Footsteps pounded in the entryway before someone else burst into the kitchen. “We need pictures to make a positive ID—”

The buzzing in my head nearly drowned out Carver’s voice.

“I think your positive ID is on the screen.” Rhett pulled my hair back over my shoulder. “Come on, Ari. Let’s get you to a bathroom.”

I shook my head, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, not even caring that it was disgusting. “No, I can’t. I have to analyze the picture. It could be fake. There’s no way it’s real. It’s not. It can’t be.”

Rhett held me tighter. “Ari, we need to get you cleaned up.”

From his forced calm, I knew there was something else.

“What was in the box? The package? Oh my God. Please don’t tell me—”

“I’m so sorry, Ari. So fucking sorry.” Rhett’s grip on me tightened.

“Nooo!” I screamed, tears burning paths down my face. My stomach rebelled again, and I gagged and choked on bile.

This isn’t happening. This is a nightmare.

I wanted to close my eyes and pretend this day had never started. Erik . . . My body shook with sobs as a hundred emotions crashed into me at once.

Esme . . . My chest ached. My insides were shredded. My gaze dropped to the floor to see if there was blood puddled beneath my feet from the gaping hole in my heart.

“Why?” My question came out ragged. “Why would someone do this? Erik didn’t do anything to anyone.”

My phone rang from its position beside my computer. Too close to the horrific picture on the screen for me to take a single step toward it.

Rhett didn’t hesitate. He reached out and snatched it up.

Esme. On the secured line.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” I choked out. “How do I tell her? I’m not strong enough.”

“We’ll do it together.”

I answered the phone, and all we heard were sobs until she started wailing.

“He’s dead! Someone . . . someone sent me a text message. With a picture. And one of Jan too.”

My knees buckled, Rhett’s hold the only force keeping me upright. “Esme, where are you?”

“In an Uber. Going home.”

“Don’t go home,” I croaked, the words sounding broken. “Don’t go home.”

“Oh God, they sent it to you too?” Her voice rose to a screeching level. “How is this happening? This can’t be happening!”

“I’m so sorry. It’s all my fault.”

“No, it’s those motherfuckers, and we’re going to take them all down.” Esme’s hysterical tone took a turn for the dangerous.

Rhett grabbed the phone from my hand. “What you’re going to do is go directly to the airport and get on a flight to Vail. You’re going to lay low until this is over.”

I jerked my head around to look at Rhett. “Vail? Why not here? She should be here. With me.”

He gave me a hard look and repeated himself. “You understand me, Esme? Don’t take a damn thing with you. Tell the driver right now to change direction. We’ll get you a ticket and message you the details through the secure app.”

“Okay. Okay.” Esme’s voice shook as she repeated herself. “Colorado. Pot’s legal there. I’ll get so stoned, I won’t remember what happened. I’ll forget. I’ll . . . Erik . . .” She broke into sobs again, and I pulled myself together enough to take the phone from Rhett and form words without crying.

“Listen to me. We will take them out. We’ll get revenge. No one is getting away with doing this. No one. We won’t just hurt them, we will destroy them.” I didn’t care if I sounded like a bad movie villain.

“Okay. Pot and destruction. I can do this.” Esme’s voice quavered, but she sounded steadier as we heard her tell the driver to go to the airport instead and she’d pay him cash. He agreed, probably not about to argue with the hysterical woman in his backseat. “Send me the ticket. I’ve got Erik’s computer. I’m going to find out exactly what he was doing, and then I’m going to track down these motherfuckers—”

“And give us the information so we can take care of it,” Rhett finished for her.

“Only if you promise—”

“I swear to God, we will get them, E. I will not stop until we do.” I’d never made a more serious vow. “Call me when you get to the airport and are checked in.”

“I will.”

We hung up, and I turned in Rhett’s arms and soaked the front of his shirt with my tears.

“How can this be happening? What did I do?”

He smoothed my hair back from my face and held me close. “This isn’t your fault. You didn’t do this.”

“But Erik wouldn’t have been a target if not for me. Jan either.” I looked toward my laptop and the other message mocking me for not clicking on it. I couldn’t. Not right now. I didn’t know if I could handle seeing more.

“And you wouldn’t have been a target if not for someone else. There’s a hell of a lot more going on here than we thought. Now we pull our shit together, find the answers, kill the people who need killing, and get Erik and Jan justice.”

I looked up at him, blinking away my tears. “I need to call my brother.”

Rhett nodded in agreement. “We need to call your brother.”

* * *

After we arranged for the plane ticket to Vail for Esme, and Rhett’s brother Rock agreed to pick her up and keep her safe, we had Carver call in two security guys to watch over my dad at the rehab center. We weren’t taking any risks with the people we loved.

Rock knew there was a threat, and he promised he would take good care of Esme and Mrs. Hennessy.

Between Rhett and me, we called Heath six times. Each time, his voice mail picked up.

Rhett ended the last call and turned to me, his expression serious. “I didn’t want to believe it. Fuck, I still don’t want to.”

In this moment, I had some idea of how Rhett felt when faced with first, the possibility of his brother being a dirty cop, and then his dad.

The choking disbelief. The visceral denial. The fear that it could be true. The last shred of hope I held on to that we could have gotten it all wrong.