Page 10 of The Risk

For the man’s biggest sin. The one Rob couldn’t get out of his head.

Finding that body dump on Fields’s daddy’s property had given Rob some ideas. Ways to make him pay.

Especially for her. His sister.

Rob had loved his little sister—but he hadn’t realized it until she was gone.

Now she was rotting in the ground. Dead. She’d died in prison in Oklahoma two days ago. He’d gotten the notice that morning, from her seventeen-year-old son.

It was Fields’s fault. All Fields’s fault for what he’d not done all those years ago.

Rob had always known that. He’d always wanted to make that bastard pay for what he had allowed to happen to Candy all those years ago.

Now he thought he’d found a way.

Rob picked up his cell phone—the one he kept in his desk for private texts—and made contact.

He had some things to do. To make things happen the way they should.

He wasn’t Candy’s only brother. They had been half-siblings through Rob’s father. But Candy had had two younger brothers through her mother.

And those two imbeciles would come in handy now.

7

It tookthree days for the crime scene tape to come down and the TSP to clear the dumpsite. Everyone was saying that was exactly what it probably was. There had been no other reason for her to be dumped on their property, except for how remote the location had been.

She had been identified as a twenty-three-year-old prostitute from Houston. That was all Gene knew. That, and his family and Chantal’s were in the clear.

Life could get back to normal again.

He didn’t feel normal.

That woman had had her entire life ahead of her—only to have it cut short the way she had. To leave nothing behind but bad memories.

That rocked Gene, in more ways than almost anything ever had before. He’d had traumas in his life. Bad things that had happened. A former foster kid his parents had taken in, then given a job several years later, had taken Gene’s youngest sister and forced her into his car when he’d been high.

The guy had been angry he and his pal Kevin Chase had been fired for stealing. They’d tried to take thirteen-year-old Genesis and nine-year-old Greer for revenge.

Gunn had managed to rescue Genesis from the guys, but Grady had been too far from the house and hadn’t been able to get to Greer in time. She’d been in the backseat with that guy while the guy’s friend had been driving. Both men had been high as a kite.

Gene had been coming down the mile-long driveway at the time, not knowing of what was going on. With those bastards barreling down toward him, with Grady on their rear trying to get their baby sister back.

No one had been close enough to help Greer that day.

Gene hadn’t seen the bastards’ car until it was too late.

He’d hit it. Head-on. Grady had barely missed hitting them, too.

Gene had watched as his baby sister was thrown from that damned car. He relived that moment in his dreams far too often to think about.

Gene had climbed out of the broken cab of the truck he’d been driving, praying harder than he’d ever prayed in his life. He’d gotten to her side and been convinced she was dying. He’d been almost twenty-four then, the same age she was now. He would never forget that moment.

Greer had grown up into a real handful; he adored her. She was happy and healthy and whole now.

They had gotten lucky. Kevin Chase hadn’t. The guy had been killed on impact.

Gene had had his cell phone in his pocket. The ambulance had been close that day. Gene and Grady had done their best to keep their injured baby sister alive until help got to her.