Page 12 of All Along The Watchtower

That sobered me up right quick. “You don’t think there’s somebody else out there who wants to kidnap her, do you?” It had been more than six months since Roland O’Shea had tried to silence Willa, who still didn’t remember everything that happened that night. More than six months since he’d been killed in the process. The memory of that night still gave me cold sweats sometimes, and I hadn’t even been directly involved.

“I hope to God not.” Rios’s jaw tightened, and I recognized the look of a man ready to throw down if necessary. “But O’Shea wasn’t working alone. By his own admission, he was a middleman. There are still the other folks who were involved out there somewhere. What if something about the operation was hidden in that office?”

“It’s been six months. Why would somebody wait that long to try to retrieve it?”

“Police presence for a lot of it. Then renovations. That new security system. There could be reasons. Either way, I think Sawyer’s right to stick close. Just in case. If for nothing else than her peace of mind.” He took another bite of bread, chewing thoughtfully. “Hell, if it were me, I probably wouldn’t let her out of my sight, either.”

Now that we were off island, I dared to breach the subject I’d been wondering about the whole time we’d been back in the States. The question had been eating at me since we’d left Hatterwick behind, but I hadn’t wanted to bring it up where the wrong ears might hear. “Did it make a difference?”

Rios sipped his beer and arched a brow, his expression carefully neutral in that way that had been drilled into all of us during our time in the Navy. “Did what make a difference?”

“What Willa remembered about being the last person to see Gwen alive.” I kept my voice low, though we were the only ones in this corner of the restaurant. Some habits died hard, especially when it came to a case that had haunted our island for over a decade.

That long ago summer, Rios had gone to Chief Carson and reported everything he remembered about seeing Gwen Busby at the end of that party. When no other trace of her was found, he’d turned Rios into a scapegoat, implying that Rios had done something to Gwen. There had never been a shred of evidence, but the implication had been enough for an island of people who’d been desperate for answers. Rios had been convicted in the court of public opinion. He and his sisters had suffered from those accusations for years. Another man might have fled, but Rios had stuck it out, in order to look after his sisters against their abusive father. But after Gabi had left for college and Caroline had found Hoyt, Rios had joined us when we all enlisted in the Navy. He’d wanted the chance to start a new life out from under the shadow of those false opinions. It had worked. He’d thrived in the Navy, and as such, he’d come home the least of all of us.

One shoulder lifted in a shrug. “Nobody said anything to my face this time. But people still eye me with distrust. Wondering if I’m cut from the same cloth as my father.”

He said it easily. As if he weren’t bothered by the fact that people thought he could murder someone the way Hector Carrera had murdered their mother and covered it up for years before coming after Caroline when she’d dared to move out and start her own life. The casual way he spoke about it made my gut clench. I’d seen what that kind of suspicion had done to him over the years, and I knew this careful neutrality masked deeper hurts.

Anger rose quick and hot, as it always did when this subject came up. “Man, fuck them all. No one who knows you believes any of that.” He’d been one of my brothers since childhood. The idea that anyone could think him capable of hurting Gwen was ridiculous.

“Most of that island never knew me to begin with. That was the problem.” He glanced toward the water, jaw tightening. “So it’s going to take a lot more to clear me than the memories of someone a lot of folks believe is an unreliable witness because of her own trauma. For some people, the only thing that’s going to change their mind would be Gwen showing up in the flesh to tell the story of what actually happened that night. I don’t see that happening after all these years.”

Because Gwen Busby was dead. If she’d been able to contact her family, she would have by now. After more than thirteen years of silence, that was the only logical conclusion, even if no one had ever found a body to prove it.

I hated all of this. Not only because my friend had suffered enough at the hands of prejudiced assholes, but because I was starting to grasp the fact that he truly might never come home. And under the circumstances, I couldn’t blame him. Hell, if I’d been treated the way Rios had, accused of something so heinous, with nothing but whispers and sideways glances to back it up, I probably wouldn’t come back either. The whole situation made my gut churn with guilt and anger.

Lucia sashayed over, carrying two bowls of spaghetti topped with enormous meatballs. “For my starving boys!” she declared, presenting our plates with dramatic flair.

Her infectious enthusiasm and incredible cooking made it hard to hang on to a dark mood.

“God, this looks incredible, Lucia.”

Rios speared one of the giant meatballs and took a huge bite, his eyes drifting shut in exaggerated bliss. “I’m telling you, you should just marry me. I’ll do anything for these meatballs.”

“You visit me again before you go, then maybe we discuss.” She gave another playful wink before bustling off.

“Pretty sure I’m wearing her down,” Rios commented.

I grinned, happy to see him back on an even keel, and dug into my food. “You keep telling yourself that, pal.”

CHAPTER 7

BREE

My heart had stopped dead in my chest. Those sea-green eyes, the high cheekbones, even the way she held herself. She was a gangly, adolescent version of Mama Flo. The longer I stared at the girl in front of me, the more I saw Ford.

Her father.

Jesus.

“Do you know him?” The kid’s voice wavered, uncertainty creeping in to replace that brief show of bravado. Her fingers twisted in the hem of her jacket, and I watched her swallow hard, like she was fighting back tears.

“Yeah. Yeah, I know him.” The words came out rough, like I’d swallowed sand. My tongue felt thick and useless in my mouth as I tried to process what I was seeing—this living, breathing piece of Ford standing right in front of me.

The usual buzz of conversation in the bar died. Heads turned our way—because everyone knew Ford Donoghue. He might have been gone for years, but his shadow still lingered here, especially at the bar where we’d practically grown up. And if I didn’t want this news spreading like wildfire across the island, making it to Ford’s moms before the kid could blink, I needed to get her the hell out of the public eye.

Swallowing hard against a throat that had gone dry as dust, I waved the girl around the end of the bar. “C’mon. Let’s go somewhere a little more private to talk.” My heart hammered against my ribs as I tried to maintain an outward calm I definitely wasn’t feeling.

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