“There were some old emails between Duncan and his uncles. Both of them. I printed it all, but basically he really did tell them to kiss his ass, that he was done being associated with them.”
I took a deep breath and let it out, feeling my heart slow down a bit. “Thank God.”
“Until yesterday,” she said.
Clamps went down around my chest again. Shit.
“What?”
“Yesterday, there was a whole series of emails back and forth between him and someone named Eric. Asking about Ian,” she said.
“About Ian?” I said. Jesus.
“Evidently he made a phone call the night you talked to him,” she said. “He mentions calling in a favor, and the Eric guy tells him that Ian McMasters is still on the books. He even attached a spreadsheet that has all the businesses listed and who’s doing what.”
I breathed out in relief. “Yes, I know that,” I said. “Bobby loaned him the money for the dive store in exchange for a cut and leaving the family business alone, and Ian was paying him out of his own salary.” At Missy’s expression, I nodded. “He told me about that.”
“Did he tell you about Antique Nation? About Emery Slade?”
Chills covered my skin in goose bumps. I set my coffee cup down. “What about them?”
“Miss Slade is on Bobby’s payroll,” Missy said. “Her job is to make this sale happen, because the cut they’d get off Antique Nation with her working the books is massively more than they would get off of us.”
“I knew it,” I breathed. “I knew she was crooked. There was something about her that just—”
“That’s not all, Savi,” Missy said.
Missy’s tone set my teeth on edge. Her expression—hell, the fact that she set the cupcake down unfinished—made my bones hurt. “What?” I asked.
“Miss Slade has a partner,” Missy said.
“A partner?” I asked. “Who?”
But as soon as the word left my lips, I knew.
Missy closed her eyes. “It’s Ian.”
Funny. I was prepared for bad news on Duncan. I was braced to find out that the man I was falling for and screwed over had screwed me first.
Nothing had me ready for this.
I picked up my cup and took a swallow, feeling the hot liquid but not tasting it. I could hear my heart, hear my breathing, hear my thoughts screaming in my head.
Missy took a couple of sheets of paper from an envelope and handed them to me. I took them silently and stared at the words on the page, watching them swim around through the sea of tears building in my eyes.
“Savi?” she said softly.
“Thank you,” I whispered, nodding, like it was just a random bit of correspondence.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” she said, putting a hand on my back.
“No, it’s good,” I said. “It’s all good.” I nodded some more, dimly aware that I made no sense. It didn’t matter. “I’m gonna, um—eat some of these cupcakes and hang around here today,” I said. “But I need a shower right now, so . . .”
I blinked the tears free and met her worried eyes. “Savi, don’t go off crazy,” she said. “Promise me. Think it out first.”
“I promise,” I said, the words coming out like someone else was saying them. “No crazy.”
“You keep these cupcakes and eat them.”
“I will.”
She looked at me funny. “You’re freaking me out a little bit, kid.”
“Just gonna go take a shower,” I said.
Missy sighed and looked like she didn’t want to leave. But she finally did, leaving me my very own envelope of dastardly deeds. I looked at the top paper again, reading the email. Turning the page over and reading down the thread, finding the original email sent. From Eric, who was clearly still involved.
Got your voice mail, but are you sure you want to open this door? Dude, you’re out. What on earth could be important enough to even touch this?
The next emailed response from Duncan:
They’re going after someone I care about very much, and if this guy is involved like I think he is, she’ll lose everything.
Eric:
She’s worth it?
Duncan:
She is.
My breath left me, rushing out of my chest in a whoosh, choking me with hot tears. This was even after he found out I’d messed around with Ian. Fucking shit-balls.
To hell with a shower. I went to the bathroom, retied my hair up, attacked my face with a wet wipe, brushed the funk out of my mouth, and grabbed my keys. I still had my break-in clothes on from the previous night and didn’t give a rat’s ass. I put the cupcakes up on the kitchen island, much to Gracie’s dismay, grabbed what looked like the Bavarian cream one and left.
• • •
I didn’t even rehearse what to say. I didn’t have to. I knew it would come to me. Everything inside me wanted out, and it was coming. Starting with
How could you?
McMasters Meats was closed like we were, it being Sunday, so I parked at the barn, ran inside to tuck the envelope away in a good place, and then went across the street to the back door of the butcher shop. The door was unlocked.
“Well, good,” I muttered. “I don’t have to go break a window.” Because I wasn’t past doing that and just giving Lily the money for it.
Don’t go off doing something crazy
. Yeah, it was too late for that.
I walked in, not caring that I left the door open, and headed straight for the stairs, when I heard voices up front. I halted in place, holding my breath. I couldn’t tell who it was, but it sounded like it was coming from the seating area. Tiptoeing down the hall, I strained to hear, stopping at the kitchen.
“You’re an idiot,” a female voice said. A familiar one, but not so much that I could place it.
“Oh, shut the hell up,” responded a voice I knew very well. A voice that made me want to go storming in. “I did everything I could and they’re not selling, I can tell you that right now.”
“This was your only worth, Ian,” said the woman. “Your connection with Savanna Barnes was our ace in the hole.”
Emery Slade. Fucking bitch. I walked softly around the inside of the kitchen area, knowing they couldn’t see me from there, and crouched down behind the island. I’d hear everything from there and still be hidden when they walked by to go upstairs or out the door.
“You don’t think I wanted her to sell?” Ian yelled, sounding like he was pacing. His circle thing. “I don’t want her anywhere near this shit. I wanted her out so all Bobby’s creepy little fingers couldn’t touch her. And he’d leave this place alone and quit fucking with everything.”
My blood was boiling. It was all I could do to sit there hiding like a child, but I wanted to hear what they had to say. And if I went in there, that was over.
“Well, evidently you didn’t have the charisma you thought you did,” Emery said.
“Charisma? I wasn’t charming her into doing this, Emery,” he said. “You don’t know Savi, she doesn’t get charmed. I was trying to make her see it was the smarter choice.”
Damn right I don’t get charmed.
Except that I did. Fucker.
“And then you decided to follow that up with breaking into the nephew’s office?”
“I needed to see if he had anything on me first, but now that’s the only way to get out of this,” he said.
“Out?” she said, a bitter laugh filling the space. “You think you’re getting out?”
“No, I think I’m getting Savi out,” he said, making my eyebrows pull together. “I’m getting Jim out. I’m getting Bobby out of Copper Falls. He can go hassle someone else.”
There was a pause and a scrape of a chair. “Well, aren’t you just the big hero? Taking the fall to protect your woman and your family.”
My stomach tightened. What the hell?
“She’s not my woman,” Ian said. I closed my eyes. “I sealed that fate a long time ago. But I’m tired of doing this prick’s dirty work and watching him destroy people for kicks. And I’m tired of the kicking coming too close to home.”
“You sure act like she is,” Emery said. “Everything you do—”
“I’m not talking about Savi with you,” he said sharply. “Move on.”
“Okay, what are you gonna do, Superman?” she asked. “Go to the police and tell them you broke into a building and illegally got evidence on one of the biggest businessmen in the county for extortion?”
“No, but I can make enough copies to send it to them every month anonymously until someone gets curious.”
“And you’re gonna threaten him with this? What if he does something to you?” Emery said. “I mean, he’s not the type to sit back and take shit.”
“I called my lawyer this morning,” Ian said. “It’s in my will now that if something happens to me, my family, or my friends that’s not a direct result of old age, it all goes to the police. I videoed my statement. It’s done.”
“Fuck, Ian,” I whispered under my breath.
“And me?” she said. “Am I in that group somewhere? Because you just fucked me over, too.”
“Quit being dramatic, Em,” he said, sounding weary.
“I’m being dramatic?” she said. “Who’s jumping through hoops to save—”
“I said to let that go,” he said. “It is what it is now. It may not be like we planned but it’s a plan nonetheless.”
“And if she finds out?” Emery said.
There was a long pause. “She hated me before,” he said quietly. “She could do it again.” There was the sound of paper moving and bumping into chairs. “I’m hungry, I’m making a sandwich. Want something?”
I head-jerked to the counter above my head. Shit-double-hell, I didn’t plan for anyone coming in there. Making a sandwich would be right there. I speed-crawled on my hands and knees for—what? Where? Spying the freezer, I made a beeline for the door, snagging the broom on my way. I reached up and opened it as quietly as I could and scooted inside, turning to put the tip of the broom handle in the opening—just as it closed shut.
I stared at the broom in the weird blue light from the back of the freezer. In my hand. With me. Instead of in the door.
“Shit,” I whispered, groping for the phone in my pocket. Except it wasn’t there. “What the hell?” I sat up and patted all my pockets.
The floor. It must have fallen out of my pocket when I crawled across the kitchen.
There are these moments of clarity when you have full awareness of just how fucked you are. That was one of them.
He might see my phone on the floor somewhere. Or I could yell. He would maybe hear me and open the door, let me out. I wouldn’t freeze to death, but I’d have one hell of an explanation to give. I couldn’t hear any voices out there, but I didn’t know if that was the fans from the freezer motor burying the sound or if it was soundproof.
Please don’t be that.
“Ian!” I screamed. “Ian, open the door! I’m in the freezer!”
Nothing. I banged on the door, on the useless push bar.
“Ian! Help me!”
I yelled, I banged. Nothing.
“Seriously?” I said, breathless.
Maybe he’d see my car across the street on his way to confront Bobby and wonder why I was there? Come to see? Or maybe he wouldn’t want to talk to me right now. Maybe he might have a little too much on his plate right now to worry about what I was doing at work on a Sunday.
There had to be something in the freezer that I could use. I peered around in the eerie blue light but there was nothing but containers and meat. I kicked at the door, where the lock connected, and tried pushing while prying at the door with the broom. Nothing.
“This is fun,” I said, watching the breath puffs glow blue.
I rubbed my arms and looked around for a thermostat, hoping there would be one inside. If I ever had a walk-in freezer, that would be the first thing I’d put in. That, and three fail-safe security measures to keep this predicament from ever happening. Because while I was thinking this had to be silly, and of course someone was going to open the door, in the back of my head was the little voice telling me it was Sunday.
• • •
I did sit-ups and push-ups for a while to warm up and keep my joints moving, but there’s a fine line between being warmed up and starting to sweat even though you’re in a freezer. Sweating wouldn’t have been good. The shaking got worse, almost violent, as my body counteracted the cold with movement. Oh, what I wouldn’t give for it to have been winter and I’d have a fucking coat on. Blankets. That’s something else I would pack in a freezer. If I ever had one. The line of ifs were about to get a lot shorter if I didn’t get out of there.
I yelled for Ian again, even though I knew he’d never hear me. He didn’t hear me screaming for him when he was right there slathering a sandwich together, and he certainly wouldn’t hear me now. I grabbed that cursed broom and swung it at the door, banging it repeatedly with all I had, and broke the damn broom.
“Worthless little fucker,” I said, slinging it sideways. “Ian!” I screamed. “Shit.” My chin quivered a little, and I choked that shit back. No time for giving up. No time for thinking like that.
Eventually, I just huddled in the middle of the floor, tired from the exertion. I didn’t wear a watch and wasn’t sure how long it had been, but I knew what was happening. I’d seen movies where people were trapped somewhere freezing. I was getting tired because my core temp was getting too low. My body was starting the slow process of protecting the heart. Shutting things down little by little. I flexed my fingers and they were slow to move. I couldn’t feel them. I pulled the neck of my shirt up to breathe through and cupped my hands over that, trying to warm the air I was inhaling. Anything.