Page 6 of Reins

Pete sighs. “Yes, Cade. I don’t exactly hang out for coffee with your lot, but Wade keeps me fairly appraised of what everyone is up to. It sounds like Sawyer has grown up with a good head on his shoulders.”

That doesn’t surprise me. Mason was always a great father.

He shouldn’t have had to raise those kids on his own.

God damn this whole situation is hard to stomach. Everything I’ve tried to get away from and bury in the past is hitting me with both barrels.

“Cade?” Pete huffs. “I’m gonna let you go. After Wade gets Max booked tomorrow, I’ll get us in there to talk to him later next week.”

“Yea, that sounds good.” Standing, I stretch my legs, working out the ache that always takes hold in my knees when I sit too long.

I guess no matter how far I run, I still have that night plaguing me.

Every flip of the page in that hefty folder tells me that I’m here for a reason.

This might be my chance to finally open the door to start healing the wound between me and the rest of my family.

Chapter 4 - Cade

“You look like shit, Max.” I wait for the guard to close the door to the interrogation room before I drop my folder on the steel table in front of the handcuffed man.

“Cade?” Max’s eyes widen and his cheeks pale. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

I flip the metal chair around to straddle it, crossing my arms over the backrest. “How’s that for old friends? Long time no see, stranger.” Squinting at him, I force my expression to remain neutral as I watch him.

This isn’t my first rodeo questioning a con, but I’ve never talked to someone I knew before.

“We ain’t friends,” he grumbles, dropping his gaze to the thick binder between us.

“Aw, come on, partner. Remember that time we all got hammered down at the swimming hole in Pine Pass and I had to stop the truck on the way home so you could puke out the passenger side?” I give him a lopsided grin, mostly because the right side of my face won’t lift the same.

It seems he’s in a similar predicament. “You and I both know what happened to me—” I jut my chin at him as I run my fingers over my scars. “What bear did you get tangled with?”

He scowls, raising his glare to stare at me. “Fucking, Ford.”

I had a feeling. It took me nearly two days to pour over the details of that Halloween night.

There were too many familiar names attached to the monstrous acts that unfolded behind the Hilltop bar.

I lean across the table. “Well, if you had kept your pecker in your pants, you’d have a prettier mug than me.”

When he sneers, I rock back with a chuckle. “So I know why you were there a few years ago. Why am I reading that you tried to kidnap a woman last week?”

That’s my cue to flip the pages of the folder open.

“Since when are you a cop? You’re the last person to be on that side of the law.” His wrists drop onto the steel surface making a hollow clang as he shifts closer. “After all, you’re the only one in this room who’s killed someone.”

The way he spits that last sentence carries enough venom in it to kill an elephant.

“Who were you trying to take the girl to?” I’m done talking about the distant past. I need to move up the timeline.

“Which one? I get all kinds of women.” The corner of his puckered lip twitches.

“Yea, I’m sure.” I flip through the pages until I find the parking lot of the Hilltop dumpster where Sarah’s body was found taken that night.

There’s still fresh bloodstains in the gravel.

Pulling it from the stack, I flip it so he can see it.