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"Was my brother. My brother told us you were coming. That's all!"
Rachel's silhouette cut against the sky, a dark figure with an aura of unsheathed wrath. The dust from the screeching halt still hung in the air, a gritty haze around them.
"Red ATV," she spat, words sharp as flint. "Security footage. Talk."
Wyatt's chest heaved, his hands fumbling behind him, bound and useless. His eyes, wide with the stark reality of his predicament, darted across her face, searching for a sliver of mercy.
"Wh.. what?"
"Your ATV. Last night."
"Mine? I... yes, I have an ATV." he said, the confession tearing from his lips. "But I wasn't using it last night!"
Her gaze didn't waver, eyes like two gun barrels aimed at his soul. She saw him—his fear, his desperation—and in the periphery, the sirens' wail crept closer.
"Please, no," he choked out, his voice trembling, barely rising above a whisper. "I didn't—I wouldn't—"
"Wouldn't what?" Rachel prodded, each syllable a hammer driving nails into his coffin of lies.
"I wasn't driving it last night," he gasped, his plea scattering on the wind.
She absorbed his panic, let it fill the space between them. Her mind raced. Every training, every ounce of intuition told her to dissect his words, to find the fissure in his story.
"Desperation smells like sweat and fear," Aunt had said once, a lifetime ago. Rachel could smell it now, emanating from Wyatt's pores, a scent more telling than any tale he spun.
"Then who?" Her question was a viper, poised to strike.
"Stolen," he blurted, a single tear carving a path through the dust on his cheek.
"Prove it." Her command was iron. Unbending.
"Can't..." His voice crumbled like dry earth underfoot.
"Try." It wasn't a suggestion. It was an ultimatum.
Rachel's thoughts churned. The pieces weren't fitting; something was amiss. Could Wyatt, with his raven hair and a scar etched by some forgotten sin, be capable of more than he let on?
"Please," he whispered, the word barely there, but vibrating with the raw edge of sincerity—or was it deception?
Rachel took a step back, her shadow merging with his.
"Start making sense, Wyatt." Her tone was steel wrapped in velvet, a promise of salvation or damnation, his choice.
His breath hitched, a ragged sound of a man hanging by a thread. "I'll try—I swear."
"Swearing doesn't make you honest," Rachel thought, wondering how much of her own life was built on oaths unkept.
"Stolen," Wyatt gasped out, his voice cracking under the strain of fear. His eyes, wide and pleading, locked onto Rachel’s. "The ATV was stolen, okay?"
Rachel's gaze didn't waver, her skepticism a palpable barrier between them. She'd seen men lie with less at stake—the truth had a way of getting buried deep beneath layers of self-preservation. But the canyon before them whispered the finality of consequence, and she knew the gravity of this moment could break even the sturdiest lies.
"Prove it." Her words were shards of ice, cutting through the stifling heat that rose from the earth.
"Look," Wyatt fumbled desperately for his phone, hands shaking. But then he seemed to remember his hands were bound. He cursed. "Check my phone. There's footage—from a camera I set up, after the first time things started going missing."
Wyatt's fingers continued to scramble at his pocket, a ballet of urgency. Rachel snatched the phone, her movements precise, calculated—every second counted.
The video played—a grainy image of Wyatt's yard, the ATV parked silently in the frame. Timestamps flickered in the corner as night fell. The movement—a figure, cloaked in shadows, approached the vehicle and mounted it with an unsettling familiarity.
