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“After all I’ve done for my employees, not to mention the town of Pike? Yeah, it makes me angry.” The man sent Kaden a defiant glare. “So sue me.”
Kaden held his smoldering gaze. “I intend to do more than that.”
Chapter 14
Burke waited until he heard his unwelcome visitors leave the building before pulling his phone out of his pocket and punching in a number. A second later, he heard the sound of a familiar voice, and he angrily shared his encounter with Lia Porter and Kaden Vaughn. He’d expected sympathy for what he’d endured. Or even fury that he was being harassed.
Instead, he was told to settle down and not overreact.
“Don’t tell me I’m overreacting,” he snapped. “That man knows something.” He scowled as the voice once again tried to calm him. “Bluffing? Kaden Vaughn knew the bitch was here. And he claims he has files he’s going to turn over to the FBI.” The urgent words floating through the speaker only intensified Burke’s fury. “I’m not panicking, I’m protecting my ass. This shit is getting out of hand.” He sucked in a harsh breath, trying to regain control of his shattered nerves. “Get rid of Vaughn and clean up this mess.”
He ended the connection and was about to toss the phone on his desk when a text popped up. What now? Skimming the message, he felt a stab of surprise. He sent back a text that was just as quickly answered. Well, well. It seemed he might have a way out of this shit show after all.
That was one disaster he could put on the back burner.
Unfortunately, he still had to get rid of the barrels of bio-hazardous sludge that were buried beneath the hay bales at the gun range. He was a man who knew the benefit of cutting corners when necessary, and it was damned expensive to have that stuff carted off by a legitimate treatment facility. He’d already had to spend a fortune to deal with his wastewater. It’d seemed a simple solution to use the empty land that surrounded his property to dump it.
The last thing he’d expected was for Vanna’s bones to be discovered....
Christ, if it wasn’t one thing, it was another.
* * *
Lia walked out of the building with Kaden, her thoughts still focused on their meeting with Ryan Burke. She wasn’t sure they’d learned anything that could reveal what had happened, but she was absolutely certain the older man had lied when he said he didn’t recognize Vanna Zimmerman’s name. There’d been a tightness in his features he couldn’t disguise. She also believed he suspected the skeleton belonged to Vanna. But there was still no answer to why Vanna had been in Pike in the middle of the night. Or why someone would want her dead.
The only thing they knew for certain was that he was furious with Barb Hurst. Perhaps furious enough to hurt her son.
She was climbing into the Jeep when she felt her phone buzz. Pulling it out of her purse, she glanced at the screen and swallowed a sigh.
“Shoot,” she muttered, shoving the phone back in her purse and pulling on the seat belt.
Kaden settled behind the wheel and fired up the engine. “Something wrong?”
“Wayne sent me a text to say he’s giving a friend a lift to the hospital and can’t work this afternoon. I need to go back to the store.”
Kaden pulled out of the parking lot and retraced their route to the main road. “Is his friend worse?”
She shook her head. If Drew had taken a downhill turn, Wayne would have told her.
“I’m guessing Sunny Erickson asked him to drive her over to Grange.” Lia hadn’t forgotten the girl’s determined expression when she was in the store that morning. “She mentioned wanting to visit Drew and looking for a ride. Wayne would drop everything to spend time with her.”
Kaden turned onto the outer road. “Cord and Wayne and Sunny. A lover’s triangle?”
Lia snorted. “The usual agony of teenage years. You either want what you can’t have or what you shouldn’t have.”
“Who was your crush?” Kaden asked as they slowly bumped their way over the snow-packed roads back into Pike.
“Chuck Moore. He was the reason I snuck out of my house fifteen years ago. And the reason I left the party in time to catch sight of Vanna jumping off the bridge.”
“Where is he now?”
“Married with four kids.”
“Do you regret that the two of you didn’t get together?”
“God no.” Lia tried and failed to imagine herself married to the man who’d once made her heart flutter. It wasn’t just that he’d packed on a hundred pounds and was in the process of losing his hair. Or even that he was still employed at the local gas station where he’d been working during high school. It was his habit of flirting with her whenever he came into the store. As if he was still a teenager and not a grown man with a wife and kids. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure he’s a great guy. Just not for me.”
A smile curved Kaden’s lips, as if he was pleased with her answer. They drove past the graveyard, and he turned onto the road that would lead to her store.
