Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 93002 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 465(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93002 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 465(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
Callum shoved his hands in his pockets, his gaze resting on my face and then Forrest’s for a moment before he shook his head and took a step back. “Well, this was a fucking waste of time.”
“That’s what you get when you go chasing legends,” Emmett said evenly, his gun still aimed at Callum. “Sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose.”
“Yeah, well,” Callum nodded at Emmett, then turned to Forrest and me, “it’s been fun.”
“Not really,” I said under my breath, watching his back as he headed to the woods.
Emmett, his eyes still trained on Callum, gave a signal to someone in the trees I couldn’t see. He must have gotten a signal back because he lowered his gun and turned to us.
“You were following us from Atlanta?” I asked.
“Not at first,” Emmett said. “But when we found out they were following you, we thought it was best. Turned out we were right.”
“Thanks for saving our asses,” Forrest said, helping me to my feet.
“Not a problem,” was Emmett’s response. He looked to me. “I owed you one.”
“True enough,” I agreed, remembering the day he kidnapped my sister. “Now we’re even.”
“That we are,” he agreed. “For now.”
I thought about the training he and Lucas had promised me. I couldn’t think of a better reason to owe Emmett Blake. I started to smile until I caught sight of Brax, facedown in the grass. “Is he—?”
Emmett crouched beside him, pressing his fingers to Brax’s neck. After a minute, he shook his head. “Ambulance is on the way, along with the police, but I don’t feel a pulse.”
I waited to feel something. Sorrow. Regret. Grief. All I felt was glad to be alive.
“The police?” Forrest asked. “Are my mom and Jerry okay? Did anyone—”
“Your mother and stepfather are fine. No one came near the house. My guys in the woods called the police and ambulance when Leary shot Brax. We got it on video. Callum Leary won’t be back to bother you again.”
I looked behind me, the waving grasses almost obscuring the view of Brax’s body. All those years of mutilated Barbies, taunts and cruelties, and despite everything… “It didn’t have to be this way,” I said, “except he wouldn’t let it be any other way.”
Forrest’s arm slid around my shoulders, his lips pressing to the top of my head. “He brought it on himself,” he said quietly. “You couldn’t have saved him.”
“No,” I said. “We’d better go explain to your mom why her place is going to be crawling with the police. Maybe she’ll feel sorry for us and let us have some of that rhubarb pie.”
“Sounds good to me,” Forrest said with a nod at Emmett.
As we followed the path back through the woods, Emily and Jerry’s house coming into view through the trees, I realized that all of us—all of us except Brax—could leave the past behind.
Forrest’s father had dreamed of a future filled with love and adventure. He couldn’t share that future with us, but we were still here, and we had each other. That future filled with love and adventure was waiting for us. Right after we explained everything to the police.
Epilogue
STERLING
“I love Saturdays,” I said, rolling over in our bed in Heartstone Manor, my cheek pressed to Forrest’s chest.
For the first time in my memory, everything was right in my world, and I was exactly where I wanted to be.
“Let’s stay here all day,” I said, letting out a contented sigh.
Forrest’s hand came up to stroke down my hair, and he kissed the top of my head. “That works for me. It’s been a busy few weeks.”
He wasn’t kidding. I was ready to take a break from being busy for a while. We’d stayed in Oregon with Emily and Jerry for almost a week, using as much of my time away as we could, considering the possibility of delayed flights. Oregon was a long way from North Carolina. It wasn’t like we could jump in the rental car and drive back in a flash if our flight was canceled.
Emmett and the team he brought with him pretty much took care of the aftermath of Brax and Callum’s attempts to claim Alan Buckley’s fortune. Forrest and I talked to the police about Brax and what had happened, but they didn’t really need us. They had Callum Leary in custody and some very high-definition video. We were only needed to substantiate the evidence they already had. The quest for the secrets of the Vitellius had been Callum’s pet project. With him out of the picture, the rest of the Learys weren’t interested in us.
I was trying to be sorry that Brax had died. Maybe it was callous to say all was right in my world when my brother had died right in front of me, but he’d been a real shithead of a brother and a crappy human being, cemented by his plan to shoot me and throw my body over the cliffs. It was hard to feel sorry he was gone.