AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I can tell by her tone that she isn’t taking me seriously,so I say, “No, Tori. I’m going to kill him. Hunt him down. Make it hurt.”
Taking me in, hearing the conviction in my tone, she crosses her arms over her chest. “Cole –”
I shake my head. “I’ve killed before, and I have no problems doing it again.”
At my confession, her face pales, and it’s then that I realize that Tegan never told her the truth. She never told her about my past. I know now that I’ll never be able to make it up to her for protecting me.
“If that’s true,” she begins carefully, “Then, not only would you have ended another life, but you’d go back to jail.”
I throw my hands in the air. “Do you think I give a shit? She’s dead, Tori! I have nothing and no one left for me!”
“So you’re going to avenge her death?” she says through clenched teeth. “Tegan thought the world of you. Do you really think she’d want you back in jail?”
“Tegan would want me to catch the murdering bastard however I saw fit.”
Tori uncrosses her arms and holds them wide open. “So hunt him down, but catch him and turn him in. Let him be the one who rots in jail!”
I think it over for a moment. She makes it sound so simple, but my mind wants one thing: Smith’s blood on my hands. “I don’t know if I can do that - not kill him.”
She drops her arms back to her sides. “I don’t know everything you’ve done, she’s kept that from me, but clearly, it’s a lot. And clearly, she thought you were a changed man. Don’t prove her wrong, Cole.”
Glancing away, I flex my jaw and curl my fingers into fists. On some level, I know she’s right, but another part of me wants to watch him die at my hands. He deserves it, hedeserves to feel his heartbeat stop. He deserves to know his time is limited on this earth, and he deserves to question where his spirit will go on his last breath.
“Cole . . .” she calls to me.
Jaw still flexed, I look back at her. “How do I find him?”
Sighing, she wipes a stray tear from her eye and says, “Have you tried his house?”
“I came straight here.” I shake my head. “But I know he won’t be there.”
For a moment, her eyes search the ground, and then she’s moving. I follow her back into her office where she sits down in an office chair and wheels it to her desk. She fires up her laptop, and her fingers fly across the screen.
“What are you doing?” I ask after a moment.
“Seeing if he has family where he can hide out.”
I shake my head again. “I killed his only family.”
She glances up at me, questions in her eyes, but she goes back to her computer when I don’t elaborate. “Then other properties he might own.”
“He owns a cabin in the woods,” I suggest. I remember him saying so to Tegan, inviting her there, in fact. “Ashley Forest.”
A few more button clicks and she grabs a piece of paper and starts scribbling on it. When she’s finished, she looks at me skeptically and reluctantly hands it over. “This is the cabin’s location.”
“Thanks,” I mutter as I take it.
Turning, I start to head out of the office when she calls at my back, making me halt for a moment. “Do the right thing, Cole. Be the man Tegan thought you were.”
My shoulders stiffen, but I don’t answer her. Instead, I head out of the shop.
Chapter 25
Cole Garner
Smoke is comingfrom the cabin’s chimney as I stride up to it through the trees, telling me that he - or someone - is definitely inside. I had parked down the road and trekked the rest of the way on foot, knowing that he’d hear the roar of my engine if I parked closer.
The cabin isn’t large, but it looks like a traditional cabin; made of wood, a large awning, a small back porch, and smaller-than-average windows. The trees are so close to the cabin that they practically embrace it.
