Not that Ford had said anything incriminating anyway.
I searched out my pen and scratched my cell phone number on the back of the card, then discreetly handed the card to Ford, making sure the backside was showing so he’d see my private number.
“If you need anything, Mr. Cornell, call me… anytime,” I said quietly.
Ford barely even looked up as he accepted the card, but when I held onto it, he lifted his eyes.
“Anytime,” I practically whispered. “One word and all this” – I motioned to the house – “ends.”
Ford almost looked over his shoulder at the house but caught himself at the last minute. “I’m sorry you had to come all the way out here for nothing, Sheriff Wells,” he said.
I released the hold on the card. He glanced at it for a second before tucking it into the pocket of his jeans.
He didn’t move, and I realized it was because he was waiting for me to leave first. I wondered if it was a sign of respect because of my position… or something else.
Either way, it didn’t matter. I’d done what I’d come to do, and I’d have to do the same thing in a few days or weeks or months when Jimmy Cornell went after his brother again. And I had no doubt Ford would silently ask me for the same thing he was asking for now.
For me to walk away.
And even though every cell in my body rebelled at the prospect of leaving him there, that was exactly what I did.
Chapter Two
Ford
My mother wasn’t around when I walked through the front door, but that was probably because she was busy getting ready for church. There weren’t any actual services this morning, but it was the place the ladies of the church’s outreach committee met daily to do their work.
Though I suspected it wasn’t so much about work as it was about knitting and dishing on the latest happenings in town.
Like the recent arrest and subsequent release of Isaac Foster, a young man who worked at a wildlife rehabilitation and sanctuary outside of town. Isaac had been accused of kidnapping his little brother from the boy’s father, but things hadn’t been quite that simple and the charges had been dropped a week later. Isaac’s boyfriend, Maddox, had been at the young man’s side the entire time, as had Maddox’s brother, Dallas, and Dallas’s boyfriend, Nolan. No doubt the fact that Maddox, like his younger brother, was suddenly in a relationship with a man would be among the many topics the ladies would discuss.
But I doubted any of the discussion would focus on how all four men had been wrongly targeted. And they sure as hell wouldn’t be bringing up the fact that my own brother and the former sheriff, my mother’s cousin, had been instrumental in all the shitty things that had happened to the Kent brothers and their lovers. My mother would make sure the conversation stayed on point… that the Kents had destroyed Uncle Curtis’s career in law enforcement and gotten my innocent brother arrested.
Except my brother was anything but innocent.
He hadn’t been in a really long time.
“What’d he give you?” I heard a coarse voice say the second I closed the door. I automatically flinched and hit the wood behind me. The small jolt had my head feeling like it was being split in two. I barely managed to stifle a moan at the blinding pain that had me shutting my good eye. I quickly reached into my pocket so Jimmy would focus on that rather than my reaction to his presence. I knew better than to defy him… or let him see my fear. I’d learned a long time ago that Jimmy didn’t need any particular reason to lash out, but going against him would definitely earn me a beating. But showing fear… that was like a drug for Jimmy. He craved it almost as much as he craved the shit he shoved up his nose or shot into his veins.
“His business card,” I said quietly as I handed the card to him. Despite the pain in my head, I found myself opening my good eye so I could look at the card. I could still feel the skin on my chin tingling where the sheriff had touched me briefly.
It’s only because his hands were cold.
I almost nodded with my inner voice because it had to be right. That was the only explanation for the strange sensation.
Not so strange, the other voice reminded me.
I silently quashed that voice as I’d had to do so often over the years.
The voice of the devil is strong within you, Ford. It will try to tempt you into sin, but God’s voice is louder if you’re willing to listen.
Reverend Page had repeated that line to me at least half a dozen times a day for nearly a year, but I still couldn’t make sense of why the only voices I ever heard in my head were his… and mine. Maybe God had known a long time ago that I was beyond saving? That the devil would win and I’d give in to the need to sin again…?