Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 80176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 401(@200wpm)___ 321(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 401(@200wpm)___ 321(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
“No,” I refused to let Evander see him.
It was bad.
Really bad.
“I’ll do it,” Travis muttered.
Then he was gone.
And I held onto Evander as he tried to pull away.
“Please?”
Evander’s face lifted, and he stared into my eyes.
Something in them must’ve struck home, because he nodded and waited.
Travis appeared moments later, the black draped form cradled in his arms.
His muscles were straining and veins were pulsing in his neck.
Gertie was heavy.
Travis never once uttered a sound.
Not when he stepped down into the hole.
Not when he gently squatted down.
And not when he laid the unmoving form into the hole I’d half dug.
Evander pulled away from me and looked down into the hole.
His shoulders were slumped, and he was staring down into it like his heart was breaking.
I took hold of his hand and brought it up to my mouth, placing a single kiss to the knuckles before tucking the big hand into my chest and clutching it tightly.
“Please cover him up.”
Those were the last words Evander said the rest of the night.
***
Two days later
A lot had happened in two days.
The Texas Ranger, Griffin Storm, had shut down the Hostel Police Department.
Until a special election could be held to elect a new police chief, no one would set foot inside of the station again.
The information that a computer analyst had been able to scrounge up on not only Fowler, but also Walter and Balthazar, had been pretty damn impressive.
The man, Jack from a business called Free, had gathered the information in less than eighteen hours.
His partner and wife, Winter, had also been a major player in finding the information.
Using the information he’d been provided, Texas Ranger Griffin Storm had decided that Fowler not only wouldn’t be getting his job back, but he’d also be facing charges—and a lot of them.
Some of those charges related to his involvement in manufacturing charges that led to the false imprisonment a man following a conviction for crimes that he did not commit—that man being my man.
Another man named Wolf—Travis’ former brother-in-law—had also arrived. He’d put his skills to use and had focused in on Evander’s brother, Walter.
After a search of his home, as well as an examination of his cell phone records and eyewitness accounts, it was determined that Walter had been in cahoots with Balthazar—providing him with information and services that only a dirty police officer could provide.
And Balthazar’s one remaining employee, a man named Ramirez, had copped a plea, according to Travis’s understanding.
All of the information we received was secondhand, and only came to me by way of Rafe and Travis, who came by daily to check on Evander. An Evander who’d done nothing but remain silent over the last few days.
I’d stayed at Evander’s side through all of it—learning that his brother was dirty. Learning that he’d been exonerated of all the charges that he had been convicted of previously, thanks to information that was gained from the statement that Ramirez gave when he took his plea deal. And finally, when he learned that the State of Texas would be contacting him to discuss compensation for falsely imprisoning him.
Which had been a hard pill to swallow.
Ramirez could’ve just as easily given up this information four years ago, keeping Evander out of prison.
But he hadn’t, and now a man had four years of his life stolen from him, and there wasn’t a damn thing that would ever make that acceptable, not even a payout from the state.
“Is there anything else?” I asked Rafe.
Rafe looked at me, studying my eyes, and then shook his head.
“Went over to your place and cleaned up,” he hesitated. “Took care of the animals again. Brought them over to Travis’ place, though. Didn’t think bringing the dog here would be smart.”
Rafe’s call on that was a good one.
Evander was devastated.
He was lost without Gertie, and I couldn’t blame him.
“I have something else I have to take care of, and I likely won’t be back in town for about two weeks. That leaves the crew shorthanded with Evander out, too.” He weighed what he had to say next. “I think you should tell him he’s needed at work. Maybe returning to his normal routine will help.”
I doubted it, but I’d try.
I’d do anything for Evander.
Chapter 29
Someone asked me where I saw myself in ten years. I told them I didn’t even know what I wanted to make for dinner.
-Text from Kennedy to Evander
Kennedy
Three weeks later
Everything was back to normal—or at least as normal as you could get.
Hostel was a small town.
It hadn’t taken long for the town to learn that Evander had been innocent of all charges.
It’d taken even less time for them to hear that Evander had beaten someone to death with a baseball bat—though beaten was a strong word. Really, he’d just hit him, but it’d been enough to kill him in one blow. It didn’t matter to the town that Balthazar was a drug-dealing pimp, and had been in his house uninvited and had just shot his dog when Evander had done the deed.