Page 39 of Dead Man's Alibi

Cal resented it, but what choice did he have?“All right.Just… not a fuckingword, okay?Do not answeranyquestions.Do not fall for any bullshit.Just—”

“Sit here and don’t say anything.I know, Cal.I was trained to handle enemy torture just in case.I can deal with this.Please, just—”

“Take care of Sam.Yeah, I got it.I’ll be there as soon as I can.”He sighed, looked around, trying to find a through-point in all this.“We’ll figure this out.”

“Yeah,” Nate agreed.

But he didn’t sound the least bit like he believed it.In fact, he sounded like he’d prefer enemy torture.

Cal swore to himself, for a moment fully immobilized by the task in front of him.He didn’t want to deal with Sam right now—for right or for wrong—he wanted to get down to that damn jail.He wanted to put his one-track skills towork.

And he wanted to bury Hayes.

But he’d promised Nate and Cal figured he knew his brother well enough to know Nate wouldn’t cooperate unless Sam was taken care of.Besides, a little cool-off period wouldn’t be a bad thing for Cal.He had to be a lawyer over a brother.

He heard the back door open, groaned inwardly.Couldn’t he have had a little more time to figure out what the hell he was going to tell her?

But in under a minute, she was striding into the office in typical Sam fashion.A bullet of speed and efficiency.Balancing bags that looked like they should have overtaken her small frame, but she hefted them with ease.

“Oh, Cal.I’m glad you’re here.”She dropped her bag on her messy desk, peered around the office.

It felt strangely, horribly poignant, the way she looked for Nate immediately, not knowing what was about to come.

“Where’s Nate?”she asked, clueless and happy with it.

Cal found himself so strangely speechless.He knew what he needed to do, and he needed to do it quickly.She moved around the room with quick, restless movements.

She dropped a bag from a fast-food place on Nate’s desk.“I brought him lunch.He was supposed to be here.Did something come up?”She shook her head.“His truck is back there.Did he tell you I was meeting with Jules’s friend?I might have something.Not a big something, but asomethingsomething, if we can figure out a way to poke into it.”

Cal inhaled carefully.Let it out.But still, he could only seem to manage her name.“Sam.”

She must have sensedsomethingin his tone because she stilled all thatmovementand looked right at him.

She swallowed.“Where’s Nate?”she asked, very, very carefully.

The words were there.Shitty but true.He couldn’t seem to get them out of his mouth.Something about the way Nate’s ring on her finger seemed to catch in the light.

How had this all gotten so horribly out of hand?Why couldn’t anything just be normal?Every little piece ofgooda Bennet seemed to carve out only unearthed pain and suffering.Dad probably cursed them.Even if evil didn’t beget evil, what it did beget had to pay for it.

“Cal,” Sam said, her voice wavering ever so slightly.“Where is Nate?”

He wanted to stop the moment.Rewind time.Anything but this.But Nate had tasked him with a job, and Cal was the oldest.For years, in their own ways, his younger brothers had protected him.

Now it was his turn.

“He’s at the Crawford County Jail.”

*

Sam felt splitin two.Right through the middle.One half of her was back at her aunt’s ranch, coming home from school teary-eyed and upset from crying with Aly about Mrs.Bennet and what had happened to her.

She hadn’t told Aly about Nate then, that he’d been beaten and she’d cleaned him up and given him her cell phone savings and helped him run away after Mrs.Bennet’s funeral.Even though Aly had been her best friend, Nate had asked her not to tell anyone, and she’d just felt… like she had to honor that.Even not knowing what fifteen years would do and what he would come to mean to her after all that time.

She’d been sad about Mrs.Bennet.Guilty about not telling Aly.And then had walked right into the center of her father being handcuffed by a whole group of policemen.

She’d cried.She’d promised him she’d get him out, not knowing what it would mean.

But she’d desperately tried to make that promise true for fifteen years and failed.