“I didn’t want to be found! I didn’t want them to find me, and I knew you’d be searching. So, I begged and pleaded and made out like I was hiding. I came clean when I’d recovered. Pissed Doc and Mama off, but they understood. I didn’t want it on the local news either. Some kid found badly beaten up, almost dead in the hospital. What if they’d seen it?”
“What about them? The men who did this to you?”
Cody shrugged. “They’re no longer around.”
What? How did Cody know that? Had he told the police what had happened to him? “And how do you know?”
Chapter Eleven
Cody
Cody narrowed his eyes. “You don’t need to know that.” He wasn’t about to implicate himself and others in a crime. Not even to TJ. What had happened was in the past where it should stay.
TJ moved closer, staring into Cody’s eyes. “How do you know?”
Knowing TJ the way Cody did, he decided to tell him something. “I went back,” Cody murmured. “Found the barn and returned. They had some other poor kid strung up like they had me. Only I was too late, and he had already died. Murdered.”
Cody would never erase those images from his mind, and he didn’t want to. He still saw the body swinging gently, the men laughing, throwing objects at his body. Emaciated like Cody had been, his pale skin littered with cuts and bruises and blood. This boy had suffered, and Cody had been too late to help him.
He’d waited until they’d passed out and retrieved the body, held the boy in his arms. Younger than he’d been. Cody hadn’teven been certain the boy had been legal. More than likely another runaway as he had been.
Outside, he’d placed the boy in Jeremiah’s truck, Jed’s eldest, seen the shock and sadness on Jer’s face as he’d placed a blanket over the body. Taken the gas canister when Jer had handed it to him. “You need to go. You can’t be here.”
Jer had stared at him, then at the barn. “I’ll wait down the road.” He’d driven off, leaving Cody alone, and Cody had done what was needed.
“They won’t be hurting anyone again.”
TJ sucked in a breath and Cody waited for him to figure it out. TJ wasn’t stupid. He’d work his way through and know. “You could have walked away.”
“I did.”
“Before or after?”
And that was where Cody stopped. “I’m hungry. Want something to eat?”
TJ shot over to Cody and grabbed his arm. “Before or after?”
Cody shrugged him off, stared blankly at him. “It’s over now.” Smiling, Cody pulled the fridge door open. “I was thinking bacon.”
“You should have walked away. You should have called the police, and what happened to the body? Where is it?”
“He’s buried in his family plot by his family.”
“They know what happened to him?”
“They know what they needed to.” Cody slapped the packet of bacon on the counter. “That’s all they needed to know.” TJ spun Cody back around and Cody stepped back, creating space between them. He’d never seen TJ as angry as he was then, but he wasn’t afraid of him. “Stop looking at this as a sheriff.”
“I am a sheriff!” Anger clouded his features. “There is no other way for me to look at this. You, Cody, someone I thought I knew, killed those men instead of calling the police.”
“I never said I did. I said they won’t be hurting anyone again. I never said they were dead.”
“Don’t play those games with me,” TJ snapped. “I can read between the lines just fine, and I know exactly what you mean. How? Come on. Tell me how you did it! How did you cover up how the boy died? Was it the doc who helped? Fuck.” TJ ran his fingers through his hair. “This is a mess.”
“Stop.” Cody spoke the word quietly, but it was enough to cause TJ to look at him. “I did what had to be done. Let the rest of it go.”
“How can I? You’ve implicated yourself in murder!”
“Let me make this clear, TJ.” Cody stepped into TJ’s space, staring down at him. “It is over. They are gone and will never hurt another boy again. Do you know how many boys had gone missing in the local area? Nine. Those nine wouldn’t have been the only victims. I was a runaway. How many others do you think were lured to their deaths? What’s done is done. Let. It. Go.”
