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“It was implied.” I push up from the table and wade into the water to stretch my muscles, strengthen my core, and touch my woman.
* * *
“Dragon slayer? Livy? Will you excuse us?” Exton asks as he heads to the back door. He carries two fingers of whiskey. That’s a rarity for him. He’s a beer guy. Whiskey is for bad days, funerals, and serious talks.
He moves out the doors onto the deck and walks well past the pool to the Adirondack chairs overlooking the lake. They’re low and will be a bitch for me to get in and out of. It wasn’t achievable a month ago. Tonight, it’s an inconvenience, not an impossibility.
I’ll take the small win for what it is—a win, and when it comes time to get up, I’ll accept awkward in lieu of unattainable.
He sits and faces out over the placid lake. Last year’s drought took the water level down a considerable amount, so the lapping at the shore is faint and soft.
“Florida was interesting,” he begins, as if in the middle of a story. His tone is quiet and regulated. He’s in no rush. “I saw George.”
“He mentioned he saw you.”
“Yeah?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Did he say anything else?” He turns his head to me, holding my gaze in profile as twilight marches across the sky.
“Just some business stuff.”
“Agent stuff or friend stuff?”
“Both.” I turn to face him and hold his eyes. “Why do you ask?”
He takes a deep pull of his whiskey, the ice clinking in the tumbler as he does. He extends the glass, but in a gesture, not an offer. “I’d offer you some, but that’s a bad idea.”
I say nothing. I’m the bait in this trap. I’m being set up. I just don’t know how. Or why.
“Want to know why?” he asks. His voice is matter-of-fact and conversational, not taunting me.
“I’ll bite. Why’s that?”
He takes another sip and casts his gaze into the distance. “Alcohol and oxy can cause respiratory depression, the inability to breathe, and heart failure.”
My blood runs like ice in my veins. And if my muscles weren’t frozen, I still couldn’t get out of this chair.
“And I just got my brother back. My son is about to enter the world and could never know my baby brother just with this alone.” He shakes the ice in the glass. “Imagine my worry when I discovered that. Imagine what it’s like to keep that secret from Pop or my wife. Or, to a lesser degree, from Brax and Bright. Imagine surviving nearly losing one of your own—one of youronly—only to learn they’re slowly killing themselves. What should I have done? What should I do?”
I say nothing. I don’t feel played or ridiculed. It’s like he’s really asking me what to do.
“I want to be mad. But honestly, Layton, I’m scared more than anything.” He turns to look at me, his grief etched into his face. “Losing Mom brought Willa to me. It was such a hard time. That extreme low combined with the high of falling in love. Willa told me she was pregnant, and within weeks, I thought I’d lost you. I need this cycle unbound. I can’t bear a world where I hold my son in my arms only to watch you fade.”
The knot in my throat prevents me from saying anything, and I wish I had his ice just for a distraction.
“That was George’s address on the packages.”
I start to interrupt, but he holds up a hand and levels me with his next statement. “I saw them. I know about them. It was his return address, but he didn’t send them.”
“Then who did?”
“Each box was sent from a pack-and-ship place down the street from his office. The same man dropped them off on schedule. I saw the video evidence since it was within sixty days, and they hadn’t erased the footage. You want the fucked-up part or the really fucked-up part?”
“Hit me,” I say to the wind and the water, wondering where this is going.
“The dude who made the shipments is dead. He’s the one you asked me to research. He was a druggie.”
