Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 58408 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 292(@200wpm)___ 234(@250wpm)___ 195(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 58408 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 292(@200wpm)___ 234(@250wpm)___ 195(@300wpm)
“Don’t you ever,” he says, his voice a razor, “come into my home and start accusin’ me of shit I haven’t done.”
I think he might actually be telling me the truth, and that scares me even more because if he didn’t know what Harper was doing, then we could be in deep.
He doesn’t let me go on.
“Ever think they’re playin’ you to get what they want? I would have known if Harper was into that kind of shit. This is them messin’ with you and you fallin’ for it.
My nails dig half-moons into my palms. “Oh, fuck off, Knox. Maybe the real truth is you not wanting to admit she might have been lying to you, too. That maybe she wasn’t the perfect person and you all got fooled.”
I hate saying that because I love Harper. She mattered to me. But she could never do any wrong. She was fiery and beautiful, and people loved her, but that meant she could get away with whatever she wanted. Maybe this is one of those times.
His fist hits the table. I flinch. He shoves his face closer to mine. “Harper was not in bed with Ralston. She was better than that, better than you. If you’re gonna stand here and piss on her grave, then maybe you should just get the fuck out.”
His words sting. They hit me like a knife to the chest. Okay, I came in here looking for a fight, and he gave me one, but the fact that he is refusing to even consider what I’m saying hurts. It hurts because now I’m tangled up in something I didn’t ask for.
“Gladly,” I snap. “Should’ve never come.”
My hands are shaking as I shoulder past him, my heart pinging between rage and something brittle. I make it halfway across the room before I feel the tears sneaking out, hot and traitorous. I don’t look back, not once—not even when he yells after me, “Shut the fuckin’ door.”
I do.
I swing it closed with a blinding rage.
Then, I get the hell out of there.
6
For hours, I go over the documents, and it doesn’t take me long to figure out just how Harper was involved. She was using her father’s, my uncle’s, cattle business to make money for these assholes. Using the books to cover up fake sales, depositing dirty money, inflating invoices, and basically cleaning dirty money by running it through the farm.
Not only are these men making money, they’re doing it in a genius way.
Suddenly, Harper’s death feels very wrong. Did she really just have an accident, or was it something far worse?
Fear clutches my chest as I go through the paperwork, going over all the fake sales and invoices, and as the night goes on, I scribble all over copies I made, figuring out just how much money she was running through this business. An alarming amount.
Did my uncle know?
The wind howls against the old farmhouse, and in moments, it’s pouring with rain. I’m not entirely sure this house can handle rain, but I guess I’m about to find out. I move into the kitchen, switching on the fluorescent and shuffling the mess of paperwork into piles by subject. The harder I try to organize, the faster my heart beats. This isn’t only about Harper. This is about the hole in the world she left, and how her absence reverberates through everything, even my hands, shaking as I hold the evidence. The money, the signatures, her name—her goddamn handwriting, loopy and ridiculous, on every other line.
I’m halfway through circling another false cattle order when the front door slams open and Knox steps in, dripping wet, wild-eyed with a fury I can taste from all the way over here. He’s soaked—his jacket, black tee, even his boots squelch. His hair, usually well put together in a messy kind of way, is stuck to his forehead, making him look so dark and dangerous, I have to swallow. There’s a bottle dangling from his hand, bourbon, almost empty.
“You’re here,” he rasps, like it’s a threat.
“Where the hell else would I be?” I mutter.
He advances on me, every inch of him vibrating, and when he’s close, I see that his eyes are glassy and his jaw is so tight the muscles bunch in his cheek. He smells like rain and whiskey, the heady mix making my entire body flinch, then soften.
His eyes move to all the papers.
“For fuck’s sake, Callie. What the hell are you doing? She wasn’t part of this, you need to back off.”
Oh, how wrong he is.
I laugh bitterly and wave my hands over the papers. “You’re wrong. So wrong. Harper’s signature is all over these, proof that she was involved. She was cleaning money for Ralston, she was running his dirty business through the farm. Don’t believe me, it’s all here.”