Ryland Family Farm

Outside of Los Angeles, California

 

Wren sat in a car outside her father’s studio, watching the shadows dance on the walls through the cracks in the barn’s wooden slats. He needed to have the place weatherproofed again. And the roof needed some new shingles.

Not that that was what she was there for.

“Just go in and talk to him. I’m telling you, Wilde was just playing with you.”

Wren brushed a hand over her cheek. “I know. But why is it so hard for me to do this?”

“Because he’s your father.”

Cormac was right on the button with that one, but he was usually right whenever he assessed someone’s reactions in a situation. She supposed that came with his profiler training. He was an FBI agent whose job it was to find serial killers like Devin Wilde. If he wasn’t able to guess that Wilde had gotten under her skin and why, she’d worry.

“All right,” she said, a sigh slipping from between her lips. “I’m going in.”

“One step at a time.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

She disconnected the call, a part of her wishing Cormac was there with her. If he were by her side, she’d be stronger. She’d want to look like she was in control, like she knew what the hell she was doing. She’d want to impress him. Without him there, she was afraid she’d fall apart.

She’d already fallen apart the last few times she’d attempted to do this.

Three months ago, she’d gone to see Wilde in prison because she knew he knew who killed her mother twenty-eight years ago. Instead of telling her, he’d played games, told her that her father knew more than he’d ever told her. And he implied that he once knew both her mother and her father.

None of it made sense to her. Wilde was in prison, but he knew all these things—he’d even told her that a hitman was after one of her operatives during the Murphy case, and it’d proven to be true! How could he do that?

She needed to know the truth, but she was scared that knowing the truth would turn everything she thought she knew about her life, about her parents and her past, upside down.

Was the truth really worth all this?

She took a deep breath and stepped out of her car. The barn door was standing slightly ajar, and, as she approached it, her father moved into that gap between the inside and out. He was a good-looking man, her father. Nearly sixty, he still had dark hair that had streaks of white and silver through it, still had the same intense blue eyes that she’d inherited. He was still strong, his body toned by the constant motion required to make his art. His clothes were a little tattered and splattered with paint, but that only added to the mysterious air around him, the romantic air.

“I was wondering when you were going to come inside.”

“You knew I was here?”

“Heard you pull up fifteen minutes ago.”

“Sorry.” She reached up to kiss his cheek as she brushed past him and walked into the studio, noting the new works that were set out to dry among his many paintings. “Working hard?”

“This is the fourth visit in so many weeks. Am I dying?”

“No. I just have more time on my hands with this new job.”

“Yeah? Well, that’s news to me.”

She glanced over at him. “You don’t like my visits?”

“Sure I do. But I have to wonder what’s really inspiring them.”

“What do you mean? Can’t a daughter just come see her father?”

His eyes moved slowly over the length of her. “Not you, Wren. I know you better than that.”

“That’s harsh.” She picked up a paintbrush and ran her fingers over the horsehair that was stained by his color choices. “I just wanted to spend some time with you.”

“No. You’re fishing for something. Don’t you think it’d be easier if you just asked?”

Wren set the paintbrush down and slipped her arms behind her back as she turned to truly regard him. Her father was something of a hippie—born into the movement, but too young to join it—after the hippies had all died out and gone their own way, back to the world they’d shunned for most of the sixties. Bohemian is what he called himself, but he was a hippie. Nature and disgust for all things political were his thing. And he’d raised his children that way, but only one had chosen his way of life over the structured worlds of finance and law.

Wren wasn’t that one.

“Do you know a man named Devin Wilde?”

She watched his face closely, waiting for a reaction. He was still by the door, leaning against the wall, his arms loosely crossed over his chest, his face hidden by shadows. Tension shot through his shoulders, his back stiffening slightly, his arms tightening over his chest. And he made a sound, like the whoosh someone might make when punched in the stomach.

“Why would you ask me that? Of course I know his name! He’s the one they thought killed your mother.”

His tone was low. Controlled. Fake.

“Did you know him back in the day? Before my mother died?”

“No.” He looked up, light shining in those blue eyes. “Why would you ask me that?”

“Because he knows things—”

Her father charged across the studio, grabbing her by her upper arms. “Tell me you haven’t been to see him!” he demanded, shaking her slightly, his face so close to hers that his spittle was falling across her cheeks. “Tell me you aren’t talking to a psychotic killer!”

“He says he knows you. That he knew my mother back in the day.”

He jerked her again before letting go so quickly that she fell backward, smacking her hip against the rough wooden edge of his countertop.

“Get out,” he said in a low growl.

“Daddy—”

“Get out of my studio, and don’t come back here! I will not put up with these kinds of accusations!”

“Daddy, I just want the truth!”

“Get out!”

She’d never seen him like that. Her father abhorred violence. It was one of the reasons she’d never wondered if he was capable of the kind of violence that had taken her mother’s life. She could never make herself believe it, but the pain in her upper arms where he’d grabbed her was telling her something else. And the look on his face as he watched her back away…there was only one word for it. Homicidal.

She turned and rushed out, running right into the arms of the youngest of her older brothers, Phoenix.

“Wren? What are you doing here?”

She shook her head, tears suddenly spilling from her eyes. “He’s lied. All these years, he’s lied!”

“What are you talking about?”

She shook her head, glancing over her shoulder. Her father was back in the doorway of the barn, watching her with those same eyes that were so filled with rage that she no longer recognized them.

“He knows who killed her. I know he does. He’s lied to us all this time!”

She got in her car and drove off, fear and confusion turning her thoughts into a jumble of panic, her nerves raw, her hands shaking so intensely that it was a miracle she could keep the car straight in the lane.

Why did her father turn on her that way? Why was he so angry? What wound did she find, what scab had she ripped off?

What did her father know about her mother’s murder?

It seemed the only one with answers was Devin Wilde.