Their marriage had fallen apart several months before she was killed, but it didn’t matter that their divorce had been finalized only days before that fateful night. Paige sure hadn’t deserved to die, and their son hadn’t deserved to lose his mother.
Before Jax reached the back porch, the door opened, and Belinda stuck out her head. Even though the sunset wasn’t far off, it was still hot, the August air more humid than cooling, and the breeze took a swipe at her long blond hair.
“You look like you saw a ghost,” she said, smiling, but that smile quickly vanished. “Is everything all right?”
Heck, he must have been wearing his emotions on his face and every other part of him. A rarity for him since, to the best of his knowledge, no one had ever called him the emotional type.
“Have there been any calls since I’ve been out?” he asked.
“No.” Unlike Buddy, Belinda didn’t even hesitate. “Why? What’s wrong?”
Jax waved her off. No need to worry her. And she would be worried if he told her about the voice mail. Belinda took care of Matthew as if he were her own and would have done the same for Jax if he’d let her. Anything that bothered the two of them would bother her.
“Can you stay late tonight? I need to go back to the sheriff’s office and look over some reports,” he lied.
Well, it was sort of a lie, anyway. He was a deputy after all, and there were always reports to read, write or look over. He’d maybe work on a few while he was there.
But what he really wanted was to have the voice mail analyzed.
He’d saved the old answering machine with Paige’s recorded message on it. Jax had figured when Matthew got older, he might want to hear his mommy’s voice.
Or at least that’s what Jax had told himself.
But now, the recording could be compared to the one on his voice mail, and he’d have the proof he needed that this was some kind of a sick hoax. Maybe then the knot in his stomach would ease up.
“No problem. I can stay as late as you need,” Belinda assured him.
He hadn’t expected her to say anything different. “Thanks. And don’t hold dinner for me. I’ll be back before Matthew’s bedtime, though.”
Belinda nodded and went back inside. But not before giving him another concerned look. She would believe his lie because she wanted to believe it, but she knew something was wrong.
Jax was within a few steps of the back porch when he caught some movement from the corner of his eye. Just a blur of motion in the open doorway of the detached garage. Since Buddy was still in the main barn, Jax knew it wasn’t him, and none of the hands from his family’s ranch had come to help him work today. Still, that didn’t mean his sister or brothers hadn’t sent someone over to get a vehicle or something.
Except it didn’t feel like anything that ordinary.
Probably because of that voice mail.
He was armed, his Glock in his waist holster, and Jax slid his hand over it and started toward the garage.
There.
He saw the movement again.
Someone was definitely inside.
He’d made some enemies over the years. That came with the territory of being a lawman. But if someone had decided to bring a fight to his ranch, then the person could have already ambushed him.
Not exactly a thought to steady his nerves.
“Who’s there?” he asked. Not a shout.
Jax kept his voice low enough so that Belinda or anyone in the house wouldn’t necessarily hear him. But a person in the garage should.
He got no answer, and he glanced back at his house to make sure Belinda was still inside. She was. Jax considered firing off a text to warn her to get Matthew and herself away from the windows, but it might be overkill.
Or not.
He got another glimpse of the shadowy figure and decided to confront this head-on. Literally. Jax drew his gun and hurried to the entry. It was dark inside, but not so dark that he didn’t see the person lurking behind the back end of one of the trucks.
“Paige?” Jax whispered.
He could have sworn everything stopped. His heartbeat. His breath. Maybe even time. But that standstill didn’t last.
Because the person stepped out, not enough for him to fully see her, but Jax knew it was a woman.
“You got my message,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
Paige. It was her. In the flesh.
Jax had a thousand emotions hit him at once. Relief. Mercy, there was a ton of relief, but it didn’t last but a second or two before the other emotions took over: shock, disbelief and, yeah, anger.
Lots and lots of anger.
“Why?” he managed to say, though he wasn’t sure how he could even speak with his throat clamped shut.
Paige cleared her throat, too. “Because it was necessary.”
As answers went, it sucked, and he let her know that with the scowl he aimed at her. “Why?” he repeated.
She stepped from the shadows but didn’t come closer to him. Still, it was close enough for him to confirm what he already knew.
This was Paige.
She was back from the grave. Or else, back from a lie that she’d apparently let him believe.
For a dead woman, she didn’t look bad, but she had changed. No more blond hair. It was dark brown now and cut short and choppy. She’d also lost some of those curves that’d always caught his eye and every other man’s in town.
“I know you have a thousand questions,” she said, rubbing her hands along the outside legs of her jeans. She also glanced around. Behind him.
Behind her.
“Just one question. Why the hell did you let me believe you were dead?” But Jax couldn’t even wait for the answer. He cursed. “I saw pictures of you after the Moonlight Strangler had gotten his hands on you. There’s no reason you should have let me believe that’d happened to you.”
“It did happen.” She stepped even closer, and thanks to the sunlight spearing through the door, he saw the scar on her cheek.
The crescent-shaped knife cut that the Moonlight Strangler had given all his victims.
There were marks on her throat, too. Scars from the piano wire that had sliced into her skin when the killer strangled her.
“Yes.” Paige touched her fingers to her neck. “It’s healed now. For the most part.”
She was wrong. It would never heal. Never go away. Not in his mind, anyway.
“But clearly you’re not dead,” he snapped. And he didn’t want her to be, but he damn sure wanted some answers. “I’ve been through hell for the past year. Hell,” Jax emphasized. “You didn’t just put me through this, either. Matthew went through it, too.”
Even though his son had been only a year old when Paige died, it’d broken Jax’s heart to hear his son call out for his ma-ma.
“Matthew.” Her breath hitched, and tears sprang to her eyes. “I did this for him. For you.”
“You didn’t do anything for me.” There was no way for him to rein in the anger in his voice or any other part of him. “You let me believe you’d been murdered.”