“Why didn’t you take his last name, instead?”
She swallowed the lump and blinked away the first tear. “I didn’t have his parents’ permission. It felt…disrespectful.”
“But his middle name was fair game?” His biting tone hurt more than she expected.
“Why are you angry?”
He stared at her. “I’m not.”
“You’re a bad liar.”
“So are you.”
“I never lied.”
He waited a long time before he said anything. Audrey just kept watching him, holding her breath for his next move. Exposure couldn’t be rawer than this moment.
Ethan slowly lifted his phone and positioned it over Jack’s grave.
“Don’t you have any respect for the dead?” She fought to keep from crying out.
“It’s just a piece of rock.”
“It’s a hell of a lot more than that, and you know it.”
“Were you driving the car that night?” His fierce gaze pinned her to the ground. It was a familiar feeling, but not from him. Normally his gazes had melted her insides, but this was a completely different Ethan. Not the journalist, not the playboy charmer, but an angry man. She swallowed on the lump that wouldn’t budge, letting her silence fill the space between them.
He grimaced at her lack of response. “You’re right. It’s a piece of rock and the scandal you’ve been trying to hide to protect your career.”
“I don’t give a shit about my career.”
That got his attention. He looked at her like he’d never seen her before and lowered his phone.
“You are the perfect politician. You spit out that lie like you actually meant it.”
The hatred in his eyes almost ripped through her skin. Why did he keep looking at her like this? For a journalist who’d just found his massive bone, she thought he’d be drooling. But he was furious. And there was no way he’d hear anything she had to say. There was no point defending herself. So she used the only weapon she had left. “I do mean it. Leave his family with whatever dignity they have left, and keep your promise.”
“What promise?”
A deep breath helped keep her tears in check. “Leave the Davises out of the article. They’ve suffered enough.”
As she trudged her heavy feet down the hill back to her car, she heard the click of a camera behind her. Her heart wept, realizing she’d betrayed her own mind and trusted a newsman, even if only for a moment. And had been bitten by it once again.
An hour later, after they’d dropped off her father’s lunch at his natural gas rig, to which he thanked them with a grumble, they pulled into her parents’ driveway. The air was just as chilled as this morning, as was the silence in the car during the drive. She hated the silence. But worse, she hated what he planned to do with her promise: to crush it.
Chapter Nineteen
“I’ve hit the jackpot,” Ethan almost growled into the phone, safe in the guest room. “Audrey’s campaign will be over by the time I’m done.”
By the time they had reached the house, Bose had called another dozen times. But instead of crawling in his seat to answer the phone in anticipation for one of the greatest phone calls in his career, he’d never been more upset in his life.
Even more upset than when his father called during his mother’s funeral to offer him a banking job, knowing the devastation he suffered mixed with his desire to go to graduate school. He’d smashed his laptop on the ground after that phone call, and drowned himself in two bottles of whiskey.
“I’m drooling, Ethan. Whatcha got?” Bose’s voice jumped through the phone. At least someone in the media was excited over the ghosts he uncovered in Audrey’s closet.
“She killed someone.” Ethan grimaced as he said the words. They tasted horrible.
Dead silence on the other side.
“Not intentionally,” Ethan continued, quashing the heartburn rising in his chest. “But her high school sweetheart died in a car accident, and she was driving.”
“You’re better than good.” Bose managed to mutter through his excitement. “You’re the messiah of tabloid heaven.”
“That’s what you aspire to be? A tabloid junkie?”
Nothing felt right anymore. His insides squirmed at everything around him. And the part that scared him the most, the only thing he wanted to do was curl up with Audrey on a couch, or bed, and hold her like she’d never been held before. To protect and defend her, the way she should have been treated ten years ago. To feel those luscious lips against his again. But he was the last person she wanted to see right now. He was sure of that much.
“When can I have the article? Tonight?”
“No, I told you, tomorrow. I have a few sources I need to talk with first.”
“Make sure every angle is covered. I don’t want to have to retract anything right before the election. In the end, it’s Allen who goes down. Not us.”
Ethan felt the bile rising in his throat. So much that he couldn’t answer.
“What’s wrong with you?” Bose barked at him.
“Nothing,” he squeaked out.
“Don’t you dare grow a conscience on me.”
“I gotta go,” Ethan grumbled.
“One story, and it’s New York for you,” Bose blurted before Ethan shut his phone.
He darted to the bathroom and chugged a cup of water. Sweat collected at his temples and the back of his neck. The nausea finally receded and he strolled back into the bedroom. He laid all of the article copies across the bed and stared at each one, immersing himself in each image like a toddler in the deep end.
The article with Jackson’s senior portrait lay on top, the kid’s grin growing more mocking with each second. He was pretty boy and he knew it. Ethan grabbed the paper and hid it beneath another one.
Jealousy was a brand new feeling for him and he didn’t like it. Flat out hated it. It was worse than irrational. The kid was dead, and ten years ago to boot. But he was clearly Audrey’s high school sweetheart. More than likely her first love. And those were hard to live up to. Worse, the kid had died, with her in the car, and everyone romanticized the dead. Especially this town.
Ethan pulled out the recorder in his pocket and dragged a chair in front of the mattress, straddling it for his brainstorming routine. With a click of the red button, he began. “Audrey Biddinger is the high school misfit, dating the town hero. Something specific about this one kid that everyone loved. They get into an accident where he dies. Damn, can this town hold a grudge.” He picked up the article where Audrey’s senior photo was pictured, her crazy hairstyle and crossed eyes mocking his process. “The reporter and police sway things against her, but don’t have enough to charge her. She changes her name to Allen to escape the ridicule, taking her boyfriend’s middle name—sentimental touch.” He growled back the tinge of jealousy. “Audrey claims taking his last name would be disrespectful.” He scoffed. “Up until this point, Audrey is described as an outsider and prankster, who wouldn’t seem like the type who cares about respect. Then the accident and she does a 180 in life. But then goes into politics? The one profession where a troublesome and quirky artist would feel the most uncomfortable in front of cameras and the media, whom Audrey absolutely hates. Doesn’t add up. Something’s missing…”
He grabbed Audrey’s campaign photo, the sapphire irises smiling politely, but hiding something painful. He’d never seen it the first fifty times he looked in her photo, but now that he’d seen her school pictures, there was a big difference, as clear as cellophane. And just as fragile.
How many bricks were thrown through her window to shatter that light in her eyes?
“She’s not the least bit interested in defending herself against the accusations. Never even flinched when she was called a murderer. Why would she run for such a public office and expose the trauma?”
“Because she’s heartless,” a gruff and heated voice answered.
The bedroom door swung open and Adam’s fierce glare darkened the room.
Privacy is impossible in this house.
Ethan stood, still holding the recorder in his hand, and faced him.
“Hard thing to say about your sister.”
Adam’s eyes shifted about the room, absorbing every inch of Ethan’s presence with a grimace. “This used to be my room.”
The simple factual statement held the unmistakable undercurrent of a warning. But Ethan wouldn’t let the bulk of a man intimidate him. So he waited, looking right back at him as Adam slowly walked in and perused all the articles scattered across the comforter. Picking up each photo one by one, he dropped them back on the bed like flicking a bug off his hand. He paused at the newspaper article with Jackson Davis’ photo smiling up at them.
“This is the story you all danced around.” Ethan needed to get this guy talking. Maybe he held the missing pieces to what pushed Audrey into this disaster. Would he spill the beans on this fiasco, or did he care enough about his sister to at least try and protect her career?
Instead he shook his head and dropped the paper on the bed with a bitter scowl.
“So you’re pissed off at your sister for allegedly killing the quarterback. That’s a lot of anger to grip onto for a decade.”
One death look could ice over hell from Adam’s stern five o’clock shadow. The same vehemence every soldier showed toward the ultimate enemy. Where was Sally’s calming influence over him when he needed it?
“A decade ago—today,” he seethed. Another long moment passed before he continued. “What would you know of losing a best friend? People like you collect sources, not friends.”
“Is that why she came home? For…an anniversary?”
“More like to rub it in.”
“From everything I’ve read, it was just an accident. And grudges are what this town does best.” Ethan paused as Adam’s nostrils flared, watching for any sign of a fist. “But I don’t understand why her brother who spent his life side by side with her seems to have the largest amount of hatred.”
“She was a tag-along. Never got along with anyone, so hung around Jack and I for years. One day, Jack was different. I could hear every time she snuck out her bedroom at night. Or when he snuck up into hers. He and I were supposed to go to West Point together, but she changed his mind. She ruined everything.”
Controlling anger was clearly not one of Adam’s fortes. His hands trembled into fists at his sides and every heartbeat pulsed through the vein at his temple.
“So this is more than just losing a bid for sheriff,” Ethan summarized, keeping his face as calm as possible with a beast ready to slaughter at any second.
Which lasted only two seconds. Adam’s hands shot out like bullets and grabbed Ethan’s shirt, dragging him forward so their noses were only inches apart. His fists shook with adrenaline as Ethan fought to keep his balance on his toes. “She destroyed my life! No state championship, which turned the whole town against me and the rest of my family for her recklessness! Enlisting was the only option I had left, and I had to do it alone. Without Jack. When I got out, the only job I could get was in the sheriff’s department who was hurtin’ for men with experience. My father has lost over fifty contracts because of the shame she caused, which means they can’t afford Addy’s college. It’s all her fault!”
The pounding in Ethan’s ears rushed through his body, and it was harder than he expected to keep his voice low with Adam on the verge of exploding. Despite the threat in his face, he couldn’t hit a cop.
“Do you really want to go here? You’re a deputy.”
Adam never blinked. He just kept clenching Ethan’s shirt, but his hands slowly stopped shaking.
“She almost died,” Ethan barely spoke above a whisper. “And then everyone turned their back on her. Put yourself in her hospital bed. How do you think she felt?”
He blinked. The anger in Adam’s face morphed into a troubled daze and he finally released Ethan’s shirt. But more surprising was Ethan hearing his own words. Was he really defending Audrey Allen? The goal was to uncover her ghosts and use them against her for his own advancement. But this didn’t sound like the Ethan Tanner he knew.
What’s wrong with me?
Heaving and stepping back toward the door, Adam glanced back at the bed covered with newspaper clippings. “Put those away, right now.” He pointed at them, resuming his less shaky voice. “I don’t want my mother reliving that. You have no idea what this has done to my family.”
“Clearly not as much as it’s done to you.”
Both men swung around and saw Myrna, Audrey, and Adelaide hovering at the door. Myrna’s admonishment matched her furious glare, hands at her hips and blocking the doorway like Atilla the Hun, with reading glasses.
“This is how you treat a guest in my house? Shame on you, Adam.”
The wrinkles in his shirt felt like nothing compared to the rumpled thoughts bouncing around his head. His first instinct was to study Audrey’s reaction behind her mother, but then a close second was to hide the evidence lying on the bed. Like being caught butt naked covered in mud. But for some reason his feet wouldn’t move. The dark blue eyes of The Peacemaker raged a war between him and Adam, freezing him to the floor, while the only prolific thing about her was how tight her lips pursed. And for the first time, an enraged woman’s face hurt him to the core. The fuming look she learned from her mother’s mastered expression.
Audrey smoothed her way past her mother and silently collected the articles on the bed, neatly piling them together and leaving Jackson’s photo on top. She paused, staring at his image with a distant pain emerging on her face, before she handed them back to Ethan. She refused to look him in the eye.
“I’m sorry you think I destroyed your life, Adam.” Her serious voice was so low, Ethan strained to hear more. “You think I’ve stayed away all these years because I
wanted
to? Kept myself from my family because I’m heartless?”
The Irish twins’ battle of wits stifled the air with tension, and their mother’s face twisted with guilt as she and Adelaide watched. But Adam never moved his hateful gaze from Audrey, nor opened his lips to answer.
“My goal was never to hurt Jack or anyone else, least of all you. And everything I’ve done since then has been to make up for it.” Audrey swallowed hard and fought to control her breathing. “I’ve done everything I can to make you love me again, including leaving you alone. As you wanted. Now I know my hoping for your forgiveness is useless. I’ll leave tonight.”