They were right. Jax didn’t doubt Officer Hunt’s anger could boil over into revenge, or that he was capable of covering up a triple murder. Micah’s dad was scary as hell.

Suddenly, Jax’s door lurched open. He blinked, and there were two of Paul.

“Get out of the car.”

“It’s my car.”

“Stop messing around and get out. You’re done driving.”

Jax opened his mouth to say he was nowhere near done, but somehow, Paul had already unhooked Jax’s seat belt. He grabbed a fistful of Jax’s T-shirt and hauled him out of the car, then shoved him through the open back door. Jax landed facedown in the leather.

Micah clutched his stomach, laughing like a hyena.

Paul dropped into the driver’s seat and stabbed a finger across the console. “You shut up. I mean it, Micah. Not one word. I need to concentrate.”

Jax closed his eyes and they were moving again, bouncing across the dusty field, mauling some poor farmer’s tobacco crop.

25

“Here she is. I found her.” Chet twists in the passenger’s seat of my Honda and wags his cell phone in the air. “Sienna Anne Sterling.”

For the past twenty minutes, we’ve been sitting here in the deserted Dominion lot, vents spewing hot air at our heads. Sam is long gone, but Chet and I haven’t moved other than to scroll through our phones because I’m desperate for more information. I need to know what Sienna was doing here, why she was going around town, asking about Jax and Paul. I need a sign if I can trust my husband or not.

Chet passes me his cell phone, and there she is, the stranger I found in the lake. Those light blue eyes. That light blond hair. I’m staring at her Twitter profile.

I expand the screen and read from her bio. “‘Yogi. Vegan. True crime slut. Aspiring podcaster blowing shit out of the water in Lake Crosby, NC.’” I look at Chet. “That’s her. What shit?”

“I don’t think she means it literally.”

“Well, I know that. But she was in town to look into some old crime, and this bio makes it sound like she’d found something.” I say the words and realization creeps up my body, paralyzing me to the seat. Sienna came here to ask about a past crime. I found her talking to Paul. She was asking Wade about him. And now she’s dead.

The phone slips from my fingers and onto my lap. “Oh my God. Oh my God. I think I’m going to throw up.”

“Then give me back my phone before you yak all over it.”