“Right,” I say. “Of course he was, and hoping I failed.”
“There was no pass or fail. Either way, he got to me. Either way, he knew that I’d know he called you. He knows that would distract me or even trigger me into one of my old attacks.”
“He still wants to make you the fall guy.”
“Or he doesn’t,” Eric counters.
“Eric,” I say, pressing my fingers to my temples. “You’re making my head spin.” I drop my hands to the cushion. “What’s his plan? What’s his endgame?”
“To keep my focus on him. That man would not try to kill me and sit at arm’s reach where I could just end him. He wouldn’t come at me through you, knowing I just saved your life, when he’s sitting within arm’s reach. Not unless he desperately needed me to stay focused on him.”
Understanding fills me. “While he buries something he doesn’t want you to find.”
“While Isaac buries it. Walker saw my father arrive at the plant after we left. He met with Isaac and was furious with him.”
“For letting me live and you get away,” I say.
“For digging a grave that wasn’t ours. For digging his grave. My father is all about my father. Make no mistake. He’s protecting no one but himself.”
“Yes, but you retreated. Your history says that you’ll leave and wash your hands of them. Why come after you?”
“Because you don’t retreat from what you feel is a part of you because of your father, and because you matter to me. He feels like you’ll influence what I do next. He needs to influence me, not you. He needs to push me to the point that he knows I’m done with them and then I influence you. I convince you to retreat.”
“They don’t know we’re together.”
His lips thin. “They know. They sent you after me. Isaac probably knew the baby was mine. I’m guessing he followed you to my cottage that night. Fucker might have even watched us.”
I shiver and hug myself. “I’m back to being creeped out by this family.” I shake my head. “But why send me after you at all, if they want you out of this?”
“To frame me and kill you just as we’ve said, but it backfired. This is plan B.” Before I can ask him what plan B means exactly, he grabs his phone and places it on speaker, and in one ring I hear Blake say, “Good fucking morning. You first or me first?”
“My father is trying to draw the attention to himself. He’s the distraction. Tell me you found whatever he doesn’t want me to find?”
“Not only did we fail,” Blake says. “All the little Kingston assholes are tucked into bed in Denver, and showing no signs of movement.”
“That coded message. Anything on it?”
“Nothing yet. Today. I will get you the answer today.” Eric hangs up on him and turns to the window, crossing the room to stand in front of it.
I waste no time joining him. “If I go to your father—”
“No,” he says, turning to face me. “You will not go to him.” His tone is absolute, a steel wall, but it’s a wall that I have to bust through. I’m the one who can buy time for us to do what we need to do to end this. I’m the one who can make his father feel that he’s got the power he craves, the power to distract Eric. I’m the one who has to go stick my hand in a tiger’s cage and pray it doesn’t get bitten off because I'm the one who won't kill the tiger. You don't come back from murder. I'm not putting Eric in a position yet again to have to remember that. Not when even he sees the way his father pulls his strings.
“I have to do this,” I say. “I’m going to do this.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Harper
“You will not go to see my father.” Eric’s words are just as hard as moments before, pure steel and determination. A command I pretend doesn’t exist.
“I’ll let him think that he’s bought time to hide his secrets,” I say, reaching for the reason I know a man of his genius can’t ignore. “I’ll call my mother. I’ll use her to convince him I really have turned.”
Eric pulls me to him, his body as hard as his words. “Now I say to you what I wasn’t going to say to you. Plan B could very well be another place and time that you die, and I get blamed.”
“I get that. Believe me, that possibility is screaming in my head right now but if I don’t go and see him, we drive him to plan C. What is plan C?”
“The same as plan B. Get to me. I’m the bastard who was forced on him and ultimately that he couldn’t control. Even you, he chose to bring into his life, through your mother.”