Page 86 of Won't Back Down

Wally snagged a mozzarella stick off the plate of appetizers they were all sharing. “Pretty little thing like Willa… can’t blame him for that. He’s one lucky SOB.”

“On account of the fact that I’ve known Willa since she was knee high to a grasshopper, I gotta ask y’all to stop,” Cliff Clark insisted. He’d spent thirty years working as a pilot for the ferry company, so no doubt he still saw her as a little girl.

“What?” Duck protested. “We’re just callin’ it like it is. The boy’s balls are getting bluer by the minute.”

Bree came by, a bar towel tossed over her shoulder. “Maybe keep it down, fellas. I don’t think Sawyer wants his love life broadcast for the entire bar to hear.”

I scrubbed a hand down my face. God save me from nosy old men. Not that they were entirely wrong, but that wasn’t the reason I was about to crawl out of my skin.

When my phone finally vibrated in my pocket, I yanked it out, praying it was Willa texting me to come get her. Instead, it was an unfamiliar number flashing across the screen. I almost sent it to voicemail, in case it was a spam call. But at the last second I hit answer.

“Hello?”

“Sawyer. Thank God. I’ve been tryin’ to get through for nearly an hour.”

“Jace. Hang on. Let me get somewhere quieter.” I looked around the bar for somewhere that wouldn’t be as noisy as the dining room. The bathroom maybe?

Bree tapped me on the shoulder. “Take it back to the office.”

“Thanks.”

I edged around the end of the bar and pushed through the swinging door, into the kitchen. The staff gave me a curious look, but I just pointed to the phone and shut myself into the little office where Bree managed the books. I could still hear the clatter of dishes and the sizzle of food cooking, but it was a lot quieter than the main bar.

“Okay. Hey. Sorry about that. It’s Founder’s Day, and the island is nuts.”

“Did Busby rope Willa into helping?”

“Oh yeah. She’s currently judging the regatta. I’m at the Brewhouse. Do you have news?” Circling around the desk, I took the chair, absently scanning the room. My gaze zeroed in on the wall of photos, which actually included one of Bree with Ford in front of the original tavern from when they’d been about sixteen. Huh. I’d have laid money down that she’d want those all hidden away, if not destroyed. Maybe it was about the tavern itself and not him.

Jace’s voice dragged my focus back to the call. “Yeah. Sorry it took so long for me to get back to you. I had to call in a bunch of favors before I found somebody who could dig far enough to get me the information I wanted. I was right. Nicholas Caldwell was military.”

“Who the hell is Nicholas Caldwell?”

“The real name of Dr. Collin Caswell. He changed it after he retired from the military.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Because of the kinds of missions he ran. The guy’s a PsyOps specialist, and he was known for the kind of interrogations we just don’t talk about.”

My fingers curled into a fist. “What does that mean, exactly?”

“I don’t know anything conclusively, but I think he did something to Willa. I think she saw something that night, and somebody had Caswell use his skills to keep her from remembering. Her reactions look far too much like fear-based conditioning.”

I didn’t want to know how he knew what that looked like. “You’re saying she was tortured?”

“In a sense. Yeah.”

If Jace was right, that confirmed all my suspicions that someone out there had a secret to protect. Someone who believed Willa was a threat.

“Who?” I demanded.

“I don’t know. I don’t know if he’d ever even been to Hatterwick. I’m betting he knows somebody who hired him or called in a favor, and they found some way to manipulate my parents into sending her to that particular facility.”

“Well, where the hell is the guy now?” I’d find a way to make him tell me who’d hired him.

“Dead. Taken out about five years ago under suspicious circumstances. The official report was a car accident, but the redacted version is that his brake line was cut. He had a head-on collision with an 18-wheeler.”

“Shit.” Disappointment slid through me that the guy was already dead, and that it had likely been quick. The man had deserved to suffer.