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It was probably allMarin’sfault, too.
Sending Dusty to check that trolls hadn’t eaten that man. Insane.
Everything had gone mad.
24
Sean couldn't help himself.He was between a meeting with his superiors and a small vacation when he decided to swing back through Idaho and check on LaDonna and the girls. She had sent him an email, had said they had spoken to the girls.It hadn’t gone well.
And things were very tense now. Sean could understand that.
He fully believed that honesty was the best policy. And the safest. If the girls knew they had reason to be concerned for their own personal safety, then they'd be more on alert. That they had to destroy the girls' naiveté, that stung. Those girls deserved to have a pretty kind of life. More than anyone he knew. And it would have hurt them, all of them. Even though Dylan and Devaney were tougher, it still would have hurt them.
He wanted to check on them.
Sean just had just crossed the state border when he got another text. From Fred this time.
The man suspected he was being followed.
Sean cursed. Fred was paranoid, yes. But he wasn't a fool, by any means. If Fred Brown thought he was being followed, there was a high likelihood that he was. That meant things weren’t going to be as easy as Sean had hoped.
He’d wanted to give LaDonna back the life she had lost before. To see somegoodin this job for once. All he saw now was the bad. Far too much of it.
Sean was reevaluating his life, his values again.
Sean met him just outside the diner that Fred ate at almost every day. Fred was perversely drawn to diners—Fred swore he had always liked the heavy food. Sean personally preferred lighter fare. Something healthier. But Fred certainly looked fit for a man twenty-five years older than Sean. Sean joined him at the booth in the back. “What is going on?”
Fred pulled out his phone. “These two men were behind me all day yesterday. I saw them in here and at the office. And, damn it, Sutton, I'm almost certain that one there on the left is a cousin of Morris Preston's that I've met before. From Sublette County. And that one, the younger one, I think it’s Preston’s son by his mistress. I’m almost certain of it. He’s the one who did it. He cut my wife. I’ll never forget his weaselly little face.”
“You sure?” It had been nearly twenty-three years, after all. Morris Preston’s son by his mistress would have been seventeen or so then. Fred and LaDonna had given sworn statements that the Preston’s illegitimate son had been the one to kill his own mother that night. But nothing had ever come out of the investigation. The investigation had just stalled. Stopped.
No one could find out the reason behind that. Sean definitely couldn’t. He’d tried.
“As I have ever been. I am going to tell LaDonna and the girls tonight.”
And that meant he was ready to run again. To disrupt the girls' entire lives. “What about the girls' classes?”
Fred paid for any college class the girls took online. It was their compromise. He had refused to help with financial aid forms for the girls four years ago when Dylan had first enrolled. Sean had understood. He hadn't agreed, but he had understood. Fred had finally agreed the girls deserved educations.
They’d compromised, after Dylan threatened to just move out anyway. As long as they lived at home, Fred paid cash for their classes.
“I will discuss it with them tonight.” Fred had a stubborn look on his face. One Sean had seen before. “They may just have to drop out for a while. Or just finish them wherever we end up. It can’t be helped.”
“Dylan's almost ready to graduate.” She couldn’t just stop two-thirds of the way through the semester. The girl only had three or four weekslefton this semester. Then just one more semester and she’d be finished. Her father couldn’t seriously just expect her to give that up.
“She just has next semester, and she'll have her bachelor’s. She can enroll somewhere else in a year or so. Finish then.”
“I'm sorry, Fred, but I don't agree with that. Dylan has worked hard to accomplish what she has. Starting over somewhere else because this might be Preston's cousin is insane. If the credits even transferred. And what would it do to Dahlia?” LaDonna's third daughter struggled with massive changes. Learning a new system, giving up what she had been working on? No. She wouldn't adjust well. “I'll see if I can identify these men. They may just be coincidence. Just don't do anything rash in the meantime. The girls are adults now. You can't keep controlling everything in their lives. Ruthlessly ripping them away from everything they try to do this way. They are going to resent you even more. And you will lose them.”
But Frederick Arnold Brown never listened to anyone when his mind was made up.
Sean wasn't a fool. But he was almost fully convinced Fred Brown was.
And if any of Sean’s assignments could drive Sean to drink, it was Frederick Arnold Brown.
25
Jason was a cold son-of-a-bitch.Made Wayne’s skin crawl. The younger man had a dead look in his washed out blue eyes. No denying that.
