Page 118 of Guarding Over You
“You and me both. That’s a line that shouldn’t have been looked at let alone crossed or touched.”
“We’ll figure it out, Blaze. Have you talked to Ford?”
“My next call.”
“Place it then.”
Clay hung up on him like he normally did when his older brother was done talking.
He was positive that Ford would have let him know, if not Arden, if there was anything to find out.
“Hey,” he said when Ford picked up. His voice was rough from lack of sleep. “Any updates?”
“No,” Ford said. “We checked for prints on the bike. Plenty of small ones. Gracie’s, most likely. We lifted what we could from the handlebars and the seat, but I focused on the spots where someone would grab or lift it. Tate came down earlier, took one tire to the lab. He called back an hour ago and the knife marks are a match to the one on Arden’s tire.”
He cursed under his breath. “We figured that.”
“Just connecting the dots,” Ford said quietly.
“Then get them to connect to the person,” he snapped. “I don’t like this, Ford. Not at all.”
“No one does,” his brother said, his tone softening.
The silence that followed was heavy. He knew Ford was holding something back, something he didn’t want to voice.
“Just say it,” he muttered.
“You love her, don’t you?” Ford asked.
His chest tightened. He leaned against the counter, staring out the kitchen window into the woods in the back. It felt too open to him. Too vast for someone to sneak up. “Yeah,” headmitted finally. “I didn’t plan it. Didn’t expect it. But yeah, I do.”
Ford exhaled. “None of us did. And look how that turned out for all of us.”
He let out a tired laugh that didn’t sound like him. “It feels like a curse sometimes.”
“Welcome to my world,” Ford said with a half-smile in his voice. “How are you holding up?”
The doctor in him wanted to say fine. The man in him couldn’t lie. Not to his brother.
“Not as well as I want people to see,” he said quietly.
That took more out of him than he had expected. Vulnerability was never his thing. Especially not now. But if he couldn’t be honest with his family, then maybe he really was in deeper trouble than he thought.
“And it’s painful to think of someone you know doing this. A stranger’s face brings more relief than someone you trust. Someone you let in. I know that.”
“That’s it exactly. I don’t want to believe it’s someone at the hospital. Someone whose job it is to help and heal that is inflicting this kind of mental distress on someone else.”
“Evil had no bounds. Race, color, gender, friends, family, neighbors, coworkers, strangers. Those things are invisible. You just need to remind yourself of that.”
“You’ve had more experience doing it than me.”
“We’re here for you. I’m sure Clay is putting the pressure on you to go to the farm. Both of you,” Ford said.
“He is. I can take care of myself. Doesn’t seem as if I’m the one in danger though. Maybe that is what I don’t like about this and your theory.”
“It’s only a theory.”
“We tested it today and I don’t think it made a difference.”
