I couldn’t let my mother or anyone else drag her into this murder investigation. I’d figure it out myself. My brothers would help me. I already knew Roy was hiding something. He was going to tell me what it was, whether he wanted to or not.

The water continued to pelt me.

Wouldn’t life be so much simpler if Lacey had taken me up on my offer to ride off into the sunset? We’d have a simple life, but a good life. Only the two of us with no one to answer to. It was a life I was accustomed to, a life I loved.

A life I wished I could get back.

A life I could have gotten back. The only cost would have been my siblings.

And Lacey.

I wouldn’t have met Lacey.

Or I would have met her, but I would have told all of them to fuck off and hightailed it back here. To my home. It would have been a much simpler decision.

A soft knock on the door. “Rock?”

I cleared my throat. “Yeah?”

“Everything okay? You’ve been in there a while.”

The water had indeed gone from steamy to tepid. I turned it off and wiped my face on a towel. “Yeah. I’m good.”

But was I?

I could do it. I could take off on my bike, Lacey on the back, and never return. I didn’t even have to tell her what I was up to. By the time she figured it out, we’d be across the Canadian border. I knew exactly where to cross. I even knew a guy who could get us Canadian passports.

It was tempting. So tempting.

As much as I desired it, I knew I’d never do it. I wouldn’t double-cross Lacey. I couldn’t double-cross my brothers and sister.

I wouldn’t let whoever was attempting to double-cross Lacey win.

My mother may well have implicated Lacey. She’d tried extortion with me, and I’d succumbed rather than deal with the truth coming out about my past. But Connie Wolfe hadn’t murdered my father. She was manipulative, petty, and liked to turn a blind eye to things she didn’t want to deal with, but she was not a killer.

There was only one way for me to get Lacey out of this. I had to find out who had offed Derek Wolfe.

And I couldn’t do that from Canada.

Lacey wasn’t in the bedroom when I left the bathroom. I got dressed quickly in my riding garb, and then I went to my gun safe. I kept most of my guns there, all but the Smith & Wesson nine millimeter that I’d pulled on ex-Deputy Gore.

My Glock 23—the one I could easily conceal—was in the safe. It was going with me wherever I went from now on. Funny. It was the same model that had killed my father.