CHAPTER ONE
Thursday Night
Rena Jones sat in the backseat of the King Cab pickup as the rain poured down like the sky had cracked open, pelting the top of the cab with a violent staccato beat. Her brother lay slumped beside her, his shirt soaked with blood and rain, his breaths coming in short gasps.
She pressed her trembling hands to the wound on his side. Her fingers were warm and sticky with blood, and no matter how hard she pushed, she couldn’t seem to stop it.
“Brock,” she choked, glancing at her husband, who was driving, his hands tight on the wheel as he navigated through unpaved back roads. Every bump and hole in the road had the truck bouncing and Sam grunting in pain. “We have to get Sam to a hospital.”
“No,” Sam ground out, his voice barely a whisper. His face was pale, jaw clenched, eyes pained. He was shaking, whether from shock or cold, she couldn’t tell.
The windshield wipers were going full force, slapping rhythmically against the glass, but the rain was winning. Water sheeted over the truck like they were underwater.
Tears stung her eyes, hot against the cold. “But—”
“He’s right,” Brock said from the front seat, turning halfway toward her. His face was hard, but his eyes showed his deep fear. He loved Sam just like she did. It had been the three of them for so long. Ever since Brock walked into her life when she was eighteen and they fell in love. It was her and Brock and Sam against the world. Doing what needed to be done to keep them above water. The three musketeers. The three amigos.
“It’s gonna be fine,” Brock insisted. “A flesh wound.”
“It’s not a flesh wound!” she snapped. “He’s losing too much blood. He needs stitches, a transfusion—something!”
“I’ll be fine,” Sam mumbled weakly. “Just … Let’s get home. You can patch me up. Like last time.”
Rena shook her head, throat closing. Last time was years ago, and the gunshot hadn’t been this bad. That time, it had gone in and out of his upper arm. He still had the scar, which he’d covered with a tattoo of a cypress tree that reminded Rena of the one that grew out of the swamp behind their Mimi’s house.
This time … there was more blood.
“This wasn’t supposed to happen,” she said, her voice low, furious. “Baldwin wasn’t supposed to be home.”
They’d been hired for four jobs. Four clean, silent entries. In and out, no one the wiser. Get the documents, break the computer, steal a few shiny things to throw off the scent. No one gets hurt. No one around to see them. The first two had been letter-perfect, no one suspecting the reason for the break-ins.
But this time? Tonight had turned into a damn nightmare and now they were stuck in the middle of a torrential downpour in an unfamiliar area in the middle of nowhere.
They’d entered through the back of the house after Sam disabled the alarm from the main box. He was so smart, her little brother. So damn smart. Her eyes burned, the deeply buried regrets that she should have done something, anything, to get Sam a real job, maybe even into college, rather than letting him follow her and Brock into a life of crime.
Intel had said Baldwin was in Dallas until Saturday, and he always took his German shepherd with him when he traveled. So, after Sam took down the alarms, they should have had all the time in the world.
But halfway through corrupting the hard drives, they heard three rapid barks from upstairs. A canine alarm. The dog sounded furious, then Rena heard a muffled voice.
Footsteps thundering down the stairs barely before they could register that they weren’t alone in the house.
Baldwin, shotgun in hand, stepped into the doorway with surprise, anger, and fear in his eyes.
Rena had screamed. Brock fired. The dog lunged. Gunshots coming from her husband and Sam. The loud report of the shotgun going off once, pump, twice. The dog yelped, crumpled. Baldwin fell back, clutching his chest. Or was it his throat? It all happened so damn fast.
And then Brock was screaming, dragging Sam out the front door. Rena’s ears still rang from the echo of gunfire. She wasn’t even sure which one of them had hit Baldwin.
But it wouldn’t matter who fired the fatal shot. They were either killers or accessories to murder.
Maybe he isn’t dead. Maybe he survived.
God, she hoped he survived. Please, God, let him live. Baldwin and Sam.
The rain had started somewhere in that chaos, while she waited with Sam bleeding in her arms as Brock brought the truck around. Now it was drowning the world.
“Fucking road’s flooding,” Brock muttered, his voice faint but with a hint of panic.
Her husband never panicked, so she knew this was bad.
“The rain just started—” she said, but she could see the rising water now, remembered the storm last weekend that had kept them in town until Tuesday night. They were supposed to be done by now, but they’d been delayed because of the damn spring rain. The unpaved back roads were turning into rivers. Mud slid under their tires.
“We’re trapped,” Brock said. “There’s no way through.”
“Sam’s bleeding out,” she said, heart thudding. “Brock, we can’t just sit here—”
“Fuck!” She jumped when Brock slammed his palm against the steering wheel, the sound cracking through the cab. “I’m sorry, okay? We don’t have any other choice.”
Before she could ask what he was planning, Brock swerved suddenly, tires crunching wet gravel, and they drove down a long, bumpy driveway. Trees loomed on either side, branches lashing at the truck from the wind. A flash of lightning illuminated outbuildings and a dark house. Brock killed the lights, then the engine.
Darkness swallowed them, but not silence. The storm outside raged, shaking their truck, tearing at her soul. They couldn’t stay here, she knew. Sam would die. Her brother, her younger brother, her only brother. She couldn’t let that happen.
A sob escaped her throat; she swallowed it.
“Do you trust me, Rena?” Brock said quietly.
She stared at him. The anger and fear in his eyes. And the love.
“Of course I do,” she whispered. “I love you.”
“We need to hole up tonight. Wait out the storm. We’ll patch Sam up. Assess his injuries. Then finish the job.”
She hesitated, heart hammering. “Okay,” she said at last. “Where?”
“Stay here. I’ll be right back.”
Rena watched him disappear into the dark, every instinct screaming not to let him go. But she stayed. She held on to Sam’s hand, whispered reassurances, tried to believe them herself.
The rain was so thick she couldn’t see outside the truck. Then lightning flashed across the sky, lighting up the fields in stark white for a heartbeat before the dark came again. The trees writhed in the wind. Thunder rolled so loud it made her chest rattle. And she’d seen the dark house again in that moment of light.
She hoped it was empty; she feared it wasn’t.
But they had no choice.
“You’ll be okay,” she whispered to Sam, brushing his damp hair back from his forehead. His eyes fluttered closed. “I’ve got you.”
“I’m going to be fine, Rena,” Sam said, his voice trying for everything is coming up roses but sounding more like this is the end of the world.
She hated this godforsaken rural county, this miserable state. The endless dark. The isolation. Out here, there were no sirens. No cell service. No one to save her brother.
And she couldn’t stop thinking—what if Baldwin had a silent alarm? What if someone had seen the truck? What if Baldwin wasn’t dead and could identify them? Or worse, what if he was dead and they were now murderers?
What if this was the beginning of the end?
“One more job,” she murmured to herself. “Just one more. Then we’re done.”
But the words felt empty. If Sam died, money couldn’t bring him back. Money would mean nothing to her without her family.
Ten minutes later, Brock returned, soaked and pale.
“I didn’t hurt nobody,” he said, breathing heavily. “But they understand.”
She turned toward him slowly, her stomach sinking. His eyes were too bright. His voice too calm.
“Brock…” she said, warning in her voice.
He looked away. “We need to save Sammy. Help me get him inside.”
She didn’t move.
Because she knew.
He hadn’t asked for help. He’d taken it.
And somewhere inside that farmhouse, someone now feared them enough to stay silent, at least for tonight.
They had crossed a line.
And Rena didn’t know if they’d ever find their way back.
CHAPTER TWO
Friday Morning
Ellen McKenna watched her son Jake ride off across the field on horseback alongside their ranch hand, Mateo Delgado. Yesterday they’d discovered that the run-in—a simple, three-sided structure used to give cattle shelter from the elements—had been seriously damaged during last weekend’s hailstorm. Overnight rain had caused part of it to collapse. With a brief break in the weather this morning, they planned to make repairs so the herd would have protection when the storm returned this afternoon.
The rain last night had been short-lived, but the already saturated ground couldn’t absorb the sudden two-hour downpour. The narrow gravel road that cut through their farm toward the pasture still had standing water, leaving the surface pocked and muddy, but fortunately it hadn’t been washed out. Jake and Mateo would also check for damage along the road, making notes and fixing whatever they could in the few hours they had before the rain was supposed to start up again.
She’d packed them each a full thermos of coffee and sandwiches in case the job took longer than expected. Their cattle grazed on the far side of their fourteen hundred acres, half of which was dedicated to their herd. There was plenty of high ground for the cattle to migrate to if the fields flooded. Most of their crops had survived the hailstorm last weekend, and though the ground was still saturated, the plants were thriving.
But they might not thrive if the fields flooded. They might lose everything.
They’d lost half their grapevines in the hailstorm, but it looked like the rest were going to flower. It would be the first year they had fruit on the vines.
It had been John’s dream to create their own wine label, but it had never been the right time to start the vineyard. Three years ago, after a particularly good year for cattle, they planted a small, uneven twelve-acre plot bisected by Whisper Creek. It was the perfect soil for wine grapes, according to John, who’d consulted with his closest friend—a successful vintner—on the project. On one side, they planted Tempranillo, on the other, Sangiovese. But it takes three years, sometimes four, for the vines to age and flower.
This was the year, and John wasn’t here to see it.
She looked up at the dark gray sky, thinking—believing—that her husband was watching over them, that he would see the first grape harvest. They wouldn’t have their own winery—she’d have to sell the grapes this year and maybe next—but it was a start.
And someday, she would turn the old bunkhouse into a winery and bottle their own label—a label John had designed years ago.
Whisper Creek Vineyard.
“John, I miss you so much,” she murmured.
Two and a half months from now, on July first, would have been their twentieth wedding anniversary. Now, she was a widow at forty-one.
It had been eleven months since her husband died in a tragic accident. Eleven months since her life had been shattered. She was still broken, but she’d put the pieces together as best she could for their four kids.
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