Page 29 of Cold Case Murder Mystery

“Where wereyou?”

“Well, once I realized my truck was gone, I borrowed one of my brother’s cars and drove to your rental, because I figured you were headed out to deal with your brother very purposefully without me.”

It hadn’t even occurred to her to go talk to Royal until she had more information. Until she had thefacts.

“You didn’t go there at all, did you?” He seemed so hurt by that, when it wasn’t like she’d lied to him and told him she had or was going to. That was just some assumption he’d made.

“No,” she replied. “I just had an errand to run.” She wasn’t going to explain herself. She didn’t have to. She wasn’t in danger anymore. Not from the thing he thought she was anyway. And before she introduced any new possibilities, she had to know...

She had toknow. So she could protect herself first and, if after that, she needed his help, maybe she’d ask for it. But she’d have the data first, damn it. No more instincts for her. Those had only led her astray.

And she could ask for his help, she could accept his help, but she could notdependon him again. Onanyoneagain. Things went best when she only depended on herself.

The man in front of her, case in point. Standing there looking like... like she’d neverseenhim. Because this was a bit like a man... holding on by a thread. When he had always,always, been in complete and utter control.

She didn’t like it, but it did make her feel sorry for him. It made her want tosoothe.

“Zeke.” She moved forward, not quite sure what she was going to do, just following that need inside her. One she’d just seconds ago been telling herself she wouldn’t listen to.

But Zeke shook his head, a nonverbalstay back. Because he was getting himself under control or trying to.

“What was your brother in jail for?” he asked quietly and calmly.

The question made little sense in the grand scheme of things. What was he getting at? What could that have to do with anything?

Since she couldn’t fathom where he was going with this, she hedged. Because she knew if she tried to defend Royal, it would only make him look more guilty. “A few different charges.”

“List them, Brooke.”

She didn’t have to. Shedidn’t. But she just... couldn’t stop herself. “Do you remember the child trafficking case in the Sons that North Star was part of stopping? You would have been too new to be on the team that dealt with it, but I think you were with North Star by then.”

“South Dakota, right? Shay and Cody Wyatt leading the charge?”

She nodded. She didn’t know much about it herself. She just remembered Betty Wagner, North Star’s resident doctor and one of Brooke’s close friends at North Star, being pretty shaken up by the findings.

“What does that have to do with your brother’s jail time, Brooke?”

“Royal was arrested just a little before that. On a murder charge. There was a fight with another Sons’s member, and the other man died. The other man who’d been hurting those girls. But the Sons knew how to pick and choose who it got out of legal trouble. How to make sure the ones they saw as traitors saw the inside of a cell.”

“You’re saying a member of the Sons of the Badlands was arrested and it wasn’t fair? The gang member was innocent?”

She hated how ridiculous he made it sound, because her brotherhadbeen a member of the Sons at that point. She knew how naïve it sounded to believe he was in there to try and stop some of the things they’d seen growing up, yet she couldn’t help but hope her brother’s motivations had been at least partly honorable.

And if she was wrong... well, so be it.

This was why she hadn’t wanted to tell Zeke about it. Because she knew how it sounded. She also knew her brother, or tried to tell herself she did. He could find his own trouble, certainly, but he wasn’t a murderer.

She wouldn’t let herself believe he was a murderer as long as there was no concrete proof. She knew the case, thanks to her North Star connections at the time. It had been stacked against Royal from the start, with the help of too many people who’d ended up having Sons ties.

“Why do you think Granger agreed to help me with the funds to hire a lawyer?” she asked Zeke instead. Because everyone respected Granger, but some of the younger guys had looked up to him like a father figure.

Just like she had.

“He has a soft spot for you.”

Brooke rolled her eyes. Granger had a soft spot foranyof the people who came into North Star because they had been some kind of victim of the Sons of the Badlands. But he was also a stickler for right and wrong. “Because he knew as well as I did that Royal was in jail for trying to stop something. And I know you won’t believe that—”

“Did Granger believe it?”

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