Chapter 35

SARAH

“This came for you while you were playing nurse to our guy,” Cleve said as Sarah entered the kitchen the next morning. She glanced at the package he nodded to as she tied her apron around her body.

“How is our sexy deputy?” Cleve asked.

She frowned at the plainly wrapped package as she pulled her hair into a bun. There was no address on the flat box, just her name, and Sarah felt a tight knot of apprehension in her stomach the longer she looked at it. Wetting her lips nervously, she turned the package over, trying to find some clue about its origins. She felt Cleve’s eyes on her and looked up at him and attempted to smile.

“He is going to be discharged today. Grandma has been baking and cooking all his favorites so that she can spoil him when he gets home.” Though he had a few weeks of recovery ahead of him, the doctor was happy with his progress, especially when the MRI showed severe bruising on his spine but no other injuries. His vital signs had improved through the night, and he had been awake and grumbling about the oatmeal breakfast when Sarah had gone to see him before she went to the bakery.

“Oh, good. I’ll make him some treats and I’ll gladly watch over him as he sleeps,” Cleve teased.

“I’ll gladly glue your eyes shut while you do it,” Sarah retorted sweetly, making Cleve laugh.

“Are you going to open it, love?” Cleve asked, nodding at the package.

Sarah shook her head. “No.”

She dialed Seth’s number and waited for him to answer.

“Sar?”

“Can you come around to the bakery this morning?”

“I’ll be there in about twenty minutes?”

“Thanks, fratello.” She pushed the package to the end of the counter and helped Cleve fulfill their orders for the day, her mind in turmoil about the unease she felt about the parcel. Sarah tried her best to ignore it, but the drab brown paper kept drawing her eyes, and when she burned her hand for the third time at the hot oven door, she swore in Italian as she threw a cloth over it.

“Ciao, sorella,” Seth greeted her as he put his hat on a stool before lifting a cookie from the tray it was cooling on. He groaned loudly as he reached for another. Sarah allowed him the liberty because he had taken time from his shift to be there. He reached for a third before asking her, “Why am I here?”

She pushed the package over to him still covered in the cloth, not wanting to physically touch it.

He raised an eyebrow at her as he pulled the cloth off gingerly, and then frowned at the package beneath it. “What is this? Have you opened this?”

“No,” Sarah said, shaking her head.

He flipped the package over and quickly slid a knife under the tape with the flat edge, opening the flap. He looked into the gap, shook what looked like photos into his hand and Sarah gasped at the flash of murder in his green eyes. Dropping the photos onto the counter, Seth frowned as he spread them, careful to touch just the edges of them. When Sarah tried to see them, he blocked her view with his body.

She gasped when she caught a glimpse of one before he gathered them up and put them back in the wrapping. The image of Gabe’s silver pickup truck was highlighted by the moonlight as it stood between the tall oak trees beside the lake. Gabe was standing between her legs, she could identify him by his broad shoulders, but his head was cut off, and lying beside his feet on the ground.

Sarah shuddered. “Let me see the others—”

“No.” Seth put the packet inside his vest and hooked his fingers into the shoulder straps. “This confirms that the guy Gabe shot in the woods is Christiano.” He cupped her cheek tenderly. “You need to be very careful, Sar.”

“I’ve got Cleve and I’ll stay back here…” Her voice faded when Seth shook his head.

“I’m a black belt in MMA. I can help with protecting her,” Cleve said softly, leaning on the other side of the counter.

Seth nodded. “Good. But you can’t watch her all the time, even here. And you will need to do the errand runs so that Sarah doesn’t leave the bakery.”

Cleve released a heavy breath as he nodded, running a hand through his dark blond spikes. “So what happens in the meantime? It’s not like you can be here all the time, especially when you’re on shift.”

Seth pursed his lips as he nodded slowly, and Sarah could see his wheels spinning as he stared at the counter with narrowed eyes.

“Seth?”

“Mi dia un minute, Sarah.”

With a frustrated sigh, Sarah turned to the oven when the timer went off, jerked the door open, grabbed a glove, and removed the hot tray, placing a new tray of cookies in the oven. She swatted Seth’s hand away from the hot tray and handed him a cookie that had cooled down instead. He chewed absently, reached for his phone, and softly tapped the corner on the counter. With a muttered, “Fuck,” he unlocked the screen and clicked one button.

“Can you be at the bakery in ten? I need to get back on patrol.” No niceties. No requests. Just a command. He ignored Sarah’s glare as he told her in the voice she detested, “I’ll pick you up after shift. Don’t go anywhere, especially alone.”

“Seth! I don’t need a babysitter,” Sarah protested.

He looked at her, then glanced at Cleve before looking back at Sarah. “You might not ~want~ a babysitter, Sar, but for the sake of Amelia, you ~need~ one.”

“That is a fucking low blow, ~fratello~,” Sarah accused, drawling the word ~brother~ with her sarcasm.

When he looked back up at Sarah, he didn’t hide the fear that made his eyes as dark as pine needles. “I don’t want to lose you again, Sarah. Never again.”

He turned his head when Deputy Carrigan Seeff called him from the main area. With a quick kiss to her hair, he went through the doors and went to meet the deputy at the outer counter. Sarah watched her brother through the window in the kitchen door as he spoke to his colleague, and she sighed. She was never sure if it was a good thing Christiano got away all those years ago. The time had only allowed Seth’s anger to simmer and become even more deadly.

GABRIEL

Seth was unusually quiet as they drove toward Gabe’s house, the atmosphere was comfortable, but Gabe knew his friend well enough to know that something was bothering him. Besides the general questions about how he was feeling and what the doctor said, Gabe had allowed Seth to settle into his silence, the soft buzz of their colleagues’ radio chatter accompanying them.

“Did you…?” Gabe nodded at his truck in the driveway.

Seth nodded. “Sarah and I brought it home while you were in surgery.”

“Thanks.” He glanced at his friend before he opened the door. “Join me for coffee and pecan brownies?”

“I won’t refuse Grandma’s brownies.”

Gabe opened the container with the brownies by jamming it against his body with the cast and then placed it on the kitchen table. He took a seat as Seth placed a cup in front of him and then sat opposite him. They chewed in silence for a few minutes, moaning at the decadent flavor of pecan nuts and smooth dark chocolate. Gabe narrowed his eyes as he watched his friend. Seth had not met his eyes once since they met up at the hospital.

“I need you to watch Sarah while Carrigan and I are on shift. Cleve has MMA training, but I know what you’re capable of, even with one arm and a fucked up back.” Eventually, Seth looked at him fully. At Gabe’s raised eyebrow, Seth reached into his vest and took out a brown package. “She received these this morning. I’m going to take it down to Boswell when I get back to the department.”

Gabe bit his lip in impatience as Seth slowly spread the photos across the space between them on the table. His head reared back as he glanced at Seth and then back at the photos in shock, each one taken of him and Sarah over the last few weeks. At the bakery, at the lake, at the church after the christening, at the door of her apartment. And then there were photos of Sarah before Gabe met her—walking to work, on break in the alley behind the restaurant, taking Amelia to school—

“Shitting monkey-fucking, bluebells in a frozen piss bucket!” Gabe cursed as he picked up the last photo. He looked up at Seth, his heart was pounding so hard he could feel it in his fingertips, the paper shaking in his hand, his lungs pumping so hard to expel the breaths that he could feel it in his bruised back. “You better hope you get to him before I do, Sethford, because even your exemplary tracking skills won’t find his motherfucking bits when I’m done with him. He’s fucked with my family one too many times.”