Chapter 77

Ash staredat the clusterfuck in front of him. “What the hell happened?”

“Damned if I know,” Zeke said.

“This isn’t good,” Rohan said.

Understatement of the year.

A gasp sounded beside him, and he swung around, putting his body between Kayla and the macabre scene splayed out in the middle of Sybil’s great room.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he said, clutching her to him. “I didn’t hear you approach.”

Upon entering the house, Kayla had peeled away to grab them some water and tend to her feet, while Ash joined his brothers in the family room. Zeke and Rohan had already cleared the house so he hadn’t worried about her running into a merc.

Her arm tightened around him for a long second, then she drew back, tears in her eyes, and offered him a glass of water. “I’m good.”

“What about you?”

“I drank my fill in the kitchen.”

“Why don’t you go back there and wait for us to sort through this mess? You don’t need this in your head.”

“And you do?”

“I have several degrees of separation.”

“I’m good,” she repeated in a stronger voice, but twin tears crested her lower lids.

Ash hesitated, unable to leash his protective instincts.

As if she understood his inner turmoil, Kayla cupped his cheek in her palm. “Thank you, but I need to see this through.”

Gritting his teeth, he lowered his hands. She swiped the tears away, then strode around him to stand before the two back-to-back chairs in the center of the room.

Sybil sat facing her, zip-tied to a wooden dining room chair. Behind her, Elsie sat in a posture mirroring her friend’s. Their necks were linked by a white silken sash. Pink sticky notes stuck to their foreheads. Trailing from beneath the paper, rivulets of congealed blood bisected their faces.

“For the one I couldn’t stop,” Zeke read out the note affixed to Sybil.

Kayla frowned. “I don’t understand.”

Ash drew up alongside her and pointed to Sybil’s lap. Her killer had freed her right hand and propped it palm up on her thigh. In the center stood a spent bullet and its casing.

“Governor Stokes,” Ash said.

Eye for an eye.

Rohan read the note on Elsie’s forehead. “Debt paid.”

“Sounds like we have a vigilante,” Zeke said. “Ideas?”

Ash nodded, but said nothing, letting Kayla work it out in her own time. It didn’t take long.

She squeezed her eyes shut as if enduring a terrible pain. Then she whispered, “Mason.”