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Her lips parted at his blunt words, a visible shiver racing through her body. “Is there anything else here you want to see?”
“Not today.”
“Good. Let’s get back in the SUV.”
They hurried to the vehicle, climbing in and holding their hands toward the vents that were blasting warm air. Kaden sighed in relief. His years on the West Coast had thinned his blood. Or maybe he was just getting old. Whatever the case, he felt as if he was frozen to the bone.
Lia put the engine in gear and did a careful U-turn before heading back to town. They rode in silence until they were once again within the city limits of Pike.
“You can drop me off at the courthouse if you don’t mind,” he said.
She turned toward the center of town, driving past an old funeral home and then a cemetery before she was back on Main Street.
“Where are you staying?”
Lost in his thoughts, Kaden answered the question without thinking. “At my brother’s condo in Madison.”
“Oh, I thought you said . . .”
Kaden’s heart clenched with a familiar sense of loss as her words trailed away.
“I’ve been paying the rent since he died.”
She pulled into the parking lot next to the courthouse, sending him a sympathetic glance.
“I’m sure it’s hard to let go.”
Kaden grabbed the handle of the door, clenching it until his knuckles turned white.
“I keep telling myself I don’t have the time to box up his things and clear them out of the place, but you’re right. I’m not ready to admit to myself that he’s gone and never coming back.”
* * *
Drew patted the wad of cash in the pocket of his letterman jacket, allowing a sneer to twist his lips. Honestly, he hadn’t really expected to get a dime. He thought they’d look at the stuff in the rotting leather pouch and tell him they didn’t give a damn if he told people what he’d found. Or even threaten to call the sheriff for tampering with a body or something stupid. Still, he’d been willing to take a chance he could get something. The worst thing that could happen was having the door slammed in his face. Wouldn’t be the first time.
And now he was walking away with a nice payout that would cover the cost of the new game system his mom was too cheap to buy him. He might even have enough for a bag of weed. He’d be all set for Christmas vacation.
Oblivious to the chill in the air, Drew ambled past the red-brick church with the soaring steeple that had emptied of its congregation and cut through the graveled parking lot. Unlike most of his friends, he didn’t have a car or a truck. Not even a clunker like Cord. His mom could barely pay rent on their trailer with the shit wages she earned at the meatpacking plant. And his dad was a waste of human space. The creep hadn’t worked in years. ’Course that might have all changed now. He had five hundred dollars in his pocket. Who was to say he couldn’t turn that into five thousand? Maybe more?
If people paid once, they would pay again, right? And if they wouldn’t, he would track down Kaden Vaughn and see if he was in the market for some secret information. If he was doing a show for television, he should have a big budget he could share with an enterprising young man. Thankfully, he’d already turned eighteen, so he wouldn’t have to share anything with his parents. To hell with them.
Busy contemplating which badass truck he should buy to get out of this crap town, Drew didn’t bother to glance around when he heard a vehicle behind him. It would be one of the old farts headed home from lunch at the diner. The place was packed on Sundays. Or maybe it was the preacher, returning to the church to say an extra prayer or whatever they did when they weren’t on stage, lecturing people about the evil of their ways. As if they weren’t twice as evil in private.
It was probably a good thing he hadn’t turned around. He thankfully had no idea that death was barreling toward him. Not until the grill of the vehicle smashed into him with enough force to drive the breath from his lungs. He could hear the snap of his ribs and feel his inner organs being crushed, but oddly, there was no pain as he flew through the frozen air like a deflated football.
Dizzily, he wondered if he was in shock. He probably was. Not that he had to worry about it. Gravity was doing its thing, and as quickly as he was launched into the air, he was hurtling toward the ground. He squeezed his eyes shut, belatedly trying to move his arms. They refused to cooperate. Was something wrong with his spine? Had he been paralyzed? The horrifying fear was still forming when he smacked headfirst against the frozen ground.
A loud crack echoed through his brain, as if his head had been shattered like the shell of an egg.
His last thought was that his mom had been wrong all these years. Turned out his skull wasn’t as thick as a stump.
Chapter 5
The hospital in Grange was bustling despite the early hour and the threat of snow in the low, sullen clouds. Pulling her SUV into the visitors’ lot, Lia hurried toward the front entrance.
She wasn’t entirely sure why she was there. When Bailey called to tell her that Drew Hurst had been injured in an accident, she’d just been stepping out of the shower and was pulling on a pair of jeans and a bright yellow sweater. It was Monday morning and, as always, she had a dozen things on her to-do list. And honestly, she barely knew the boy.
But without thought, she grabbed her coat and headed for her vehicle.
