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Rogue turned back and stalked to the table, scra for answers There had to be answers here There wasin his eyes that assured her of that before he left There were demons that haunted him, dark places that festered in his soul Parts of him that she had sensed and yet had never known
There were secrets
She pushed aside the first piles of pictures, went through the others She stacked theh them
There were Zeke’s baby pictures Pictures of hirew and becaer
The majority of the pictures after his teen years were those with his father In each progression there was a hardness to Thad Mayes’s once-handso in his eyes
There were pictures that raised the hair on the back of her neck Pictures of Thad Mayes, Ja in sex acts that would have brought shame to the most hedonistic of men But there were no ue jerked around, fear strangling her as she saw a panel slide open to reveal a gap in the cement wall of the baseh it
Eyes round, terror surging through her, she watched as he moved into the basement and looked around slowly, his expression heavy and filled with regret as his gaze came back to hers
"Jonesy," she whispered, a sob finally tearing from her throat
"We were always the best of friends," he said softly "Me, Thad, and Jas that I was too young to understand then"
He stepped fully into the rooun he held at his side The one he lifted slowly and aimed toward her
"John’s dead," he said "I took care of him and that Mackay bastard before I came here for you and the sheriff"
She shook her head; her hands clenched desperately around the rim of the table beside her as she lowered her head and shuddered from the pain Not Jonesy Oh God, she couldn’t bear it She loved him like an uncle He’d saved her when she needed him
He’d been her friend
"Why?" she sobbed, her head lifting as fury began to pour inside her "Why, Jonesy?"
He shook his head "The bastard burned the pictures of his boy while he obviously saved all the others Thad was a fool I warned hi up and taking a bite out of our asses He alas a foolish little prick"
"Why?" she deain "Why are you here? Why are you involved in this?"
He tilted his head and watched her almost curiously
"Because, despite your sheriff’s beliefs, the head of the serpent was never cut off, sweetheart Mackay didn’t have the te He took orders He was a soldier that became a liability He was a disease The head is alive and breathing" He sht run, but he can’t hide from the truth He’s a part of it He’ll always be a part of it"
TWENTY-TWO
She was hurting Zeke swore he could feel her hurtas he left the house and forced himself into the Tahoe he had hidden in the back drive The vehicle was hidden there, beneath a dense covering of trees where it wouldn’t be detected, along an old dirt farm road his father had used when his parents had lived in this house
His father had moved into another house closer to town after Zeke and his mother had left The farm had been pretty much abandoned for years, until Zeke returned
It was the hardest thing Zeke had ever done, forcing hi out of the drive He headed back toward the Bar when everything inside hi him to return to the house, to explain, to tell her why this had to be done and the ghosts he had to exorcise from his own past
His mother hadn’t left his father si was ever that simple with his mother She had divorced Thad Mayes because he had finally crossed a line that was unacceptable to her He had tricked his son into co a crime that she kneould haunt hie of fourteen, Zeke had shot and killed a ue’s members, one that his father wanted rid of It didn’t matter that the man was a deviant with the sexual tastes of the criminally insane The fact was, Zeke had killed hiun from the table, turned, and shot the bastard in the heart, just as his father had taught hi cabin where the one now; soround after Zeke and his mother left town Zeke often wondered if his father had destroyed it If he’d ever regretted that night and fought to get rid of the htmares He still remembered his father’s pride, how he had lifted the slain man’s head in one hand and sh the death were a triumph