Cruel (The Buck Boys Heroes 2)

“Was there a fire, Juliet? Did the house burn down?”

Shaking my head, I glance at him. “No, no. I just remember that smell that day. It burned all day, until...”

“Until she came home from school?”

I ignore that because she never came home from school that day. The police found her at her friend’s house hours after it was all over.

“He came in through the balcony door.” I swallow hard. “Margie didn’t lock it the night before. We sat on the deck and she let me take a sip of one of our dad’s beers, but it was awful.”

“Who came in through the balcony door, Juliet?”

I look at his face. “Margie’s ex boyfriend. He told her his name was Doyle Creighton.”

“That wasn’t his name?”

I pick at the hem on the bottom of Kavan’s shirt before smoothing it with my palm so it sits flat on my thighs. “His name was Chevy Dorset.”

“Chevy Dorset,” he repeats.

I look at him again. “Chevy Dorset. He killed two people in Oregon before he ran to California, fell in love with my sister, and then when she broke up with him, he came to our house to kill her, but I was the only one there.”

I drink from the glass of water that Kavan handed me a few minutes ago.

I was the one who asked for it.

I could see that he needed a minute after I told him about Chevy.

He takes the glass from me to place on the coffee table. “What happened that day, Juliet? What did that monster do to you?”

I reach for his hands and hold them in my lap. “At first, he didn’t know I was there. I heard footsteps. They were too heavy to be Margot’s so I ran to my bedroom, shut the door as quietly as I could and I called 911.”

“Good,” he says with a nod as if he’s trying to reassure both of us. “Good.”

“He heard me.”

Kavan’s brow furrows. “He heard you?”

“I didn’t realize that he was outside of my bedroom and heard me whisper our address into the phone. He kicked in the door to my room then.”

“Jesus.”

“He had a knife.” I close my eyes to shake off the image of that knife. “He demanded to know where Margot was.”

“Juliet.” His voice shakes.

“I tried to stay calm,” I tell him. “I told him we could leave the house together and go find her.”

“That was smart,” he affirms. “Very smart.”

“He wanted me to call her. I tried and tried but she hadn’t gone to class. She’d gone over to a guy’s house to…she went there to have fun.”

“So she never answered the phone?”

“It was hours later that the police tracked her down. It was over by then.”

“Over?” He shifts our hands so his are on top of mine now. “How did it end?”

“I thought he was going to kill me,” I say on a sob. “But I begged him not to. Hours later when the police stormed in, he just gave up.”

He gathers me into his arms then. “Thank Christ. Fuck, Juliet. I’m so grateful you’re okay.”

“I’m okay.” I cling to him. “I’m going to be okay.”

Drawing my gaze up to meet his with a finger on the bottom of my chin, he kisses my forehead. “I had no idea you’d lived through something like that. What prison is that bastard in?”

I finally manage a slight smile. “Hell. Chevy Dorset died in prison tonight.”

Chapter Forty-Two

Kavan

I carry her back to bed in my arms.

Resting her carefully on the sheets, I settle next to her.

Face-to-face I stare into her eyes. They are the eyes of a woman who has lived through trauma.

One of her hands moves to cup my cheek. “I’m glad I told you.”

“I am too, Juliet.”

“That day in the alley when you saved me, it was a lot.”

I tug her closer to me. “That had to have been triggering for you.”

She nods. “It was. I went to therapy when I was fifteen. It helped. It taught me how to deal with things. Bad things, good things, life.”

I know the feeling. I sought out help too after my father’s death.

“I wanted to tell you sooner,” she whispers. “I was worried that you’d find out on your own.”

I’m surprised I didn’t.

Before I approached Thurston with the idea of having Juliet write the article, I ran a complete background check on her. Nothing related to what happened when she was fifteen popped up.

“My name was kept out of it publically because of my age,” she goes on, “I don’t know how far your reach extends though, so there was a small part of me that wondered if you already knew.”

“I had no idea.”

“We moved after that to a house in southern California with a pool.” She smiles. “It was supposed to be our new beginning, but Margot always worried about me after that. She’s never been able to let that go.”