Risk (Gentry Boys #2)(59)

I bit my lip. “I know. I think I was one of them.”

She smiled. “I think you were too.” The she grimaced. “In a little while you’ll get a good look at where those boys came from. It really is shit. More than that, it’s terrifying. They were abused, neglected, and everyone in town thought they were garbage. And yet they’re decent men, all three of them.” She laughed to herself. “Even Creed, no matter how he tries to hide it. But they’ve had to do a lot of climbing to get there.”

Saylor touched my arm. Her expression was earnest. She wanted me to understand the Gentry boys the way she understood them. “I don’t have the right to pardon them for everything. And it doesn’t mean they’re without flaws. But god dammit, who is?”

“Not me, Say. Definitely not me.”

She nodded. “I knew you’d get it.”

I really did get it. That didn’t mean I believed every offense should be forgiven. Some things were inexcusable. But if you scoff at the very idea of forgiveness, then who the hell will be willing to let you go free if the time comes? Would you even be able to forgive yourself?

Saylor pointed. “Turn here.”

We’d already passed the ugly outline of the prison. The town itself appeared pleasant enough but we were driving away from the center of it, deep into the desert. Here and there I glimpsed homes set far back from the road. Some were well kept houses. Others were dilapidated trailers. The road was narrow this far out and there were no street lights.

“Must be dark as the belly of hell at night,” I commented.

She nodded. “It is.”

Saylor was getting edgy. She sat up straight in her seat and scanned the passing scenery. “See that ramshackle monstrosity in the distance? Don’t get too close to it.”

The trailer she was pointing to looked as if it had been abandoned for a decade. “That thing? Someone lives there?”

Saylor spoke through clenched teeth. “Yes. Someone lives there.”

I stared at the sorry dwelling. I’d actually lived in places nearly as rundown and known folks who lived even worse. But there was a rotten quality to the sprawling mess in front of me that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. It was more than poverty. It made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

I came to a rolling stop. “Saylor? Is that where the boys grew up?”

“Yeah.” She looked around nervously. “Look, I’m not shitting you. This is not a place we want to be hanging out.”

She was frightened of something. Or someone.

“Sometimes fathers turn out to be evil sons of bitches.”

Creed had told me that. The reason why he’d said it had something to do with whatever lived out here.

“That’s the place we’re looking for,” Saylor said, pointing to a small trailer a few hundred yards in the distance. There was a canvas awning stretched over the right edge, likely designed to offer a bit of outdoor shade to the unlucky resident. A gleaming black motorcycle sat out front. I eased the car in that direction over the unpaved desert floor. When I came to a stop a few feet away from the door Saylor glanced around again quickly. She offered me an anxious smile before opening the door.

“Come on,” she said, motioning for me to follow.

Though she knocked lightly on the thin trailer door, the sound reverberated, echoing in the empty stillness. Wild creosote and twisted cacti dotted the landscape far and wide. The heat seemed more prickly out here. It felt as if there couldn’t possibly be a cool spot within twenty miles.

Saylor sighed and knocked on the door more insistently.

“Quit it,” rumbled a low voice.

We hadn’t seen the man, though he must have been sitting in the shadows under the canvas awning. He came around to the front and stood there, crossing his arms. He was solidly muscled and his brown skin was heavily tattooed. His black hair came down around his ears and if I had to guess his age I would have placed him in his late twenties. When he smiled at us I could swear I’d seen him before.

“Declan?” Saylor ventured with some uncertainty.

Now I knew. This was Declan Gentry. I’d heard his name before. He was a cousin to Creed, Chase, and Cord. I didn’t know why we had driven all the way out here to talk to him.

“Saylor,” he answered in a mild voice.

She grinned uneasily. “You remember me.”

He snorted and leaned against the surface of the trailer, though it must have been blistering hot. “Shit girl, I’m not feeble minded.” He pushed his hair out of his eyes. “How’s Cordero?”

“He’s fine.”

“Yeah? Well, I’ll assume you weren’t just touring the neighborhood so how about you tell me who isn’t fine?”

Saylor grimaced. “Everyone else. But it’s Creedence I’m most worried about.”

Declan was paying close attention. “Why?”

“He got in the middle of something bad.”

“Something bad,” Declan repeated. “Well that could be anything from a knocked up cheerleader to homicide. So stop making me guess.”

“He’s committed to a fight. It’s one he might not be able to walk away from if he loses.”

Declan’s eyes narrowed. “With who?”

“I don’t know exactly. But he already killed one man. I heard Cord say the name Jester.”