One Eye Open

He laughed. “Should I be?”

She tried a different tack. “Are you afraid of anything?”

Instantly he sobered. “I told you. I live for one thing only. Finding the people who destroyed my life and making them pay. Nothing and no one can keep me from that goal.”

Back to that. Fine. “You want answers, right?”

“I want the truth.”

“Then we’re on the same side.”

He quirked a brow in question, alternating his attention between her and the road. “How do you figure?”

“We both want facts.”

“Yeah.” A shadow of savagery remained in his tone. “That’s why we’re heading toward the Vermont border.”

All right, she would bite. “Why? What’d you find out?”

“My informant told me that Hades’ Claws is having a big meeting. Hundreds are assembling in a week’s time in a place they have north of Hawk’s Falls.”

“How do you know you can trust him?”

“Trust who?”

“The informant.”

“I’ve worked with him before. His tips have always panned out. As long as I pay, he tells me the truth.”

“I thought you didn’t pay for information,” she said.

“Seldom.” He smiled. “Sometimes I bluff.”

“And if you don’t pay?”

“Then he’d sooner let me die.”

For some reason that touched her. “You live a sad life, Carson Turner.”

His expression froze, the falsely pleasant mask slipping slightly to reveal hard ruthlessness underneath.

“Sad?” He shook his head. “Angry, maybe. Mad. Oh yeah, definitely furious. But not sad, not anymore. Not ever again.”

She saw that her words had hit some deeply hidden mark. “I meant,” she said, “it’s sad that you have to pay people to help you.”

He shrugged, a quick jerk of his shoulders. “Not in my line of work.”

“And this?” With her hand she indicated the road ahead. “Is all this work, too? Pretending to be an active DEA agent, lying to other law enforcement guys, making me a captive?”

Holding her breath, she waited to hear his answer. Though he’d lied to her initially, since she’d caught and confronted him, perhaps now he would tell her the truth.

“This is my life,” he said, after a long silence. “Finding Alex, finding them, keeps me alive.”

“Vengeance?”

He nodded.

Bleakness settled in her chest, icier than any northern blizzard. “You do mean to kill him.”

“Maybe. I don’t know. If he was the one—”

“If?” She pounced on the word. “You have doubts then?”

He continued as if he hadn’t heard her. “If he was the one who betrayed me—us—and had Julie and Becky killed, he deserves to die.”

She seized on the word. “‘If.’ You said if again.”

“I saw him, Brenna.”

“No.” She remembered his exact words as clearly as if she’d written them down. “You said you saw him with a gun. But you never saw him shoot, did you?”

“Semantics,” he snarled. “It’s not like he tried to help me, now is it?”

“And you have the right to be his judge and his jury?”

“The right?” Raw savagery burned in his expression, from the hard set of his chin to his burning gaze. “I lost any rights long ago. I should have been the one to die, not my family. They were blameless, damn it. It was because of me, because of my job. They died without warning, without protection. They’d done nothing—” His voice broke, and he swallowed. White-knuckled, his hands gripped the steering wheel while he struggled to regain control of his emotions.

Such pain. Raw anguish. As quickly as it had begun, her protective anger faded. What must it have been like to lose everyone he loved? Brenna could only imagine.

“What about your parents?”

He continued to stare straight ahead. “What about them?”

“I imagine they care what happens to you.”

“Imagine all you want. They’re divorced. My mother lives in Seattle. She calls me once in a while, or I call her.”

“Your father?”

He made a rude sound. “Remarried. New family. He doesn’t need any of this.”

“Any brothers or sisters?”

“Look, what is this?” His gaze raked her before he turned his attention back to the road. “Why are you asking so many questions? Why does any of this matter to you?”

His reaction stung. “I’m trying to figure you out, that’s all.”

“Well, stop. All the relatives in the world can’t make up for the loss of my wife and daughter.”