop with security clearance,” she said clearly, easily. “They won’t be able to deny him access.”
It was his turn to play. He waited for her to look over at him, then held her gaze. “Yes, they will, Gram. You have my word on that.”
She nodded. Didn’t argue. But he knew she wasn’t convinced.
Where the hell was Harper?
“You really think if it’s Bruce against her, she’ll come out on top?”
Her.
“I met with Harper this morning,” he said. He’d been debating whether or not to tell her. To preempt the meeting they were about to have. But he’d decided to let things play out and observe the two women together because he wasn’t truly convinced his grandmother had a problem with Harper. The older woman had adored her. Sung her praises every single time Mason called or stopped by to see Miriam and his father during the year of Bruce and Harper’s marriage. She’d been certain that Harper Davidson would be the perfect cop’s wife, just as Gram herself had been. And Mason and Bruce’s mother, too, until the day she died.
“She thinks you don’t like her, Gram.”
“I don’t.”
They were both drawing cards. Discarding. He had three aces and three kings. All he needed was a fourth to go out on her.
“Why not?”
“She took the easy way out. Bruce makes one mistake and she leaves him. He changed after that. Worked all the time. Volunteered for the most dangerous assignments. Nothing I could do or say would bring him around. You think your grandfather didn’t make a mistake or two? Or your father, for that matter? You and I make mistakes. We don’t turn our backs on each other because of them. We stick together. That’s what family does.”
He’d been raised on this rhetoric. Believed most of it. “What mistake did Bruce make?” If he’d been talking to anyone else, his nonchalance would’ve been persuasive, but Gram saw right through him. He knew it when she paused, hand halfway to the discard pile, and looked over at him.
“He didn’t tell you?”
Mason stopped just short of rolling his eyes. “You think that’s likely?”
He’d spent five years telling himself he didn’t need to know why Harper had left his brother a year into the marriage she’d insisted on going through with. That he didn’t care. And that it was none of his business.
All lies—except the last part.
But now…it felt like his business. So he pushed. “What did he do?” he asked his grandmother.
“He had sex with a perp. Her older brother was a gang leader involved in human trafficking. He recruited local kids to use as drug mules. Bruce had to get close to get enough evidence to make a conviction stick.” Gram had spent more than fifty years living with law enforcement. There wasn’t a lot she didn’t know. Or that shocked her.
Mason’s stomach dropped. He’d suspected. Hoped he’d been wrong. He’d hoped there’d been another reason for the divorce—maybe that they’d decided they didn’t love each other enough. Something ordinary. Non-soul damaging.
“He told her right away, didn’t try to hide it from her. Didn’t lie to her. Or even expect to get away with it.”
Which made him wonder, considering Harper’s reaction the first time his brother had screwed around on her and considering how badly she’d been hurt, why Bruce had run home and confessed. Didn’t seem like something his younger brother would do.