Page 44 of Broken Promises

“This is awesome, Jo,” Declan says, looking close to tears. “You have no idea what this means to me.”

“Don’t cry! If you cry, I’ll cry and then Mav will cry. It’ll be a whole thing,” Cal says, sniffling.

Declan chuckles and turns to me. He’s smiling again, and it’s not forced to make me feel better this time.

“So, can I approve this and get the venues booked?” Jon asks, looking confused at why everyone is being emotional right now. We all give our agreement.

“Your turn, Dad,” Harlow says to Harrison.

“I’ve been trying to figure out where all of Wolfe’s money is coming from.” Harrison glances at Maverick. “Since you told me that your dad claimed he was using old money to fund his campaigns was bullshit, I’ve tried to prove it.”

“You haven’t?” Mav asks, his brows drawing together.

“Not exactly. With the way everything is tied up with authorities right now, it’s been more difficult. But I found something else while I was digging.” Harrison pushes his tablet into the middle of the table so we can all see it. It’s a listing for a cabin on a lake in Maine on a vacation rental website. “I already had Wolfe’s financials from the time Ezra went missing. I gave them to my guy to trace the transactions weeks before the arrest.”

“He rented a cabin?” Harlow asks.

“I did,” Maverick says, his face pale. “I used my dad’s credit card. Ezra and I were going to head there that night.”

“Did your dad know that?” Harlow asks at the same time Harrison says, “Did you share that with Ezra?”

“Ezra knew, yeah. My dad didn’t find out until the bill came the next month.”

“The code to get into the cabin was used once three hours after Ezra was last seen,” Harrison says.

Maverick goes so still and so pale I think he might faint. I quickly reach across the table and grab his hand. “I can see what you’re doing. Stop.”

“I can’t,” he says though a pained whisper. “I should’ve gone there to look for him. I should’ve —”

“Stop, Mav. You can’t live in that headspace. Why would you look for him there? You were supposed to go together,” Belle says.

“When my dad died, I spent months blaming myself, saying that if I had just left school on time instead of stopping to talk to a cute boy, I could’ve been home to call an ambulance. I could’ve saved him.” I squeeze his hand. “But I couldn’t predict a heart attack any more than you could predict Ezra’s actions.” Mav nods and slides back into his seat, releasing my hand.

“We think Ezra went to the cabin?” Belle asks, eyes flickering between Mav and Harrison.

“I’m confident he did,” Harrison says. “It’s likely the first place he stopped. It doesn’t give us much in a way of finding him, but it establishes a firmer timeline.”

“So he ran there and then ended up in Green Peak, New Hampshire? Then went to Nashville with Jasper. Do we know anything else?” Harlow asks.

“I have a theory,” Declan says, shocking almost everyone at the table.

“Uh, how much do you know?” Kai asks like he’s nicely trying to tell Declan he doesn’t know what’s going on.

“He knows everything,” I admit. Everyone nods in acceptance and turns their attention to Declan. Everyone except Belle, who is shooting daggers from her eyes at me.

“What’s your theory?” Harlow is waiting with the face she gets when she’s in the middle of investigating something. It’s a mixture of serious and curious wonder.

“It wasn’t Wolfe.” He says it so casually, like that theory doesn’t blow a hole in everything we’ve been thinking so far.

“It has to be my dad,” Maverick argues.

“That’s where the evidence points,” Harrison agrees.

“Then why isn’t Ezra sitting right there?” Declan points to the empty chair next to Maverick.

“The trial hasn’t happened yet. He could be waiting for that. Or maybe he’s worried about how everyone will react. Legally, coming back from the dead is going to suck,” Jo says.

Declan leans forward in his chair, folding his hands and looking at Harlow. He knows she’s the one he needs to convince because once she is, she’ll dig into his theory better than an FBI agent.

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