“Do you want to talk about...?”
His steely expression silenced me.
I followed him out to the car. We were quiet for most of the drive to his father’s house—a route I knew well. As the bungalow loomed in the distance, I spoke.
“You’ll tell me everything one day,” I said. “All your secrets, hopes, fears, and worst sins. You’ll pour it all into me, knowing the woman who can handle all that is you, is me. One day, you will, Cairo, and I can wait. But there is something you’re going to tell me tonight. Right now. And if you don’t, it’ll change everything between us.”
He killed the engine in the driveway. Cairo pocketed the keys, but didn’t get out. He waited.
“My grandmother was harassed, threatened, and ultimately murdered because there’s something about my farm that’s worth killing for. Is what makes de Souza farm special, the same secret of this town?”
Cairo didn’t speak for a long spell.
“Cairo, you understand that if you know why my grandmother was killed and you keep it from me—” My throat tightened. “There’s nothing worse you could do.”
“I know,” he rasped.
“Then don’t do this to us. I don’t need the details, or the history, or to know who ‘she’ is. This is about Gran. Why did she have to die?”
Expelling a long breath, for the barest second, the feral light in my beast went out. “I can’t be sure about your farm, but if I were to stack the odds, they’d swing heavy one way. The farm’s secret is all of Bedlam’s secret.”
“Wha—?”
He spun on me. “You need to understand something. People have died for knowing this, and others have killed for it. Our grandparents and their grandparents went to their grave with the promise of Bedlam forever being the random dot on the map with the weird name. If anyone knew, all this goes away. And Foundry is doing their best to make that happen.
“You will not repeat what I’m about to tell you to anyone for any reason. As far as we’re concerned, as soon as we get out of this car, this conversation didn’t happen.”
“I understand, baby. Please, just tell me.”
He reached for me, stopped short, and dropped his hand.
“There’s only one reason someone would come for your grandmother’s land as aggressively as AgriProspects did.
“In Bedlam,” he began, “the town that used to be Crystal Canyon, there are diamonds.”
I sat there long after he left, my sobs the only sound breaking the silence.
Chapter Seven
Cairo came back for me almost an hour later.
The lights were dim in the house. Stepping in, I saw it was because a fair amount were burned out or flickering.
Stale beer hit my nose. Pushing down the urge to cringe was easy since I didn’t have the energy to do it.
In Bedlam there are diamonds.
What did this mean?
There were diamonds on my farm? For years, someone or someones tried to drive Gran out—get her locked up, and us sent away, for greed.
The whole thing made no sense, and yet, everything was falling into place.
Why Gran was so determined to leave this legacy to me and Ivy. Why people tried to take it from her.
But it wasn’t just her. I was supposed to believe our whole town was sitting on a treasure trove and out there was a she employing the Bedlam Boys to protect the secret and take out anyone who brings unwanted attention on us?
Cairo led me through the sparse wicker-chairs living room, holding tight to my hand.
“Why—?”
“Don’t ask me questions, Rain. I can’t answer them.”
“But why do you have to collect payments from people if what you said is true?” I plowed on. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
“We don’t get a cut,” he hissed.
“Why?”
“Rain—”
“We’re alone, Cairo. Why can’t—?”
“Because we’re not.” He whirled on me, then his gaze traveled up. “We’re not alone, and when we are, I still won’t talk about this. Look at me, Rainey. This is serious. You don’t know the danger I put us both in by telling you, so I didn’t. You don’t know. Nod if you’ve already forgotten.”
Slowly, I nodded.
“Good. Dad keeps his files in the office. Stay close to me,” he said, taking off upstairs. “Don’t wander off.”
“I want to see your room.”
“You’re having a lot of trouble listening tonight.”
I was having trouble with everything that night. Trouble with the thought the place I slopped around in the pigpen and chased chickens might hold riches in its soil. Trouble with my gran becoming a casualty in the battle to keep it in our family, and me taking on the fight clueless and unprepared.
Did she know?
Would she have worked so back-breaking hard her whole life if the option to retire in the French Riviera was beneath her fingertips?
But if she didn’t know, how did Andrew Clein and AgriProspects?
It suddenly made sense why a dying business came for us so hard. It was a stroke of luck too late, they didn’t get what they were after in the end.