Justice Divided (Cowboy Justice Association Book 10) Read online

  If Logan had seen even a spark of emotion in Wade’s dark, dead eyes he might have tried to softball the news. Soften the blow a little.

  But he saw nothing there but a blank gaze. Emotionless and cold. Wade had shown he cared little to nothing for his friends and family. They were there simply to orbit around him, only good for his use or amusement. He acted the part of the devoted big brother but he used those emotions for his own gain. He didn’t actually feel anything.

  “Lyle is dead.” Logan paused for a moment to let the news sink in. “He was shot while jogging in the park. I’ve been asked back to Corville to help with the investigation.”

  A corner of Wade’s lips turned up. “Always the hero, Logan. You swoop in at the last minute and get the bad guy. Your story never changes.”

  Neither did Wade’s.

  “I can see you’re heartbroken about your younger brother,” Logan mocked. “No concern for your family? No questions as to why someone would shoot a seemingly innocent family man?”

  “Those are questions for you to answer, my brother. I’m sure you’ll find out why and who. After all, you’re the great Logan Wright.”

  “Aaron should have just had the warden tell you the news. I’m wasting my time here.”

  “What is it you want me to say? That I’m sad? Death is inevitable. You can’t cheat it. It’s chasing all of us. Some of us just run faster than others.”

  Death did seem to be chasing Wade. He looked older than before. Far older. His skin was pale from lack of sun and he’d lost weight, making his face appear gaunt and lined. His lips looked thinner and his cheekbones sharper. He was a far cry from the soft, rich businessman he’d been a decade earlier.

  “How fast are you running, Wade?”

  “Fast enough.” Wade stroked his chin and smiled. “I am sad about Lyle. He was a good brother but a stupid man. He didn’t understand anything. He wasn’t like you and I.”

  He was at it again. Equating the two of them.

  “What do we understand? Enlighten me.”

  “We understand that it all comes down to power. It’s not money or love or friendship or whatever god you pray to. It’s power. That’s the only thing that matters, and it’s the only thing that’s mattered for thousands of years. Study history and you’ll see.”

  “You’ve had a lot of free time to do that?”

  Chuckling, Wade sat back in his wooden chair. “That’s the thing about prison. You have nothing but time. But you know I’m right because you love power, too. That’s why you’re a cop, brother. You want power over people like me. You think I’m less than you but we’re the same, really. We both want power. We just go about getting it a little differently.”

  Logan’s stomach lurched with nausea at what he was hearing. It was sickening, the way Wade was speaking. He really didn’t give a shit about anything or anyone. How had Logan missed the signs all those years? Maybe he simply hadn’t wanted to see. Of course, now Wade wasn’t trying to hide. He didn’t have to camouflage himself and fit in with regular society. He could openly be the monster that he was.

  “Did you feel powerful when you took a life?”

  That question seemed to snap Wade to attention and he leaned forward, so close to the glass that his breath left a circle of steam. “That’s the ultimate power. Like God.”

  “You think you’re like God?”

  Wade shook his head. “I know I’m like God. I take life and I can grant it. Just like you, brother. You decide every day who lives and who dies. The ultimate judge.”

  “I don’t.” Logan couldn’t even fathom what Wade was talking about. “I’m not a cop anymore. I’m just a consultant.”

  “Yet here you are. Looking for a killer. Why are you here? You hate Corville and the residents hate you. Why did you go back?”

  Logan had been asking himself that very question all morning. “I did it for Lyle. He didn’t deserve to be shot in cold blood like a dog in the street.”

  “How do you know?” Wade shot back. “Maybe Lyle was a terrible person. He might have had a secret life that no one knew about. He certainly was weak. He and Aaron are two of the weakest people I know. It’s survival of the fittest and they’re just cannon fodder.”

  “They’ve supported you all these years. They could have cut you off from the family funds but they didn’t.”

  “Only because they wanted to try and save the Bryson family name,” Wade argued, shaking his head. “They didn’t do it because they loved me. They hate me. They loathe me. No, they did it because they want to believe that there’s something to save with the Bryson name.”

  “And there isn’t? You killed to clean up the family.”

  “I did, but I also knew that there was more than one simple man could handle. Evil runs rampant in the world. Protect your own, brother. It’s a cruel life.”

  Wade was truly delusional if he thought killing innocent people was ridding the world of evil. But then he’d always wanted to be the hero. He’d wanted the adulation of the crowds.

  “You sound like a crazy person. Do you listen to yourself anymore?”

  Wade threw back his head and laughed, causing several of the guards to place their hands on their weapons and look more alert. “Not only do I listen to myself, I have others that listen to me. I’m something of a celebrity, you know. People follow me around and want just a tidbit of wisdom from me. Women write to me and want to have my babies. They’d do whatever I asked of them. You should see the letters I get. It’s really quite amazing.”

  That was the most disgusting thing Logan had ever heard. Murder groupies. He’d heard about them of course but had never met one. Wade would be in heaven playing in someone’s head like that, convincing them of all sorts of horrible things. Manson-like in his influence.

  “Since I’ve delivered the news, I think I’ll go. I’d like to say it was nice to see you, Wade, but it wasn’t. Not even close.”

  His statement didn’t seem to bother the other man. He was still smiling as if he didn’t have a care in the world. That might be true. He certainly didn’t have the worries of other people – jobs, bills, family.

  “It was nice to see you, brother. How’s that sweet little wife of yours? Ava was always a pretty thing.”

  Logan didn’t like talking to Wade but he liked Wade talking about Ava even less. He didn’t even want Wade thinking about Ava. But he couldn’t show that it bothered him either. Not bothering to reply, he hung up the phone and gave Wade a mock salute before standing. What an incredible fucking waste of time this visit had turned out to be. As predicted, Wade didn’t give a shit about Lyle.

  He only cared about himself.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Jesus, I’m fine.”

  Logan cracked open the newspaper and buried his nose in it, effectively shutting out Ava’s questions. She’d wanted to know how his visit with Wade had gone but he didn’t want to talk about it. He was obviously still processing what had happened but Ava was no saint. She was impatient and she wanted to know. He’d barely spoken since he’d returned and she was beginning to worry. Had it been that traumatic?

  “Are you sure? Because you ordered onion rings and you hate onions.”

  They’d decided to get dinner at the local hamburger joint so that neither of them would have to cook. Brianna and Colt were currently coloring in giant dinosaurs on the placemats, one green and the other blue. They’d ordered chicken fingers that they wouldn’t eat and fries that they would. The one concession to nutrition was a glass of milk. Ava was a failure as a mother when it came to feeding her children. They were without a doubt the pickiest eaters in the country. Possibly the entire world. Skinny as hell, they barely ate anything at all, so she was just so gosh darn grateful when they did that she wanted to weep half of the time. The other half she just begged them to try a bite. Just a bite.

  They rarely did.

  “I ordered them for the kids.”

  “They hate onions too. They hate everything. What
’s going on? You won’t talk to me and that worries me.”

  Logan glanced at the twins merrily scribbling away. “This isn’t a conversation for little ears.”

  Okay, that made sense.

  “Fine. We can talk about it later. How about we discuss what needs to happen next? Where do we go from here?”

  “Interviews,” Logan answered promptly, folding the newspaper and setting it aside. “Neighbors, friends, coworkers, business associates. Anyone and everyone. I also want to talk to the woman that found the body, too. I want to clear her as a suspect as soon as possible. We also need to interview Mary. For real, this time. But we’ll wait to do that until we’ve combed through their financials and talked to their friends. Then we’ll know what to ask. Right now I’d only have general questions.”

  “Do I get to do any of this?”

  “Maybe,” Logan conceded. “Although you’re most valuable studying those files. Did you see anything today?”

  Ava shrugged and sipped her iced tea. “I only have the telephone records so far. They’re both addicted to their phones from what I can see. Terrible habit. Anyway, they text all the time and rarely take calls. There are several numbers that they text over and over again, so I think we should ask for those messages. We already have their texts sent to each other and I’ll start to go through those next. If they were having marital issues I’m sure it will show up there.”

  Logan smiled and reached out to ruffle Brianna’s curls. “If we’re not too tired we can start after the kids go to bed.”

  Brianna paused her coloring and looked up at her father. “I don’t want to go to bed. I want to sleep in the treehouse.”

  The twins were too young to remember the treehouse but they’d heard stories. Logan had built a much smaller one at their current home, but the entire trip Brianna and Colt had talked about the treehouse as if it was something magical where fairies and wizards lived.

  “Not tonight, ladybug,” Logan said, dropping a kiss on his daughter’s forehead. “We’re definitely going to sleep out there one night, all of us, but not tonight.”

  Colt frowned, looking exactly like Logan when he did. “I want to sleep in the treehouse, too.”

  “And we will, just not tonight.”

  “Why not?” Brianna piped up. When she wanted her way, she was a determined child. “Why can’t we do it tonight?”

  To Logan’s credit, he was patient despite the crappy day he’d had. “Because it’s going to rain and that means we can’t go out on the deck and look at the stars. We need a better night for it.”

  “So when it doesn’t rain, we can sleep in the treehouse?” Colt asked. “What if it never stops raining?”

  This was the age for question after question. They could make Ava a little insane but at least this time she could just sit back and let her husband deal with it.

  “It won’t rain forever,” Logan assured his son, but Colt still looked concerned.

  “It could. In Seattle it rains all the time.”

  “This isn’t Seattle. It’s much drier here.”

  Colt didn’t look happy but Brianna seemed appeased. She reached across and placed her blue crayon on the table and reached for a red one.

  “You promise?” Colt asked. “We’ll definitely sleep in the treehouse?”

  “We definitely will,” Logan vowed, crossing his heart with his hand. “We’ll play games, and tell ghost stories–”

  “I’m not sure about the ghost stories,” Ava broke in. “Maybe just games.”

  “But we have to have ghost stories,” Brianna said, signing her name with the bright red crayon. Her masterpiece was complete. “When you camp, you tell ghost stories. I saw it on television.”

  As far as Ava was concerned, that wasn’t the case.

  “I think ghost stories can be optional,” she replied, keeping her tone neutral. With any luck, the kids wouldn’t remember as long as she and Logan kept them busy. They didn’t need two scared children who wouldn’t fall asleep for the next few weeks. If Logan told a scary story, he could darn well stay up with the kids when they had nightmares.

  “Optional ghost stories,” Logan said, nodding in agreement but his eyes were twinkling with mischief. Sometimes he was more trouble than the kids. “And popcorn. And pajamas. We’ll have so much fun, but not tonight.”

  Colt scrunched up his nose as he surveyed his green dinosaur. “We had fun at Grandma’s house. She made chocolate chip cookies.”

  Great. More sugar.

  “That’s good. Grandma makes delicious cookies.”

  Although Ava’s favorite was oatmeal.

  “Then Grandpa came over,” Colt said, reaching for a yellow crayon. He started coloring the dinosaur feet. “They yelled and then Grandpa left.”

  Whoa. That was…news. She’d known her parents were having issues, the divorce becoming contentious. But she hadn’t thought that they’d be arguing in front of the twins. She’d have to speak to her mother about that. Ava and Logan were very strict about not letting Brianna and Colt hear them raise their voices. It was okay to respectfully disagree and debate, but losing one’s temper in front of the twins was a no-no.

  “I’m sure Grandpa had something to do.” Ava glanced at Logan who wasn’t looking happy either. “And you shouldn’t listen in to other people’s conversations. It’s not polite.”

  Brianna took a drink of her milk, a white mustache appearing above her lip. It was adorable.

  “They were loud, Mommy.”

  His brows raised, Logan shrugged. The kids did have a point.

  “Sometimes people get angry but that doesn’t mean they don’t love each other.”

  The good Lord knew she’d been pissed off at Logan more than a few times, but she loved him more than she could even comprehend.

  Apparently Brianna and Colt were bored with the subject because they started peppering their parents with questions about what they were going to be doing for the rest of the summer. Were they going to stay here with Grandma? Were they going on vacation or back home?

  Brianna had been hinting that she wanted to go back to Disney World. Colt wanted to go camping and see bears.

  Their meals were placed in front of them and Logan’s plate was piled high with onion rings. They’d both ordered the cheeseburger platter. With a sigh, Ava nudged her plate closer to her husband. He’d had a terrible day.

  “We can trade if you want.”

  She’d ordered the french fries, but she could eat the onion rings. They weren’t her favorite but she could do it.

  Logan didn’t get a chance to answer. The bell over the door rang and two older women walked in, smiling and happy, but their smiles immediately fell when they laid eyes on Logan and Ava.

  This is not going to be good.

  “Logan–”

  He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter what they think, babe. Don’t engage with them.”

  One of the women planted her hands on her hips and gave Logan a mean look before stomping across the room to stand in front of their table. Effectively blocked in, there was nowhere to escape unless they wanted to duck down under the booth.

  The woman’s face had turned an unattractive color of red. “I can’t believe you have the nerve to show your face in this town, Logan Wright.”

  When Logan had first arrested Wade, the good people of Corville had hailed him as a hero. But sadly reality had reared its ugly head. The Bryson family had to sell the business to pay Wade’s defense bills. Then people were laid off and the accusing eyes of the town turned on Logan. If he hadn’t been so determined to find out the truth, none of it would have happened. The fact that there might be several more dead bodies didn’t figure into their calculations. They only knew that they needed someone to blame that wasn’t far away in prison. Logan was right there in front of them every day and he looked like a pretty decent target for their frustration, fear, and anger.

  Silence stretched between them although Ava could hear the rapid beating of her own
heart, pounding in her ears. Her husband was patient and kind. Most of the time.

  He lifted an onion ring from his plate and held it up. “Onion ring, Mrs. Walker?”

  His genial tone seemed to confuse the woman and she shook her head. “No. No, thank you. Did you hear me?”

  He leaned forward this time, close enough that Mrs. Walker wouldn’t have any trouble hearing him. His bland expression had turned hard, his features cut from granite. Oh shit. This was not going to go well for the woman. “I did. My children also heard you, so you might want to think about moving along.”

  A flicker of uncertainty flashed through the older woman’s eyes. Logan might be blamed for bringing down the town’s biggest employer, but he also had a reputation as a hard but fair lawman. He took no shit. He wasn’t going to melt under some old biddy’s wrath.

  The other woman finally caught up and she took a firm hold of her friend’s arm. “Come on, Doreen. Let’s just sit down.”

  Brianna and Colt had finally looked up from their coloring and were watching the exchange with great interest. They didn’t know what was happening but even a child could feel the tension in the air and they were curious about it.

  Ava twisted in her seat so she was facing both women. The diner had gone eerily quiet as they waited for Logan to respond. But Ava knew him too well. He wasn’t going to say anything more. He’d stated his piece and he was done.

  “Not in front of my children,” she said quietly. “This is neither the time nor the place.”

  More tugging on Doreen’s arm but the woman wasn’t ready to give up. “You shouldn’t have come back. We don’t need you here.”

  This time Mrs. Walker’s friend was successful in dragging her away. Logan visibly relaxed and reached across the table, stealing one of Ava’s fries. The children were digging into their own fries and completely ignoring the rest of their food. As usual. If only fries were a vegetable and ice cream a health food.

  The hum of conversation in the restaurant eventually picked up again, although Ava could feel the weight of the stares digging into her back.