Page 38 of Proof

I sighed as I looked at all the file folders in front of me. It would take countless hours to sift through them all. Part of me was eager to get started so I could finally know what had happened the night of my shooting.

In detail.

I climbed to my feet and headed for the refrigerator. It hit me as I was reaching to open the fridge that I was excited to go through all those files so I could find out what had happened, not because I was determined to prove Cass had hurt me and killed all those people. No, I wanted the truth, whatever it might be.

God, when had I started to see Cass as a suspect and not the convicted killer he was? Why the hell was I thinking about what kind of food was in the cabin and not trying to find a way to escape or, at least, defend myself? Why did I feel…comfortable?

I glanced over my shoulder at the files.

I felt comfortable because I was. If Cass had wanted me dead, he could have taken my life several times over since he’d been released. He’d saved my life instead. Letting Jenna’s stalker shoot me would have been the perfect way to get me out of the picture and still keep his nose clean because it would have been impossible to pin my death on him.

My thoughts shifted to the previous night’s events. Ihadgotten my feelings hurt by Cass’s rejection after he’d kissed me in his motel room. I’d been desperate to escape the shame and humiliation, but instead of dealing with it, I’d gone running to Tank’s. The first thing I’d done after reaching Tank’s had been to start downing cheap scotch as fast as I could so I’d be able to withstand what I knew was going to happen to me… what I was going toallowto happen.

Cass had stepped in there too. He’d had absolutely no reason to intervene in that alley. Yes, I’d taken his car, but Tank had taken the keys, so Cass would have easily been able to get them back if that was all he’d wanted.

He hadn’t been there for his car.

He’d been there forme.

Why?

His question about trust had stumped me. WhywasI blaming him for stealing my ability to trust anyone? Sully had been his best friend. If anything, my brother should have been the one who didn’t trust Cass, and yet here I was.

Sully had always been overprotective of me, even after I’d graduated from the police academy. Even if Cass was lying about him being a party to my “kidnapping,” Sully would have been breaking down doors all over Southern California to find me after I’d gone missing from Jenna’s forty-eight hours earlier. My brother had resources everywhere. He had highly trained men working for him. He knew people who could break into computers as easily as someone picking the lock on a door.

Sully would have found me before Cass had even had the chance to take me from Tank’s and disappear with me.

“Fuck,” I breathed as my head started to pound. The pain behind my right eye began to build upon itself until I had no choice but to let my back slide down the front of the fridge until I was sitting on the floor. I squeezed my eyes shut in the hopes of cutting the pain off at the onset, but it was too late.

What if Cass had been right? What if my inability to remember the night of the shootingdidhave to do with the mental trauma? The pain did always seem to occur most often when I was dealing with some kind of stressor.

I couldn’t give my own question much thought because I began to feel sick to my stomach as the pain increased. I held perfectly still in the hopes I could at least slow the pain and nausea long enough to get upstairs so I could lie down, but it was no use.

I wasn’t going anywhere for a while, and with the way things had been going with Cass, I doubted he’d come to my rescue ever again.

“Good going, JJ,” I whispered to myself just before the darkness swallowed me whole.

CHAPTER 13

Cass

The cool air and eerie silence should have felt good as I weaved between the trees and stepped over the various branches and rocks that threatened to steal my balance. Good night vision was another thing I had the military to thank for.

Too bad they hadn’t taught me how to deal with the lingering bitterness from my childhood. Of course, my upbringing couldn’t be called traumatic or anything like that. I knew many men and women who’d had it much worse. I hadn’t been abused, there’d always been plenty of food on the table, I’d been the most popular guy in my high school, and to cap off my rich kid blues, one of my father’s personal assistants had handed me the keys for an insanely expensive sports car before I’d even turned sixteen.

I might not have had the most supportive family in the world, but my grandmother, who’d pretty much raised me, had always watched over me, even after my father had taken over the Ashby empire and written me off as the “black sheep.” Sully, JJ, and Sean Ferguson had filled in the gaps by showing me what unconditional love really was. They were the only reason I’d had enough strength to join the military at eighteen instead of goingfor the Ivy League college education that had been purchased for me before I’d even gotten into high school. It hadn’t mattered that my grades had sucked or that I hadn’t even decided at that age what I’d wanted to do with my life. The Ashbys didn’t get the best of the best because of things like intelligence or strength of character.

Everything was bought and paid for, if not in advance, then afterwards when indiscretions needed to be covered up by buying victims off, or scandals needed to be kept out of the tabloids. Any attempt at exposing the Ashbys for who they really were was met with a swift and powerful response that left the lives of those doing the exposing in tatters.

JJ was the only one who’d ever gotten more than two words about my family out of me.

Both before the shooting and now.

He was the biggest threat to my future and yet he still held the most power over me.

And he had no fucking clue.

I paused my forward motion and pulled in a few deep breaths of the fresh, clean air before I started back toward the cabin. A full, bright moon made the journey back much quicker, though part of me never wanted to walk back into that place. If I knew JJ was waiting there to welcome me back in some way, I never would have left the cabin in the first place, but we were nowhere near that stage, and I doubted we ever would be. If by some miracle he determined that I hadn’t done what I’d been accused of, things wouldn’t magically become normal. We wouldn’t be able to pick up from the night we’d left off because he didn’t remember that night. And even if he did, we’d been at the very beginning of exploring our feelings for one another.

---