Say Goodbye (Romantic Suspense #25) by Karen Rose

            His father’s guilty expression was the only answer DJ had needed. Why? he’d demanded. Why did you help him?

            Waylon had stared at him miserably. Because I couldn’t help you, he’d said.

            With McPhearson. DJ had known exactly why Gideon had been fighting the blacksmith.

            Why wouldn’t you help me? It had been an agonized cry. Much like he was doing right now.

            They know things. I’ve done things. Waylon had been babbling. All but confessing.

            And then it had all clicked. His big, bad enforcer father had been afraid of what Edward McPhearson would say about him. He was afraid of what the bastard would reveal. Waylon’s fear of Edward had been stronger than any love he’d ever felt for his son.

            You gave me to him, DJ remembered saying the words, dry-eyed and steel-spined.

            I had no choice.

            You had a fucking choice. You always had a choice. You just didn’t choose me.

            Listen to me. I wanted to help you, but I couldn’t.

            So you helped him? DJ had spat the words, pointing to the body that he now knew had not been Gideon’s after all. Why did you take him to the city?

            Waylon’s gaze had flicked to the body. He died by the time we got there. They beat him bad.

            Like that made the betrayal better, somehow. Easier to accept.

            DJ had stepped forward, fists clenched. And if he hadn’t died? What would you have done?

            His father’s silence was his answer, once again.

            You would have let him go. You would have set him free.

            That had been the brutal truth. His father had risked Pastor’s wrath for Gideon Reynolds. Because of some misplaced sense of guilt, of responsibility that he hadn’t felt for his own flesh and blood.

            “But not for me,” DJ whispered into the quiet of the car. Waylon hadn’t acknowledged his accusation. He’d merely jumped from the truck bed, leaving the body destroyed and unrecognizable to wade into the river and wash away the blood and gore.

            That had been the moment that DJ had known that Waylon had to die. Now, all these years later, he replayed Waylon’s final moments in his mind, so glad that he’d killed the bastard.

            Seventeen years had passed since Gideon’s escape, and DJ was just as angry now as he’d been then. Seeing Gideon’s face . . . He’d snapped. Before he’d even been aware of it, he’d pointed his gun straight at Gideon’s chest. And fired.

            But the bastard had not died.

            Not today, he told himself. He hadn’t died today. But he will.

            DJ’s pulse was slowing, his mind gradually clearing again.

            He will die, but Mercy needs to be first. Mercy was the greater threat. Gideon was Waylon’s shame and Waylon had paid. Mercy was DJ’s shame.

            He’d claimed to have killed her and buried her body. He’d thought he had killed her. He’d lied to Pastor just as Waylon had lied. But DJ had had a better reason. He’d been chased away by a fucking bystander before he could finish the job.

            Waylon had known that Gideon still breathed when he’d dumped him. Waylon had wanted Gideon to escape.

            I am not like my father. Not in any way. Except for the fact that he had lied and now couldn’t let Pastor find out that Mercy was alive. Pastor would brand him a liar and would never tell him the access codes that the old fucker had memorized.

            So he was back to the same plan he’d had before. Mercy needed to die.

            Except now Gideon and Daisy Dawson would be on alert, because his brain was stupid and had reacted to seeing Gideon’s face. He hadn’t seen him clearly a month ago, that day in Dunsmuir. He’d been focused on killing Ephraim and Mercy. And then Daisy had shot him.

            “Except you just made your job a thousand times harder,” he muttered to himself. “Fuck.”

            Now the cops would be looking for a Lexus. He needed another car, but for now he’d change the license plates and keep his gun close. He wouldn’t risk stealing another car right now. Nobody would report the Lexus missing until Mrs. Smythe returned home. He didn’t know the same about any vehicle he could steal today.