Chapter 16

SIXTEEN

CASSIE LAUNCHED HERSELF out of the chair she’d been sitting in, and she didn’t stop moving until she was in Donovan’s arms. He wrapped her in his embrace and pulled her tight against him. His lips brushed her temple, he took a shuddering breath, and then his big body shook around her.

She sensed more than saw the room empty around them as her cousins gave them privacy, and for several moments, the room was completely silent. She held him and he held her and it was impossible to know who was holding on tighter.

Eventually he released her, only to cradle her face in his hands and use his thumbs to brush away her tears. Cassie placed her hands over his wrists and leaned into him. “We need to get something out of the way right now.”

He tensed.

“I’m never letting you go.”

A faint smile flirted with his mouth and his thumb brushed across her lips. “Good.” The word came out deep and certain. “Then you won’t mind when I tag along wherever you go.” He swallowed hard. “Because you’re never getting rid of me.”

“Good.”

He brushed her nose with his, then placed the softest of kisses on the corner of her mouth. When she chased his lips with hers, the laughter that rumbled in his chest sent a shiver through her. “Later, baby.” He tucked her hair behind her ear. “Your family needs to see you alive and well, and while I have a lot of questions, we need to get you checked out by a doctor.”

If they tried to make her go to the hospital in Asheville, she was going to refuse. “I want Aunt Carol.”

“She’s on her way here.” Cal’s voice came from the doorway. When she turned to face him, she kept her body aligned with Donovan’s, and he didn’t release her. Cal quirked an eyebrow and huffed out a breath that spoke volumes.

“Don’t go big brother on me, Cal.” She didn’t want to fight with him. He and Mo were her favorite cousins. But she would do what she had to. She wasn’t going to tolerate them hassling Donovan.

“Sweet girl, I’ll go big brother on you every day and twice on Sunday.” Before Cassie could protest, Cal pointed at Donovan. “’Bout time you got this sorted. Hurt her again and we won’t be forgiving.”

“Hey! I’m standing right here!” Cassie would have said more, but Donovan squeezed her close, and when she looked up, he gave her a wink before focusing on Cal.

“There’s no need to worry. I learn from my mistakes. I don’t repeat them.”

“Glad to hear it.”

Cassie buried her face in Donovan’s chest. “Make him go away.”

Not only did Cal not go away, but the next few hours were a blur. Her parents arrived and there was more crying. Then Aunt Carol, who was technically her great-aunt, Cal’s mom, and the town doctor, came to examine her and take so much blood that Cassie asked her if she had a secret life as a vampire.

When they got to the police station later, she settled in on the cozy couch in Gray’s office while Gray and Donovan asked her questions for what felt like forever. Nothing they asked helped narrow down the search for Steven’s accomplice. Nothing made any sense. And then Donovan handed her an iPad. “Bronwyn sent me a file with the photos of everyone on staff at The Haven.”

“I’m not sure if this will help.” Cassie studied each photo. She’d only been on staff for a month, and her interaction with employees had been extremely limited. “I haven’t met most of the people who work at The Haven. I haven’t even met all of the front of house staff at Hideaway.”

“How is that possible?” Gray asked. “Are there seasonal workers or...”

“No. Well, I mean, maybe there are some students who are only there during the summers. But The Haven doesn’t have an offseason so it’s not like anyone is getting laid off in the winter.” She pointed to the screen. “This girl. I’ve seen her. But I can’t tell you where. Maybe she’s a server. Maybe she’s a housekeeper.”

She scrolled through more photos and tried to concentrate. Even with nearly twelve hours of drug-induced sleep, her head still pounded and she needed more rest.

Her hand hovered over the screen, and she stared at the photo that filled the space. “This is Wyatt Patterson. I know him.” She shuddered at the thought of how and why his voice had been so familiar. How could he be here? “This is the man who was with Steven. He’s the one who’s been trying to get rid of me. What does he do at The Haven?”

Gray placed a call to Bronwyn. The answer was unexpected and unwelcome. “Bronwyn says he’s been a server at Hideaway for six months. His file says he has a good rapport with the guests and with his coworkers.”

“I bet he does.” Cassie had to force herself not to throw the iPad across the room.

“Why do you say that?” Donovan took the iPad from her.

“Because he’s a drug dealer. He’s the one who was supplying Chef Albert in Atlanta.”

Gray was typing away on his computer before she finished speaking. “Then why isn’t he in jail?”

“They couldn’t get proof that would stand up in court. But in the restaurant, it was an open secret. Lots of the staff got their cocaine from him. Can I see the photo again?”

Donovan returned the iPad, but not before he studied the photo for a while. “Something about this is off.”

Gray gave Donovan a shrewd look. “Even if Cassie hadn’t seen him before, you should have. You interviewed everyone, didn’t you?”

Donovan grabbed his laptop. “I did. But I don’t recall seeing this man.” His voice trailed off, and Cassie and Gray shared a look but didn’t interrupt. Then Donovan turned his computer around and a new photo appeared. “This is who I saw.”

Cassie stared in shock. “Oh! I have seen him. I didn’t recognize him. But that’s him with longer hair. He didn’t have the mustache in Atlanta. Or the glasses.”

She tried to find a memory of Wyatt in the events of the previous evening, but they were gone. But his voice wasn’t gone. And what she’d heard later wasn’t gone.

“I don’t know how he did it, but he’s the one who drugged me.”

Donovan sat on the sofa beside her. “I know he is. This is the guy who refilled your lemonade last night.”

IT HAD NEARLY KILLED Donovan to let Cassie out of his sight, but he had a job to do. And she was safe with family.

His phone dinged.

Please be careful.

He texted back.

I will.

A photo came through, and Donovan couldn’t help but chuckle at the sight of Cassie’s grandfather and great-grandfather, sitting on the porch of her parents’ home, shotguns across their knees.

He showed the photo to Gray, who gave him a pointed look. “You sure you want to marry into that family?”

Donovan grinned. “If she’ll have me? You’d better believe it.”

Five minutes later, there was no smiling and no thought of proposals or gun-toting octogenarians. The house where he stood was small, the wood siding was rotten in places, and what landscaping there might have been at one time was overgrown. He stepped onto the porch with caution. It wouldn’t have surprised him if his feet had slid right through the boards.

When he knocked on the door to Wyatt Patterson’s home, he was prepared for anything.

But there was no answer.

He knocked again.

Still no answer.

Gray communicated with the officers behind the house. There was no movement. But there was a window with no curtain or blind over the kitchen sink. Donovan waited in tense silence as Brick approached the back of the home.

“We’ve got a body.”

They breached the house from every entrance and found Wyatt Patterson slumped over his kitchen table. Cocaine and other drug paraphernalia lay everywhere. Donovan reached toward the man.

“He’s still warm.” He searched for a pulse. Nothing. No. Wait. He shifted his hand. “Get the paramedics in here. I’ve got a pulse.”

236 THERE WAS NO HONOR among thieves, and when Wyatt Patterson regained consciousness, he rolled over on Steven Pierce faster than the district attorney could say plea bargain.

After he’d been implicated in the hostage situation that Cassie had been involved in, Wyatt decided Atlanta was too hot for him. A music producer had shared all about the drug action he’d been surprised to discover while at a secret resort in the mountains of North Carolina.

Wyatt claimed that he’d planned to go straight and work at The Haven, but no one believed that part of the story. Especially since he’d managed to not only find the local drug dealers but also use his position at Hideaway to provide drugs to the guests at The Haven who were interested in purchasing everything from meth to crack.

He also sold cocaine to none other than Steven Pierce. And he had proof by way of some video he’d recorded. He explained that when he saw Cassie for the first time, he expected her to recognize him immediately and he knew he would lose his job. He ran into Steven and told him that he had to quit.

He claimed that it was Steven who suggested that Wyatt should get Cassie to quit, and that Steven volunteered to help. Wyatt didn’t think Steven needed him to be there just so he could get his drugs a little easier, so he questioned him about why he was doing this. Steven explained about the enmity between the Quinns and the Pierces and said that Wyatt would be doing the whole family a favor.

Wyatt started small. He began a process that he hoped would convince Cassie to leave. He admitted to taking her knife, but he claimed he’d wiped it clean and left it on a table at The Dry Gulch the day before the stabbing there. He insisted that his ideas were more about intimidation and fear, and that it had been Steven who had given him access to Cassie’s kitchen and suggested both the deer in the road and the kidnapping.

Given that Cassie had overheard Wyatt confess to drugging her and had heard Steven Pierce say that he thought kidnapping Cassie had been a terrible idea, it threw his entire testimony into question.

It might have ended there, but Wyatt was a paranoid guy—not surprising, given his occupation—and had hidden security cameras in his home. While the evidence against Steven Pierce in the kidnapping of Cassie Quinn was virtually nonexistent, there was unmistakable video evidence that Steven had attempted to kill Wyatt. The cocaine he’d used before he passed out at his table had been provided by Pierce and had been heavily laced with fentanyl. The doctors speculated that if they’d been even an hour or two later in finding Wyatt, it would have been too late to save him.

To firm up the case further, Mo was asked to take a look at The Haven’s security log-in system. Donovan had no idea how it all worked, but Mo found a back door in the code that had given Steven a way to hide an hour’s worth of keycard access information. The missing hour coincided with Wyatt’s destruction of Cassie’s kitchen.

Two days later, Donovan took extreme pleasure in placing Steven Pierce under arrest.