27. Wyatt

Chapter Twenty-Seven

WYATT

Sleep wasn’t coming any time soon, not when my mind kept circling back to Mason’s words at dinner.

Being a cop in Devil’s Garden was a losing game. For every person I helped, two more slipped through the cracks, and I carried that guilt like a permanent weight. Failing to protect Gage when his father had been released from prison had left scars I would never talk about, and arresting Ben for something I’d have done myself permanently reshaped how I approached my job. No matter how deep I dug, I’d never turned up evidence that Vanderhoff was dirty, and part of me hoped I never did. It would force me to question every arrest and every order I’d ever followed.

The thought chilled me.

I lay awake, staring at the ceiling until my lower back began to cramp. Gage’s lumpy mattress was doing a number on my spine. No matter how religiously I hit the gym, I wasn’t as young as I used to be. Gage could sleep on a pile of rocks, but me? Not so much. My joints cracked as I slipped out from beneath him.

I moved to the window and stared down at the overgrown garden. The place where Atticus had fallen to sin. I wondered why no one had ever bothered to clean it up. The tangled plants weren’t dead yet. With care, they could be beautiful.

Something was moving in the darkness. A figure glided across the ground like mist, separating from one of the broken statues and cutting toward the back of the house like a ghost. But I didn’t believe in ghosts.

My hand twitched toward my hip, instinctively reaching for my service weapon—only to remember I wasn’t carrying.

“Wyatt?” Gage croaked sleepily. “What’re you looking at?”

I glanced over my shoulder. He was sitting up in bed, his drowsy eyes heavy with curiosity. When I turned back to the window, the figure in the garden was gone.

“Who’s watching the house for Dominic?” I asked, scanning the shadows.

Gage stretched lazily, all rippling muscle, and said, “Marcel Landry. The bruiser waiting out in the hall earlier.”

I frowned. The figure I’d seen was smaller and faster—and real. Definitely real. I ran a hand through my hair, giving the garden one last look before heading to the door.

“Go back to sleep,” I grunted. “I’m doing a quick check around the house.”

Gage chuckled and rolled out of his bed, grabbing some pants and sliding them on with effortless ease. No cracking joints there.

“I’ll come with you,” he said, rubbing a hand down his face and shaking off sleep. “If Loretta catches you, she’ll turn you into a new ghost story.”

“I don’t need an escort,” I replied, raising an eyebrow.

Gage flashed a disarming smile and slapped me on the ass as he strode ahead. “I’ll follow you anywhere, Deputy,” he said with a laugh.

The upper floor was dead quiet, but the house felt strangely alive. Restless. Every step stirred up whispers of the past, creaking floorboards and the groans of old beams. Downstairs always smelled warm, like lemon polish and Loretta’s home cooking, but the scents were different up here. Older.

“We should’ve brought a flashlight,” I said, dragging my hand along the peeling wallpaper.

Gage was walking ahead, relaxed and confident and navigating with ease. “Just follow me. We used to play hide and seek up here in the dark. Well, three of us. Gideon and Dom thought they were too old for it.”

“I can’t imagine either of them playing a day in their life,” I muttered.

“You’d be surprised.” Moonlight spilled through the windows, catching the sharp angles of his cheekbones as he glanced back at me and laughed. “You’ve got that look.”

“What look?”

“The one that says you’re thinking too much. What’s spooking you? A ghost?”

“I don’t believe in ghosts,” I said flatly, ignoring the way the hair on the back of my neck prickled when he laughed.

Most of the upper-level rooms were locked, but I tried every handle until one finally opened. Stale air rolled out, carrying the papery scent of dust and mildew. The room was dark, lit only by the sliver of moonlight that managed to get through a grime-streaked window. Shadows clung to the corners, darker than they should have been. A cracked mirror leaned against the far wall, its warped surface reflecting twisted versions of our reflections.

Gage leaned against the wall, smirking at me in the mirror, and said, “Boo.”

“You’re an asshole,” I said, stifling a chuckle.

“Gotta keep it interesting,” he said, nudging me down the hall and reaching past me to shut the door. “I understand, though. Sleeping here for the first time messes with your head. I felt the same way.”

“You were ten,” I pointed out.

He shrugged, strolling ahead with his hands in his pockets. The rest of the doors stayed locked. The only sign of life was a flickering light spilling from beneath Gideon’s door at the end of the hall.

“Man doesn’t sleep much,” Gage said with a shrug. “Never has.”

The bottom floor was more of the same, dimly lit and eerily quiet. The rooms were spotless and the furniture was polished, but layers of dust clung to the heavy drapes and intricate moldings. The door to the children’s wing didn’t budge when I twisted the handle.

“Loretta locks it at night,” Gage said, brushing a hand over the worn frame. “It keeps the kids from exploring at night and scaring the hell out of themselves. I think it makes them feel safe, too. A little less exposed. So, you satisfied with your little look-see?”

“I want to check the grounds.”

He sighed like he’d seen it coming, but he didn’t argue. “Okay. Let’s take a walk.”

Outside, the air was warm and still with the scent of night-blooming flowers. The cicadas had fallen silent, and the only sound was our footsteps crunching over the broken stone path. The garden was built like a labyrinth, winding through a maze of vines that grabbed at our ankles. Moss-covered statues flanked the paths, and at the center of it all loomed a broken greenhouse.

“Man, I forgot how spooky this place gets at night,” Gage remarked, nudging a vine out of the way with his toe. “You really think someone was out here?”

“I know what I saw,” I replied, keeping my head on a swivel. The figure I’d spotted from the window had vanished like a puff of smoke, leaving no trace. No footprints or broken branches. The intense feeling of wrongness had lifted, but I couldn’t settle.

We passed a sagging trellis, heavy with ivy. Gage cursed as the vines caught at his pants, swatting them away. He wasn’t smiling anymore. “Maybe it was Atticus,” he said, more to himself than me.

“You don’t believe in ghosts,” I said, though he’d never said as much. I just knew. Gage had seen too much real horror to bother with fairytales.

“Not in so many words,” he said, crouching near an overgrown flower bed and brushing at a clump of crushed phlox. “But growing up here…I don’t know. It’s impossible not to believe a little. Too many strange things happen.”

“Like what?” I asked, keeping my voice low.

He stood, wiping his hands on his pants. “Noises with no source. Doors opening by themselves. Catching something out of the corner of your eye, but when you look, it’s gone. Things that are easy to explain away but never quite add up. Boone always acted like it was nothing, but you could tell he felt it too.”

“Jesus,” I muttered, rubbing at the prickling hairs on the back of my neck. “What a messed-up place to raise kids.”

“Nah.” His crooked smile tugged at my heart. “For kids like us, it was heaven.”

I curled an arm around his waist and tugged him close, kissing the side of his throat. “Well, if there are ghosts, they’re not big on leaving evidence. Let’s get you back to bed. I’ve got a few hours left before I roll out.”

“I know a shortcut. Follow me.” Gage grabbed my hand, pulling me down a path crowded with dying jasmine. The air was cooler here, dense with moisture, as if sunlight never reached this spot. His grip was firm as he led me around the skeletal remains of the greenhouse.

“Shortcut, huh?” I muttered, tripping on a loose paving stone.

Gage’s grin flickered like a candle in the dark. “Trust me. It’s quicker, if not prettier.”

I let him lead, his fingers laced with mine, but something about the quiet made my skin crawl. It wasn’t just the quiet—it was the sense that I’d missed something. I’d just opened my mouth to tell Gage to go on ahead when he stopped dead in front of me.

“Wyatt,” he said, tightening his grip on my hand. He was staring at something on the path.

“What is it?” I asked, dropping a hand to the small of his back and instantly moving to stand beside him.

He pointed at a patch of crushed vegetation. A faint imprint of boot tread marred the dirt—and it was fresh. Too fresh to be from that afternoon. My gut twisted as I crouched to examine it.

Whoever I’d seen wasn’t a ghost; that was for damn sure.