Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 82973 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 415(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82973 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 415(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
Albany County Detention Center.
Wyoming. Only one person he knew in Laramie would call him from jail. What the fuck had his father done now?
When he’d left home, Dad had promised to spend some time alone and work on himself. Matt suspected now that hadn’t lasted long.
He jogged into the conference room and shut the door, so Zy and Kane couldn’t overhear. “Hello?”
“Matt?” his dad croaked out. “Thank God you answered. I need your help. I’ve been arrested.”
“Arrested?” Dad had been a fuckup for years, but he’d never had a run-in with the law. “For what—”
“N-Nicole, my girlfriend…”
Another one? So he hadn’t spent any time alone after Matt had gone to Louisiana, just jumped into another relationship, as usual. “Damn it, Dad. What happened?”
“Don’t be that way. She was different and—”
“If you two split up and she’s already gone, no. How did that land you in jail?”
“She’s dead. The police think I killed her.”
Matt froze. “What?”
“I swear to God, I didn’t. She just went insane. I had no idea…”
Bracing against the wall, Matt’s thoughts raced. “Can you tell me what happened?”
“Not now. I’ll explain when you get here. I need you to bail me out, find a lawyer, and handle the cleanup.”
“Cleanup?”
“Nicole found the gun in my nightstand, and she…” Dad couldn’t finish the sentence. He broke down, weeping silent, grim tears.
“She…pointed it at you? Did you wrestle her for it and—”
“The gun didn’t go off by accident. She committed suicide.”
Matt closed his eyes. “Oh, fuck.”
“She’d threatened before. I didn’t really think she would do it.”
Instead of berating his father that he should have taken Nicole seriously, Matt navigated his dad’s grief and got the information he needed to help. The next day, he was still trying to wrap his head around everything when he stepped off the plane in Denver. He missed Madison like hell. He hadn’t slept for shit without her, and he needed her so damn badly. He gave in and reached out.
I had to fly home unexpectedly. My dad had an emergency. I’m not sure when I’ll be back.
She answered right away.
Oh, no. I hope everything is all right. Is there anything I can do to help?
Nothing. I’ll let you know when I’m back in Lafayette.
Even if it would be better for you if I didn’t, he thought.
Okay. Don’t hesitate to ask if I can do anything.
This situation is tricky. It might take a while.
I’ll be here. Good luck. I miss you.
He tried to focus on his dad’s problems during the two-plus hour drive from the Denver airport to the Albany County jail, but his body screamed with every mile that he was headed in the wrong direction. Every part of him wanted Madison.
Thankfully, he had his father sprung by suppertime. Since he’d worked a half-dozen years with the sheriff’s department, he knew almost everyone in town, including the coroner and the DA, so he’d been able to talk to the deputies assigned to the case. Because the sheriff had once relied on him to help solve homicides, Matt pointed out discrepancies in their case that made it next to impossible for his father to have killed Nicole Hall, age thirty two—a mere two fucking years older than Matt himself. They’d listened. Still, he understood their suspicion. After nearly three months of witnesses swearing his father had verbally abused her, not to mention a series of screaming matches the cops had been forced to break up, every law enforcement officer in the county thought Dad had finally lost his temper and offed his girlfriend.
After another week, Matt finally made enough people see reason that the DA dropped the murder charges to involuntary manslaughter, then gave up altogether because he didn’t have a winnable case. Finally, Matt could return to Lafayette.
But should he? He knew the answer. Dad’s near brush with a murder trial should be a potent reminder.
Problem was, Matt didn’t want to stay away. He’d been trying. Madison had texted a few times in the past week. It had taken all his restraint, but he hadn’t responded. What the hell could he say? What kind of promises could he possibly make?
The night before he left Wyoming, Matt sat at the same speckled linoleum kitchen table his mother had picked out when he was a kid, nursing a cup of after-dinner coffee when his father grabbed a mug and sat across from him.
“Thanks for all your help, son. I couldn’t have made it through this without you. If you hadn’t stepped in and done your thing, that crooked DA would have let me go down for killing Nicole just to say he got a conviction.”
The asshole would have at least tried because the Montgomerys were regarded as nothing but white trash in this town. “It’s over. You can help yourself by doing what you promised me before I left home last time and staying single, figure out why you keep gravitating to these destructive relationships.”