Page 16 of Hell and Gone
It was too easy to read into what Lawrence was saying. Too easy to spin his own understanding, bring his own thoughts to Lawrence’s words. But he was a world away from anything he knew, and one wrong step here could be a permanent mistake. He knew nothing about Lawrence Jackson. Certainly not enough to make assumptions about Lawrence’s relationship to a dead man. For all he knew, they were hunting buddies. Or they smoked pot together. It didn’t mean what he thought it meant.
“And now, six months later, these two men, Dell and Aaron, are missing and Carson is found dead.” A whole different understanding of Carson’s death was shaping up in Everett’s mind.
“Would any of those truckers be able to get up into the mountains?”
“The local boys, course. I told you, everyone here knows everyone else. Bunch of those guys went to the same high school as all us cowboys did. We all dropped out at the same time, too. We all grew up in these mountains, ridin’ horses and runnin’ wild on the trails. You can’t pull anyone in this valley out of these mountains.”
“So you think this might be revenge?”
“I thought it. I been tryin’ to get Braddock to think it, too. Braddock’s been more concerned with the missin’ stock ‘cause that’s what’s been botherin’ Endless Sky and Howell. Missin’ stock got value, more than a missin’ man has. And besides, Dell and Aaron were supposed to get gone. If it wasn’t for findin’ Carson swinging from the tree, everyone woulda thought all three had left like they was supposed to.”
“And you said Carson was upset about being told to leave? That he took it hard?”
“I know where you’re goin’, Army, but that ain’t it,” Lawrence growled. “I swear, he didn’t kill himself.”
“But he was depressed?”
Lawrence said nothing. He glared at the coals.
Looks like a suicide, and there’s reason enough to suspect he decided killin’ himself was the way to get out of the trouble he found himself in. There’s history behind that corpse, lots of it, and I can’t say I was surprised to see him dead with rope burns on his neck.
If it weren’t for the cast of a slender-footed horse, tucked into Everett’s backpack, he might have agreed with Sheriff Braddock: there was reason enough to suspect suicide, at least enough to investigate that angle further.There’s history behind that corpse.
History that wrapped around Lawrence Jackson, too.
Why was Carson at Lawrence’s ranch?
“’M glad you’re here, Army,” Lawrence blurted out. He slid down the log he leaned against, tucked his black cowboy hat over his face, and folded his arms over his chest. “You’ll find out what happened. I know it.”
Everett watched him fall asleep, watched his jaw go slack and his chest rise and fall. The coals turned deep red, the color of boiling blood, as he unfurled the sleeping bag and crawled inside. The down smelled like woodsmoke and leather, sweat and a musk that, even after one day, Everett could say was Lawrence’s. He closed his eyes and breathed it in, burying his face in the folds of the bag as his cock hardened.
Not here. Not like this. He crossed his arms beneath his face and rested his forehead on his wrist, counting back from one hundred. He hadn’t felt a damn thing in two years, and now, in the middle of nowhere, investigating a murder, he had the first inklings of attraction again?
Fine time for that.
He couldn’t deny there was a raw sensuality about Lawrence. He was rugged without trying, and that pure masculinity called to Everett, made him dizzy. Made himwant, like he hadn’t wanted in years.
Why now? Why Lawrence?
It was just a trick of the mountains, too much fresh air, too much wildness. He’d wrap this case up and go home, back to the motel room he was renting by the week in Helena, back to his duffel bag of belongings. Back to the nothing he’d made of his life.
Nothing was safe. Emptiness was safe.
He breathed out, cleared his mind. Kept counting back, down to forty-three now.
We’ve got a murder problem here, too, Lawrence had said when Everett drove up earlier that day.
One dead body. Two missing men. And a whole heap of troubled history.
One Lawrence Jackson, somehow deep in the middle of it.
And he couldn’t get Lawrence out of his mind.
Chapter 8
His hands were soaked,bloodred and drenched. He’d done it, he’d fucking done it, but—
He couldn’t breathe, staring at what he’d done, staring at his blood soaked hands, at his red right hand, his murderer’s hand—
