Page 110 of Against The Tide

“Even when I’m being crushed on the inside, you make me want to fight for forever.”

A hand slowly rakes up my side as he watches me in silence. Our surroundings fade away as he holds my chin between his thumb and finger. The green of his eyes swirls with a clear ocean blue and sparks of warm amber, making my heart pound harder and harder as he simply looks down at me, admiring as though I am something to be awed by.

“I told you, sweetheart…” he rasps, or maybe it’s more of a croak. His voice sounds so gravelly and deep, it vibrates all the way through me. “I promised you everything, and I meant it beyond forever.”

There’s nothing more to say as the promise emblazons itself in every echelon of my being. Mind, body, soul, and everything in between and surrounding them.

CHAPTER 30

RHETT

“You’re sure that’s what he meant?” Rowan asks as we share a drink in the basement.

The kids are getting settled with the sitter now that Callie has finished interrogating her and giving her all the strict instructions she needs to adhere to. She’s done it all in front of Caleb as well so that he can report back. That’s how cunning she is. Callie knows that if the sitter steps outside the lines she’s drawn, he’ll be the first to let her know so he buys himself some lenience credit when it comes to his practical jokes and pranks. Clever on both of their parts.

“It’s the only thing that makes sense. It’s the perfect murder. Potassium poisoning is virtually undetectable.” Rounding the far end of the room, I pace back toward where he’s setting up the pool table. “Since when do you play?”

“It’s something to do. I like keeping my hands busy when I’m thinking.”

“Yesterday, Kayla told Avery that they couldn’t talk at the club.” The woman’s name sours on my tongue. But that one comment is something that’s stuck with me along with Haas’s words. “She said, quote, ‘They’re always watching. Always.’”

“So she knows more than she let on,” he muses, breaking the game. “You know what’s bothering me?”

“What?” Pausing, I watch him circle the table and methodically pocket the balls in alternating colors.

“The bad-guy comment.”

“From all that Avery’s told me about Robert, he was a good guy. Sounded like a cheap shot to me. Given their history…”

“I don’t think she meant it about Robert.”

“The poison she followed it up with would suggest otherwise.”

“Or perhaps she was defending herself and her boyfriend. Take yourself out of the situation, if you told someone that the bad guys are closer to home than you think, what would you mean? Especially if you’re being pegged as the bad egg.”

Rowan pockets a couple more balls, only leaving the black and white on the table as he puts the cue down along the long edge and braces himself over one of the short ones. When I look between him and the two remaining balls, he shrugs. “Callie gets a kick out of shooting the last ball.”

“How sweet,” I mock him, even though I’m sort of impressed he hands her a win. Rowan has been beyond competitive all his life. Mom almost banned game night at one point when we were younger because of how intense shit got.

“What would you mean?” He ignores my jibe, taking us back to the conversation at hand.

“I’d be deflecting the blame.”

“Exactly. She doesn’t believe that they’re the bad guys. Put it all together and I think there’s a bigger fish behind all this. They’re just scapegoats. It happens all the time. People make messes they can’t fix and then throw the blame onto small fry.”

The logic doesn’t settle well. After all the shit Carl and Kayla have put Avery through…it almost felt good to crucify them. But the more I think about it, the more Rowan’s deduction makes sense. “Or maybe she’s the small fry. Why else would he have left her? She thinks he’s disappeared, but he was in Virginia last we saw of him.”

“And now he’s gone.”

“We can hope,” I bite out.

Ignoring me, Rowan states, “We need to figure out who the fuck the big fish is.”

“We need the list.”

“Exactly.”

“And then what? I keep going over all this in my head, trying to figure out what this will mean. Truth, justice…none of that will matter when Avery realizes how awful Robert’s death was.”