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“No offense, Hunter, but I’m glad you didn’t.”
Hunter gave him half a smile, but it was grim. “Because otherwise I’d have shot you in the face when I came here to kill you all?”
Michael didn’t smile back. “No, because that sounds a whole lot like turning off your conscience. Who gets to decide right and wrong? You?”
“It’s not turning off your conscience.”
“Why not?”
“It’s just not.” Hunter made a frustrated sound and glared out the window again. “You don’t understand.”
“I’m not judging you.” Michael paused. “You’re talking about life and death here, Hunter. One of those, you can’t undo.”
As if he hadn’t been thinking of his father and uncle all day. Hunter didn’t say anything.
All of a sudden, he wanted to get out of the truck at the next stop light.
Especially when Michael said, “What happened with your grandfather?”
They were on the 50-mph stretch of Ritchie Highway, so Hunter just shrugged and said, “It was a misunderstanding.”
“About what?”
Hunter hesitated. The worst part was that he was embarrassed to say what had happened. “Vickers called the house and told him what had happened with Calla.”
Michael let that sit out there for a long moment. “And?”
“And he believed her.”
Another long pause. “You’re going to have to throw me a bone here, Hunter, because I don’t know what that means.”
Hunter swung his head around. “He believed her, okay? So did my mom.” His voice was shaky with fury, and he couldn’t stop it. “So they packed up my stuff, and they told me to get out, and when I tried to explain that it was a misunderstanding, he—he just—”
he felt . . . something brush his senses. His head snapped up.
Just as Casper growled from the grass nearby.
Wind came off the water to blow across the lawn, toward the road. The air carried no power, no direction. No help there. The sun had dropped behind distant trees and houses, leaving long shadows tracing across the grounds. Michael had a hand against the dirt, his eyes trained on the clusters of trees now.
Hunter thought of Calla again and wondered if she’d been following him, whether she’d choose this house to set on fire, just to screw with him.
But she would have had to follow him all day, right?
Casper growled again.
There! Movement. Definitely someone in the trees.
Hunter didn’t realize he’d started forward until Michael grabbed his arm. “Wait,” he said.
Hunter waited.
“Grab your dog,” said Michael.
He didn’t have to grab him, but Hunter issued the command for Casper to stay, wondering if the dog also had trouble hearing over a suddenly thundering heartbeat.
No further motion from the tree line.
Michael stood and brushed his hands against his knees. “Come on. I’ll finish in the morning. I’ll tell them I lost the light.”
