Page 152 of Deacon

“I called to say Whitaker is dead,” he says.

Right now, it feels like years ago when I spoke to him last. It takes me a second to remember what he’s talking about. Then, it clicks.

“How much do I owe you?” I say.

“Not a thing,” Boyd says. “It wasn’t my boys who killed him. He’s been dead for a good four or five years.”

Faint disappointment rises in my chest. Maybe I was hoping for this small win in light of the woman I love being torn from me.

“Who killed him?”

“Well now,” Boyd drawls, papers shuffling in the background. “Looks to be an Aiden Hatfield. I can’t for the life of me see what the issue was between them. Hatfield has multiple prior arrests, drunk and disorderly kind of thing, but he was friends with the sheriff, so he never got more than a slap on the wrist. If I had to guess, it was a drug dispute gone wrong.”

“Aiden Hatfield,” I repeat.

“Does that mean something to you?”

My stomach turns. A lot of things would make sense if I could just get myself to accept the thought lurking in the back of my brain—that Aiden has a twisted obsession with Freya.

Maybe I’m assuming too much. I know Aiden is a prideful man. He’d probably consider it a slight that some man got his stepdaughter down in the dirt and left. Maybe he went to talk about making her an honest woman, getting her off his hands, and Whitaker refused.

Or, deep down, it’s about desire. What doesn’t make sense is why he hasn’t acted on it yet.

“No, nothing,” I say. “Let me pay you for your time.”

“Oh, just stop by and see me next time you’re in the commonwealth,” he says. “You have a good day, Ryder. I’ll chat anytime. Maybe let me see some more of those horses. Alright?”

“Yes, sir,” I say.

He hangs up. I go upstairs and take my semi-automatic out of the gun cabinet. I have hundreds of rounds in there, and every one of them has that motherfucker’s name on it.

A truck pulls up the drive. I use the barrel of my rifle to push the curtain aside. Down below, Jack swings out of his truck, black cowboy hat on his head. He has a pistol in his hand, and he checks the magazine as he heads up the front steps. I leave the bedroom and move downstairs to let him in.

The door must be unlocked still, because he walks in as I enter the hall.

“Anybody else here?” he asks.

I shake my head. “Andy went with some of the cowboys to check the back gates and lock everything up. I wanted men and dogs at every entrance to the ranch.”

“Good,” he says. “Let me see the bedroom where they took her.”

We go back upstairs. Jack’s eyes move over the floor and walls as we go, taking everything in. I push open the bedroom door, and he holds out a hand to keep me back.

“How likely are they to hurt her?” he asks.

I shake my head. “I don’t know. I—”

My voice cracks. Jack’s eyes snap up, narrowing.

“What do you know that you’re not saying?” he says.

I shake my head.

“You want my help? Be honest with me, Ryder,” he says, voice hard. “What do you know?”

I clear my throat. “I talked to Brothers Boyd. I asked him to kill the man who took Freya’s virginity.”

“Because?”

---