Page 38 of Duress
I woke up early so I could go over the notes I made yesterday during our search. I’ve been staring at the paper for nearly an hour now, trying to figure out why one name in particular keeps scratching at my brain like it is the key to unlocking everything. Jacob Wheeler. His is just a thin file, from ten years ago. An eighteen-year-old high school student who was charged with a DUI. It feels like such a nothing case. Well below Bryce’s usual pay grade, so why would he handle it? It’s the last name that keeps tickling my brain, refusing to let me move on.
Deciding the quickest way to figure out the mystery is just to look up Jacob, I pull out my phone and do a quick internet search for Jacob Wheeler + Birch Falls. I have to wade through a few pages of irrelevant Jacob Wheelers before finding a result about the Jacob Wheeler I am looking for. It’s a newspaper article about the Birch Falls High football team and their undefeated season in 2012. Jacob was their quarterback and had been offered a full ride scholarship to Notre Dame. There is a picture of a smiling Jacob holding up a Notre Dame jersey, flanked by his proud parents on one side and his coach on the other. I read the caption under the photo.Jacob—pictured with his parents, Adam and Heather Wheeler, along with Coach John Spence—officially accepting Notre Dame’s offer.
Adam Wheeler. Adam Wheeler. Adam Wheeler… Why is that name even more familiar? I don’t recognize his face, but IknowI’ve heard that name before. Opening a new tab, I put Adam Wheeler into the search bar, biting my lipwhile I scroll through the results. A picture of him wearing a white doctor’s coat and a stethoscope draped around his neck stops me mid scroll. He is the medical examiner. I’ve heard Bryce mention him several times in passing in reference to difference cases he’s needed to testify for. I quickly scan a few different articles, adrenaline rushing through my veins. I feel like I’m on the verge of unlocking something major.
A news article from the Birch Falls Gazette circa 2010 contains the answer I’m looking for. The article is a humanitarian piece about the previous M.E., John Graham, retiring after nearly thirty years in the position so he could care for his wife, who suffered from Alzheimer’s. After several paragraphs listing his work history and homicide cases his meticulous work helped solve, Adam is mentioned as being appointed his replacement. Doing the math in my head, I realize Adam would have been the medical examiner when Jake died.
Jumping up from the desk, I begin pacing, trying to make the pieces fit together. Bryce has a DUI file for Jacob Wheeler. But when I googled Jacob there was no record of the DUI that popped up. Adam Wheeler was the medical examiner at the time of Jake’s death… Bryce routinely works in favors and back scratching to get the outcomes he wants… Did he do Adam a favor by making Jacob’s DUI disappear? Did Adam owe him a favor in return?
A knock at the door stops me in my tracks. Glancing at the obnoxiously pretentious grandfather clock, I see it’s almost noon. Shit, that’s got to be Dane. I hastily shove Jacob Wheeler’s file into one of Bryce’s desk drawers, notquite ready to open that can of worms in front of Dane. I want Bryce to pay for what happened to Jake, but I don’t want to reopen that wound for Dane unless I am sure I can prove what he did. Right now it’s still my word against Bryce’s, and I know I’m not the one who will win that argument if it gets put in front of a court of law.
Opening the door,I find Dane standing on the porch wearing a fitted black tee that clings to his shoulders in a way that makes my mouth water. The way his thin, light gray athletic pants hug his thighs is obscene. His stubble is almost a full beard at this point, and the memory of it rubbing against my thighs when he went down on me yesterday flashes through my mind. After we fucked on Bryce’s desk and I blew him while he was on the phone with him, I’ve given up all pretense of pretending this isn’t happening. I know it is only going to end tragically, but I’ve decided to enjoy the ride before my whole life goes down in a fiery explosion. Bryce has taken too much happiness from me. I won’t let him take this from me. It might be the last good thing I get to enjoy before the truth comes out. I don’t know if this is a lie or the truth, but it helps quiet the lingering guilt lurking in the recesses of my mind.
Dane holds up a white bag of takeout food sporting the logo from my favorite Thai restaurant. A place we had dinner at together, with Bryce and their mother, for my birthday one year. The delicious scent of coconut and limeleaves from the Panang curry, and Pad Thai, momentarily distracts me from mentally climbing Dane like a tree.
“I thought I could feed us today while we work.” He flashes me a lazy half smile that makes him look somehow boyish and sexy at the same time. Like a young-twenty-year-old who hasn’t quite transitioned fully from boy to man. Very Jensen Ackles in season one of Supernatural. “Digging up skeletons is hungry work.” Dane shoots me a wink that sends a jolt of lust straight to my core.
I step aside, letting him in, desperate to get the door closed—blocking us from prying eyes—so I can kiss him. As soon as the door slams shut, he has me pushed against it, caging me in with his arms, resting on either side of my head while his body pins every inch of mine against the cool wood. The bag of food is forgotten on the floor behind him. I snake my hands under the hem of his shirt and trace the soft hair dusting his chest and stomach that narrows into a trail leading under his waistband.
Bryce goes to a waxer more often than I do, so he is smooth. I love how rugged and masculine Dane feels under my fingers. How I can grasp his chest hair to pull him into me, to let him know how desperate I am to climb into him. To be a part of him. I love how his muscles are thick, under a layer of softness that shows how strong he is, but that he isn’t so vain he spends all his free time in a gym. I love how his palms are rough and calloused from the grip of his gun. Most of all I love how safe and protected I feel when he’s near.
He licks into my mouth in languid, lazy strokes, like we have all the time in the world to memorize one another’staste. Slowly his hips grind against me, mimicking the movements I’m desperate to feel with no clothes between us. It’s blissfully cruel torture. We kiss for what feels like an eternity before he pulls away to pepper kisses along my jaw and down my neck.
“Fuck, Ever. I missed you. I couldn’t stop thinking about you last night after I left. It made me sick thinking of you in his bed.” My heart clenches painfully at his earnest confession. A spiteful voice in the back of my mind reminds me I don’t deserve his adoration.
Holding on to that harsh truth, I use it to pull me out of the fog of lust we are lost in. Gently, I push his shoulders, separating his lips from where they were suctioned to my neck, perilously close to leaving behind evidence I won’t be able to hide.
“We don’t have much time. We need to find what we are looking for before Bryce gets back. Digging first. Fucking second.” Dane’s eyes narrow like he’s not entirely sure he likes my plan. I’ll admit, I’m not sure I like it either, but we have to find a way to make Bryce pay. Ihaveto find a way to make him pay for what he did to Jake. I will not give up until I find a way to make it right.
“Hey,I’m gonna go grab a bottle of wine. I can’t handle reading about this level of douchebaggery while sober. It’s too depressing.” I stand up from the Chesterfield, lifting my arms up as I arch my back, stretching out the soreness that has settled in from sitting hunched over, scouring oldcase files. Dane flicks his gaze up to me, a playful smirk on his face.
“Is that how you survived being married to my brother for so long?” My expression flattens out at Dane’s jab.
“You know, he wasn’t always a douche,” I bite out, feeling defensive. Not necessarily for Bryce’s sake, but for mine. I feel like I need to defend my choice to marry him in the first place. Dane raises a skeptical eyebrow at me.
“You do realize I’ve known him my whole life, right? He’s always been a douche.” Dane’s expression flattens out, matching my own.
I can feel my cheeks heating up, flushing with irritation. I don’t even know why I’m mad at Dane right now. I open my mouth to say something, anything, to prove him wrong. I want to argue with him, even if it makes no sense. I know Bryce is a bastard and always has been toward Dane. I saw it years ago, but I chose to overlook it because Bryce was good tome. I just assumed it was run-of-the-mill sibling rivalry and they would find their way to a brotherly relationship once Dane was older.
Now I can see how blind and foolish I was about what kind of man Bryce is, and it makes me feel like shit. If I could fall in love with a man like Bryce, what does that say about me? Dane looks at me, challenge in his eyes, his large hands resting on the desk, clenched into fists, daring me to defend my husband. This must be the side of him that comes out when he is on duty, because I wither under the intensity of his stare.
“He…he was good to me. He made me feel important. I know you two weren’t close but…he loved me in a way I had never felt before. We used to be happy.”
Dane’s eye soften at my confession. He shifts like he’s going to stand, but I can’t handle his pity right now. I don’t deserve it. Instead, I turn on my heel and leave the office in search of some liquid fortification to help dull the gnawing guilt eating away at my insides.
Once in the kitchen, I lean on the counter, burying my face in my hands, trying to calm my racing thoughts. The longer this goes on, the harder it is to keep a handle on my warring emotions. The desperate need I have to fix what Bryce did and the guilt over letting Dane develop feelings for me crash over me like waves before a tropical storm hits land. Growing in intensity and frequency until they will inevitably wash over me, drowning me in ruin.
Grabbing a wine glass from the cabinet and the first bottle of wine my hand touches in the wine fridge, I set to work on opening the bottle. My hands tremble from nervous energy, and I struggle to get the opener to sit right on the bottle. Fuck, why can’t we be normal and buy cheap wine with screw-top caps?
A buzzing sensation in my back pocket interrupts my battle with the wine opener. Slipping my phone out of my pocket, I see Bryce’s face staring at me with an incoming FaceTime call. Fuck. Closing my eyes, I take a fortifying breath, attempting to soothe the anxious energy flowing through me. Bryce picks up on every tell, and I cannot let him know what I am up to. Not until I’m ready to take him down for good.
Plastering a placid, agreeable smile on my face, I hit the answer button and pray this conversation will be quick.
CHAPTER 35
DANE
Something is going on with Everly. The longer we go through Bryce’s case files, the more distant and cagey she gets. It’s as if she’s searching for something specific, and the longer she goes without finding it, the more frantic she gets. Part of me wants to chalk it up to guilt over cheating on Bryce, but another part of me thinks it is bigger than that. What could be more guilt inducing than cheating on the person you promised your heart and life to?
