Never Tell Them, N.L. Hinkens [unputdownable books txt] 📗

be ready. Even after years of therapy, he’d never been able to form a deep bond with anyone, much less a child. But he could hardly refuse Buck’s demand given the circumstances he found himself in.

“Do we have a deal?” Buck asked.

Ray gave what he hoped was a convincing nod. “Yes, of course. I’m indebted to you for doing this.”

Buck waved off his thanks. ”Quit rambling. Go outside and fetch a shovel. You’ll find one leaning up against the back wall of the cabin.

By the time Ray returned, Buck had already dragged Tom’s body onto the blanket. “You might want to search his pockets before I wrap him up,” he said, gruffly. “No sense wasting a good knife or a pipe.”

Ray swallowed back his trepidation as he approached Tom’s body. He still couldn’t come to terms with the fact that he’d killed his brother. His chest ached at the thought of how differently this could have played out. They might have been able to establish a real relationship going forward. He would have had a nephew to take fishing—to buy presents for at Christmas. Instead, with one punch, he’d become a criminal, and a father, and now the rest of his life was about to become one big lie.

He knelt at Tom’s side and dug around in the outer pockets of his hunting jacket, retrieving a fishing lure and an Irish tin whistle. He stared at the whistle, suddenly overwhelmed by sadness that he’d never heard his brother play it. A part of him wanted to keep it, but it was too dangerous. It was evidence of what he’d done.

After replacing it, he reluctantly slid a hand along the inside pocket of Tom’s jacket. His fingers closed over a small piece of plastic. He pulled out a driver’s license and stared at it curiously. His heart began to race. Could this be Henry’s mother? She looked so young. What was she doing with someone like Tom? He read the name, Katie Lambert, repeating it under his breath. It sounded vaguely familiar. His mind raced through the catalog of articles he’d written over the years, searching for a story buried in the recesses of his brain.

And then a headline hit him.

Seventeen-year-old Booneville girl believed to be abducted.

28

PRESENT DAY

“What … what are you doing here?” Sonia choked out. “I don’t understand—” She broke off, blinking up through the rain at Finn in disbelief. Was she seeing things, disoriented after her fall? It made no sense.

“I’m home on leave,” he muttered in a low, urgent tone, crouching down next to her. “I’ve been keeping an eye on you and Jessica. I put a tracker on your car. But never mind that now. We’ve got to get out of here before Ray returns. He’s dangerous, Sonia. There’s a lot you don’t know about him. I had a buddy in the army look into him after Jessica told me some disturbing things about him. Trust me, you have no idea who you’re dealing with.”

Sonia clutched his arm. “Finn, I think he abducted her … Katie Lambert … that girl who went missing from Booneville five years ago. I found her driver’s license in my car. It fell out of Ray’s backpack.”

Finn set his jaw in grim determination. “I told you he was a psycho, but you wouldn’t listen to me! What if he’d taken Jessica? Do you have it—the license?”

Sonia shook her head. “It’s in my car, at the Deep Creek Campground. I ran the battery down. Where are you parked?”

“Down by the main road,” Finn replied. “I couldn’t risk Ray realizing he was being followed. But we need to go back and get that license first. It’s the only evidence we have against him to take to the police. We need to get that creep locked up before he does anything else.” He smacked a fist into his palm. “I won’t stand for him living next door to my daughter one more day.”

Sonia bit her bottom lip to keep it from trembling. ”What … what if he comes back to the car while we’re there?”

Finn opened his jacket to reveal a gun strapped to his chest, and then held out a hand to help her to her feet. ”I was trained for this. Has it really been so long that you’ve forgotten?”

Feeling somewhat self-conscious, Sonia placed her hand in his. As his calloused fingers closed around hers, it struck her that she hadn’t touched him in seven years—scarcely set eyes on him, for that matter. She winced as she stood and forced her blistered heel into her shoe. “I hurt my hip when I fell.”

”Lean on me if you need to,” Finn offered, slipping his arm under hers for support. “Which way?”

“Follow the road,” Sonia answered. “Although, we should probably try and stay out of view, just in case Ray’s discovered I’m not in the car.”

They set off for the campground, hugging the edge of the dirt road, allowing themselves the option of diving for cover behind a screen of trees, if need be. Sonia was far from thrilled at the prospect of going back to retrieve the license, but she couldn’t argue with Finn’s reasoning—it was a crucial piece of evidence. His military training and years of special ops experience gave her some measure of comfort. If it came down to it, he wouldn’t hesitate to take Ray out, and he wouldn’t be easily ambushed either.

“Jessica didn’t say anything about you coming home on leave,” Sonia said between breaths.

Finn gave a disgruntled shrug. ”I didn’t tell her. I figured you wouldn’t want me stopping by, and I didn’t want to disappoint her.”

Sonia bit back the assortment of sarcastic responses that came to mind. He hadn’t cared one iota about disappointing her up until now—that’s pretty much all he’d done her entire life. The odd phone call here and there hardly equated to being a father. But this wasn’t the time to get into a spitting contest with Finn. For once, he