Chapter Thirty-one: If It Ain’t You

Gia

IF IT AIN’T YOU

Performed by Smithfield

Maddox’s Bronco fishtailed as he turnedthe corner after the covered bridge. Addy was in Ryder’s lap, and he pulled her tighter to his chest. Brandon swore, and Eva and McKenna looked white-faced and terrified, smooshed next to them in the back seat.

I was in the front passenger seat with my gun aimed out the window. My throat throbbed. The force I was required to use to talk was painful as I asked, “Where are we going?”

“Phil’s place is empty,” Brandon suggested from the back seat. “Go there until you can make a better plan.”

Ryder’s dad had kept his cool in a way I hadn’t quite expected. It was one thing to stay calm on the ranch when you were dealing with animals and nature, but to stay so calm when bullets were firing was something altogether different.

I hated that I’d brought this to them.

If I’d taken Addy somewhere else, to a safe house covered with a dozen agents, none of them would be in danger.

But then again, if Leland was involved, maybe Addy would have been taken days ago.

I bit my cheek as more tears threatened. I trusted Leland more than I trusted Enrique, didn’t I? It was Enrique who’d offered my boss up as being on Laredo’s side when we’d been at Ryder’s. Still, it was clear Jaime Laredo had been protected by someone with access to the task force. That someone was still unclear. But I wouldn’t rest until I uncovered them and saw them punished. Until I brought them all down.

“I’m not calling my guys,” Maddox said with a glance over at me. “Whoever has been watching and listening will know if I do. Once I get to a secure line, I’ll call over to Dale Scully and have him bring his men over. If we can keep Phil’s house dark, make it look like it’s still empty, it should buy us a few hours.”

I looked down at my phone. Was it being tracked? Did I trust the people on the other end?

I trusted Rory. One-hundred-percent. I’d seen what the Lovatos had done to her mother. I’d seen how she’d reacted to that, chasing them down with her gun blazing. Right now, my only way of staying in touch with her was my phone. I’d get a burner tomorrow.

But tomorrow might be too late.

“Dad,” Maddox said. “I’m going to drop you, McK, and Mama off at McFlannigan’s with Sadie. Don’t go to the ranch tonight. Go to my house. You know the code to my gun safe. You’ll find two more handguns in there. I’ll be home as soon as Scully’s men show up at Phil’s.”

We pulled up behind the bar, and Ryder’s family got out. His mama turned back, eyes meeting mine. “I expect you’ll protect my son and granddaughter.”

God, I’d failed so many times already. So many damn times.

“Yes, ma’am.”

She looked into the back seat, where Addy’s face was buried in Ryder’s chest, and her eyes softened. “Addy-girl,” she said softly.

Addy peeked out.

“I know you’re a bit scared right now. I think we all are, and that’s okay. But you have some of the bravest, smartest people I know looking out for you. When this is all over, I’ll teach you how to make my brown-sugar molasses cookies that I swore I wouldn’t teach a soul. You’ll be the only one to know. How does that sound?”

Addy’s lips ticked upward ever so slightly.

“Love you, Son,” Brandon said, his gaze landing on Ryder. “I need to hear from you regularly, otherwise your mama will worry.”

They all would. They’d worry until Ryder and Addy were in their arms again.

Whereas my family had no clue I’d even danced with death tonight.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, but I knew one thing was certain—the Hatleys would get their family back whole and unharmed.

The old Bronco’s doors slammed shut, and quiet took over as Maddox put the vehicle in drive. He headed down several blocks to a two-story, rectangular colonial with plain white shiplap siding and a covered front porch. The front yard was small and well-maintained with grass and magnolia trees. Simple and clean but with no flowers or feminine touches.

Maddox pulled around back to the detached garage near the back door. “I’ll let you out here. I’m going to run to the station, pick up a few burner phones, and then I’ll come back on foot so my vehicle isn’t found here.”

Ryder climbed out, bringing Addy and her purple backpack with him as I got out of the front seat. “Got the key?” Ryder asked his brother.

“Same place as it’s always been,” Maddox responded with a head tilt toward the steps.

Maddox drove off, and while Ryder pulled a hide-a-key from under the back steps, I scanned the quiet street. Dusk was falling. A dog barked somewhere a street over. But other than that, there was no movement.

Ryder opened the screen, unlocked the door, and held it open for Addy and me to slide inside.

In the fading twilight, the kitchen we stepped into looked like a 1950s throwback. Black-and-white checkered floor, rounded appliances in shades of mustard, white Formica counters, and straight-faced, white cabinets.

It smelled of stale cigarettes and beer.

“Uncle Phil wasn’t much of a homemaker. After Granny McFlannigan passed, he had someone come clean once a month or so, but it definitely became a bachelor pad.”

We moved farther into the house, using the light on my phone rather than turning on any lamps. We passed through a dining room cluttered with storage boxes that would have been considered fancy a lifetime ago but now looked tired. Through another arch, we entered a living room that had two antique couches with carved backs covered in crocheted quilts. A leather recliner that appeared to be one of only two things from this century in the room faced an enormous television hanging from the flowered wallpaper over a marble-pillared fireplace.

The house felt…worn-out and lonely.

Maybe that had been Phil as well.

Ryder led us up a staircase with a threadbare runner that must have once been plush, even opulent. The hallway had closed doors on both sides leading down to an arched window at the end. “Bathroom here.” He pointed to the door to the left of the landing before opening the one to the right. “Guest room.”

“I don’t want anyone here,” I told him, meeting his eyes. “Too close to the stairs.”

He moved to the next room. “This is Phil’s. Been his for as long as I could remember.” It smelled even stronger of cigarettes. Musty and tired. The brass bed was covered with a handmade popcorn quilt that must have once been a bright blue. The walls were covered in framed pictures of Phil with some of the town’s celebrities—football players and musicians.

Ryder’s throat bobbed. “Let’s just leave it alone for now.”

He moved farther down the hall. “This was where Maddox and I stayed sometimes when we were little and Granny Mc was alive.” The bunkbeds took up the majority of the room with a small, antique writing desk as the only other piece of furniture. Ryder pointed to a small door that I suspected was a closet. “Leads to the attic.”

It would be a good place for Addy to hide. I gave him a small nod, and he bent down to look into her face. “You think you might want to stay in this room? Maddox and I used to argue over the top bunk, but it’s all yours.”

Addy nodded but didn’t let go of his hand. He dropped her purple backpack by the beds and then walked out into the hall where he pointed out two more rooms. “Mom’s old room and Granny’s.”

A door downstairs creaked open, and I whirled around, gun in hand, heart pounding until I heard Maddox’s voice softly announcing his presence. We made our way downstairs to the kitchen where Maddox had placed two burner phones on the table and was opening the plastic around a third.

While Ryder tried to distract Addy by scavenging for food in Phil’s pantry and then heating canned soup on the stove, Maddox called his sheriff pal and arranged for protection, and Rory and I exchanged new burner phone information. I took out my old SIM card, dug around in the drawers until I came up with a hammer, and smashed the card apart.

“You have your phone?” I asked Ryder, hating the sound of my destroyed voice and the pain that was slowing me down when I needed to be at my best.

He shook his head. “No. I left it in my truck.”

He placed bowls on the Formica kitchen table and waved at me. I didn’t feel like eating. My throat was throbbing, and my entire body was achy from the hits I’d leveled as well as received, but I also needed the energy to get me through the next few hours. So, I did my best to swallow some of the broth as it was nearly impossible to get down anything more than the liquid.

As if reading my mind, Ryder grabbed a bag of frozen peas from Phil’s freezer and set it on my neck. It stung and numbed at the same time. He ducked out of the room before coming back with a bottle of ibuprofen.

“Phil was renowned for his hangovers. I figured he’d have some kind of pain meds.”

Addy was almost silent throughout the entirety of dinner. Her face had returned to the blank wall she’d just started to leave behind, and I hated that even more than my messed-up body. The full sentences we’d been getting from her were gone. She was back to single words, nods, and shrugs.

Six of Scully’s men showed up. As Maddox and I got up, intending to step outside to make a plan with them, Addy jumped out of her chair and ran at me full force, hugging my legs much like Mila did with her family.

“Don’t go!” Addy cried.

My eyes met Ryder’s over the top of her head. Pain. Regrets. Love.

I bent down and brushed a kiss along her forehead. “I’m not leaving, Addy. I promise I’m not leaving.” But my already torn throat clogged because eventually I would leave, and it would hurt worse than anything my body was feeling. But it wouldn’t be until they were safe. “Just going to talk to your uncle Maddox and those officers. I’ll be right back.”

“Mama said she wouldn’t leave.”

“Wh-what?” I stuttered out my question.

“She said she wouldn’t. But she did. She closed her eyes and left.”

Tears rushed over her lashes, and I bent to brush at them, swiping them away, unsure what to say or do. Ryder joined us, picking Addy up and holding her tight to his chest. “I’m so sorry that happened to you, sweetheart. So sorry. But I’m here. Gia’s here. You have all those men standing out there determined that nothing like what happened to your mama happens to you or us.”

He nodded his head toward the door, letting me know it was okay to step outside, and I did, but my heart was still in my throat as I listened to Maddox discuss the arrangement with the officers. Four around the house, one on a back street behind the house, and one parked out front. They’d rotate off with another set of officers in the morning if Maddox and Scully hadn’t found a safe house to move us to by then.

If Laredo suspected we knew about him, he’d either be running or he’d be hunting, and my money was on hunting. He’d taken a huge risk in trying to grab Addy from a house already being watched. He wouldn’t stop now. He’d keep coming.

What I needed to do was lead him away from Addy and Ryder. I just hadn’t figured out what that looked like yet. I needed to talk to Rory.

After Scully’s team was in place, Maddox headed out for his home and the rest of the Hatley family, and I went back inside to find Addy and Ryder playing cards by the light of his new burner phone. I wanted to join them, just like we’d been doing for the last few nights where I’d teamed up with Addy to make Ryder lose. She’d laughed and smiled and even wiggled her butt in victory a couple times.

Instead, I headed upstairs to check the bedrooms again and talk to Rory.

I made my way into the room Ryder had said was his grandmother’s. It had a large, hand-carved oak bed with fairies dancing along the footboard and headboard. The creatures were so lifelike that I almost expected them to burst into song. The bed was piled with light-blue linens that looked brand new—a modern, geometric pattern that seemed to clash with the fairies.

I dialed the new number Rory had given me earlier. It was an encrypted burner line she was piggybacking around the globe, but I suspected we’d still need to keep the calls as brief as possible. Whoever was giving Laredo information from the task force had the same skills and connections we did. They’d find us eventually.

“I’ll only turn the burner on when I need it, so you won’t be able to reach me the standard way. You remember the dark website I gave you for dropping coded messages in emergencies?” I asked.

“Yep. Already got it recoded for us.”

I inhaled a shaky breath and asked, “Have you heard from Enrique?”

“He contacted me a few minutes after you left Ryder’s. He exchanged a few rounds with the shooter but never caught up to him. Enrique said he found blood on the road, so he believes he winged the man.”

“If we have blood, we can run him.”

“Might not be in the system. And even if he was, Natalia could have wiped him from existence like she did herself.”

“Has Leland asked for an update?” I asked.

“He knows about the attack at Hatley’s and that you’ve gone dark. I didn’t tell him what we found out about Anna being Natalia, but I also wasn’t hiding my work from the task force before now, so he might see it anyway. They all might.”

“I’m not sold that Leland is dirty,” I told her.

“I’m not either. I’ll dig around carefully on this end and see what I uncover. If I find anything, I’ll use the dark site to get you a message.”

“Can you do me a favor and dig into Enrique also?”

Rory was silent for a moment. “No way, G. His brother was slaughtered by the Lovatos.”

“Not all siblings love each other, Rory. Maybe we’ve got an evil-twin/good-twin thing going on here.” When she didn’t say anything, I pushed, my voice getting hoarser with each word. “Someone has purposefully kept us off Laredo’s trail. Whenever we came even slightly close, we were thrown off to other clues. It had to have been on purpose. And Enrique’s been embedded in the gang in Lexington.”

“I hate this.”

“Me too.” I swallowed hard. “We need those encrypted files from the Switch.”

“Now that I know her real name, I’ll add that into the programming mix and see if we can find a new combination. Have you asked Addy if her mother ever went by a different name?”

“I haven’t, but I can. The letter seemed directed at Ryder though.”

“I agree, but what we have now isn’t working.”

The dresser had an antique glass mirror that warped my reflection in the hazy phone light, and I had to do a double-take on the image. My hair was wild, my eyes deeply shadowed, and purple welts were starting to form on my neck. Who was this person staring back at me? I wasn’t even sure I knew her anymore. She seemed out of control when I prided myself on having it. She was wanting things I’d never wanted and making mistakes, letting people sneak in under her defenses. I wasn’t sure I could trust her.

My gaze fell to the dozens of picture frames scattered along the dresser’s surface. Old family photos. Some were taken at the bar and some in downtown Willow Creek when the road was still dirt. My eyes settled on a picture that seemed to be in a position of prominence in the center spot. It was of a couple in thirties-style evening wear with the Hollywood sign in the background, as if they’d just stepped off the red carpet.

My mind whirled. “The gala is tomorrow at Laredo’s.”

“You can’t be thinking of going.”

“He’s just going to keep hunting until he gets her. I need to stop him somehow. I need proof that he’s behind this.”

“After what went down today, he’s not going to just let you walk in, and if he does it could be a trap.”

“As far as Laredo knows, we haven’t figured out he’s involved. Right? His mole is protecting him. We hardly had time to question the guy today before he was killed. We don’t even know his name yet, so if Ryder hadn’t recognized him as being one of Laredo’s men, we wouldn’t have known.”

“Those are all huge assumptions, G. If he has figured it out, you’ll be in danger the moment you show up.”

We were quiet, our minds whirling with thoughts. “Let’s use the mole to our advantage. Drop some facts that make it look like we’re still clueless.”

“I don’t like this.”

I didn’t either, but if we didn’t make a move to stop this, Laredo would be the one to come hunting. I needed to do this. I needed to go, get Laredo’s attention, and have him whisk me away from the party into the private parts of the ranch. I’d find a way to distract him, have him go get me something, or if worse came to worse, I’d use my gun and tie him up while I investigated. “If he’s got the box she created, it ties him to all of this. And we can’t risk him finishing the code without her. Just think what he’d do if he completed it.”

“At the moment, it’s only you, me, and Enrique who know about Laredo and Natalia,” Rory said. “If Laredo finds out, we know Enrique is involved. I can craft two or three different scenarios, all with false leads that the Lovatos would want. I’ll give them to different people around here, including Leland. If Laredo ends up with any of those facts, we’ll be able to trace it back to the person who gave it to him.”

“That’s a great idea. I don’t know what I would have done without you. Thank you for coming on board.”

“I want these assholes as much as you do.” And she did. While the men who’d been responsible for pulling the trigger on her mom had been killed or taken into custody, our major leads had all ended up dead. Whoever was in charge had ensured the guy closest to the head of the snake had ended up shivved in prison. Rory wanted the Lovatos taken down almost as much as I did.

Before I’d shown up in Willow Creek with Addy, I’d wanted it because I loved my job and was proud of my accomplishments. I was proud of cleaning evil from our world. Now…now I wanted to take the Lovatos down with a desperation that bordered on frenzied because I needed to keep Ryder, his little girl, and the entire Hatley family safe.

If anything happened to any of them, it might just rip my soul from my chest, and I’d never get it back.