Storm Warned (The Grim Series) (3 page)

And realized she had become one of them.

TWO

Eastern Washington State, USA

Modern Day

N
ot interested,” Liam Cole said into his smartphone. That was true. “I’m happy doing what I’m doing.” That, however, was a total lie. He hadn’t been happy for a minute since he’d turned his back on his old life, what little of it had been left after his world imploded.

“Yeah, well, no one’s asking you to give up the farm, you know,” said Mel, who had been his agent once and would still like to be. “Just come out of isolation long enough to do a few gigs. I’ve got a couple open-air festivals at the end of the summer—nothing too big, just a little something to keep yourself in practice. It’ll be enough to let people know you’re still
here
, and then you can go right back to being a hermit. Buy some extra fancy cows with the money. Just tell me you’ll think about it, okay?”

“I’ll think about it,” said Liam. Another lie. He wouldn’t, although guilt pricked him. Mel was a good guy, but he didn’t understand. Nobody did, least of all, Liam himself. Tossing the phone onto a side table, he rose from the wicker armchair on the wraparound porch, slapped on a faded Mariners ball cap—a long-ago gift from his Aunt Ruby, who followed baseball like a religion—and headed down the steps. As soon as he left the shade, the day’s accumulated heat hit him like a wall; it wouldn’t even begin to cool down for another few hours. But if he didn’t get busy and do something, anything, he’d start
thinking
, and it sure as hell wouldn’t be about doing a concert.

Of course, the damn thinking happened anyway.
A little something to keep yourself in practice.
What would Mel say if he knew that Liam’s guitar and mandolin hadn’t been out of their cases in three years? Not even his beloved fiddle had seen the light of day since his last gig, the one in Minneapolis, the one that changed everything.
Maybe I should have paid attention to the damn number.
Not that he was superstitious, but it was the thirteenth stop in Liam’s first tour as an honest-to-God headliner. The reviews had been nothing short of stellar, representing a ginormous step forward in the career he’d been struggling to build since high school. And Liam was on fire that night, improvising on the bluegrass ballads and newgrass numbers he’d written himself. The audience had demanded three encores, and he was on top of the world . . .

Unaware that some voyeuristic pervert had just uploaded a video to YouTube.

After wishing for years that the media would spare him a little more attention, Liam Cole was pleased to see the after-concert scrum of reporters, the biggest gathering yet. But they didn’t want to interview him about what was plainly his best performance ever. No, they were all asking for his
reaction
. He didn’t know what the hell they were talking about.
Thank God for Mel.
Not only had his agent run interference for him with the press; the man somehow conjured four plainclothes security guards the size of linebackers to act as human shields. They bundled Liam into a plain gray SUV, and the driver (Mel’s brother-in-law, as it turned out) took him to a hotel room—and
not
the one that was booked and waiting for him.

When the door closed and he was finally alone, Liam had sat on the edge of the bed, peering at the screen of his phone, unsure exactly how to go about searching for something he didn’t want to find.

In the end, it found him. Any email from an address he didn’t recognize normally went straight to the trash bin as spam—but there was one that stood out. It wasn’t advertising hot women or blue pills or credit cards; instead, the subject line simply read, “Sorry.” Opening it revealed a link to the video that complete strangers were now talking about: Jade Marshall Cole, Liam’s love since middle school and bride of less than a year, in bed with Vic Raymond, the guy who’d been his best friend and best man. Certain parts had been blurred, but it made no difference. Like his Uncle Conall had said, “If you’re naked, it’s a sure bet you’re not fishing.”

Liam had known loss. He’d felt his mother’s death keenly, and still missed her. And yet he hadn’t known heartbreak could produce such raw physical pain. He even ran his hand over his chest, certain that there must be a hole there, that his ribs had been sawn asunder and his heart torn out by the roots.

She loved me. She said she loved me. She
showed
she loved me. How could she do this to me? To us?
If everything he’d had with Jade was a lie, then what the hell was left in his world to believe in? What was real?

And as for Vic, anger flooded Liam’s gut, mixing like acid with the agony. Leaving Mel to cancel the rest of the tour, Liam rented a car from the first place he found that opened their doors at 6 a.m. Originally he’d intended to drive straight through to his home in Portland, but even ignoring speed limits could trim only so much off a twenty-six-hour trip, and he hadn’t slept a wink to start with. The inner pain and fury that wrestled each other for dominance exhausted him, and he finally conceded to catch some
z
’s in a couple of truck stops along the way. Afterward he chugged bad coffee and filled up on doughnuts and burritos that he couldn’t taste and that sat in his stomach like rocks. He
willed
his body to digest them, to take in the “quick and dirty” fuel. It would do no good to collapse on the goddamn doorstep before he even confronted Jade. Besides, he wanted his head clear—or
clearer
, since it was already buzzing with volatile thoughts like a frickin’ hive of angry bees.

It was just past noon the next day when Liam finally turned onto his own street. His brain had finally settled, somewhat. Although he hurt like he’d been gutshot, he’d carefully rehearsed what he wanted to say, what he planned to ask, what he needed to know—and every last reasonable word of it went right out the window as he spotted an all-too-familiar vehicle parked in front of his house, a yellow Jeep Wrangler that was strangely clean for once.

Apparently Vic’s been too damn busy sleeping with my wife to go off-roading!

Rage bubbled up from the depths of Liam’s soul, like magma making its way toward the earth’s surface, as he parked halfway down the block and stalked to the house. The drapes were drawn, but it was the middle of the day and that just ratcheted up his fury. There was no disguising his approach from his own dog of course—Homer was barking wildly from the backyard. Maybe Vic and Jade would suspect Liam’s presence, but more likely they’d attribute the dog’s excitement to the neighbor lady’s half-dozen cats. After all, Liam wasn’t expected home for another three weeks.

He had his keys. It was his own damn house. He had no idea why he didn’t simply burst in, except that some small corner of his mind that was still sane told him he didn’t want Jade in the middle. Instead, ringing the bell like a frickin’ stranger brought him exactly what he hoped for . . .

Vic Raymond, former best friend and current betrayer, opened the door.

In a heartbeat, Liam had seized him by the shirtfront and yanked him outside hard enough to throw him off the porch. With a growl that was very far from human, the volcano within Liam finally erupted with world-shattering force. He was blind to everything but the need to let his fists express all the anguish and anger that words could not. If the traitor got in a punch or six of his own, Liam didn’t know or care. Some distant part of him was vaguely aware of Jade screaming in the background, of people gathering, of Vic’s face going from white and shocked to bloody and unrecognizable, of sirens coming down the street. And still he could not stop.

Liam woke up in a cell, not certain how he’d gotten there and with no idea what time or even what the hell day it was. Waiting for him was pain with a capital
P
, more than he ever imagined possible. Not from the bruises on his face, or the split knuckles, or even from the spots on his back where a taser had connected—though they all hurt like a sonofabitch—but from the throbbing ache in his chest.

Also waiting for him was an arraignment on an assortment of assault charges (he sure as hell didn’t
remember
hitting a cop). Uppermost in his mind, however, was that he still hadn’t gotten the chance to talk to Jade. Maybe he shouldn’t have made that his first and only permitted call, but he’d already thumbed the number pad before he thought it through.

It went straight to the machine. What the hell had he expected? He left a nondescript message and hung up. Christ, he should have had the sense to call Mel to find him a lawyer, or better yet, he should have called his uncle, if he could reach him. His agent would have taken care of it. Uncle Conall would have, too—right after the big man threw a haymaker at Vic himself. That mental image cheered Liam briefly, but it was the only bright note in a long and dismal morning.

Dead last in a lengthy line of defendants waiting to be formally charged, he had far too much time to reflect on what he’d done—or might have done. No one had mentioned what condition Vic was in. Liam’s hands were damaged, so he’d obviously beaten the living shit out of the guy he thought he knew. Hell, he could have killed him, but damned if he could dredge up much regret . . . Well, not on the surface, anyway.
How could Vic have done this to me?
They’d been inseparable since they were twelve, when Liam had first moved in with his uncle and aunt. He and Vic had been in the same classes (and skipped more than a few to go fishing), competed as team ropers in junior rodeo, partnered in 4-H projects, played football, gotten stupid-ass drunk for the first time, set the chemistry lab on fire by accident, double-dated, and finally graduated. All of it as best friends. Vic had been his best man, and Liam was due to be Vic’s in only a few months.
What the hell is up with
that
?

As for Jade, Liam would rather not think about her—
not here, not now
—but it was like trying to stop a river with a teacup. He was one big, throbbing ball of hurt from the top of his head to the soles of his feet, and he wasn’t certain if he was going to explode again or just sit down and bawl like the brokenhearted kid he felt like. Because while he was infuriated by Vic’s betrayal, Liam was utterly devastated by the thought that his sweetheart,
his Jade
, had cheated on him.

He never saw it coming. If there were signs, he hadn’t clued in to a single damn one.

It has to be my fault. Has to be
. She’d
never
do such a thing to him otherwise. The stress must have gotten to her, with him being gone so much. He’d been so wrapped up with preparing for this tour that he hadn’t paid enough attention to her. And money had been so damn tight lately, thanks to the overwhelming costs of promotion. He could make changes, make it better. They could work this out, put this behind them.
People overcome shit like this all the time, right?

Liam pled not guilty, and bail was set and so was a return court date. More fun and games for later, but he didn’t give a damn at the moment. He was worn out right to his very soul. First on the list was to get a room, to get some real food and real sleep, and
then
figure out what the hell to do next . . .

Or that would have been his plan if Jade hadn’t been waiting outside the courtroom for him, grim-faced and red-eyed, clutching her purse in front of her with both hands. It killed him that he didn’t even know what to do, how to feel. Shouldn’t he be running to hold her? Shouldn’t she be holding him? Instead, they approached each other warily, like strangers, almost like
enemies
. Even acquaintances would have given each other a warmer greeting.

“We have to talk,” she said, and he could already tell it wasn’t going to be good.

“Now you want to talk? Seems to me we needed to talk a helluva long time ago.”

“You weren’t here.”

Through some shred of willpower he didn’t know he had left, Liam clamped his mouth shut. It would do no good to air their dirty laundry in the middle of the goddamn courthouse. Instead, he followed her outside, where dark, heavy clouds matched his mood perfectly. They got into her car and drove home—or rather, drove to their
house
—without saying a word.

They avoided each other for a while, saying nothing. He stripped off his clothes to shower and was astonished at how much blood was on them, Vic’s blood. The clothes went straight to the trash, and Liam stood under the hot water for a long time until he felt somewhat human again, as human as a person
could
feel when his damn heart was missing. He lingered some more, until he couldn’t hold off talking to Jade any longer.

Things did not improve when the silence was finally broken. All the things he’d guessed were wrong truly
were
wrong—but those things were only the tip of the iceberg. He opened the curtains in the living room and let in the gloomy gray light. It barely illuminated the damn room, never mind their relationship.