I flipped through the pages, searching for any reason he might have updated the document. I was probably making too much out of it though. The date meant nothing. Granddad was the superstitious one. I didn’t see anything in lotto numbers or dice rolls.
But something roiled in my stomach, and it wasn’t a good instinct.
My phone rang again. I answered it without looking, fearing it was the care facility.
I should have hung up on him.
“Josie.” Maddox’s voice rumbled right into my core. “You gotta hear me out.”
My thumb hovered over the button to disconnect.
“I don’t want to talk to you.”
“I needed the money, Sweets.”
“Nolan hurt us. He burned down my shop. He wants nothing more than to fuck me. Why would you ever take a job from him?”
“I know.”
My fingers trembled, too aggravated and exhausted and emotionally drained to deal with Maddox and his lies now. “Nolan threatened me two weeks ago. Made a pass at me and, when I rejected him, got aggressive.”
“Mother fucker—”
“That is the man you worked for. That is the man you let trap you. He wanted to frame you, Maddox. He might have put you away if he didn’t get everything he wanted then.”
“What was that?”
“Me to admit that I let you back in my life.” I swallowed. Hard. “It was a mistake. I see that now.”
“Josie, I needed work. I needed money.”
“How long have you been his little errand boy? What did you even do for him?”
“Josie—”
“Answer the question.”
“I did whatever he couldn’t do himself.” Maddox grunted. “He paid me to rough up Bob Ragen, to get him to withdraw his offer on the property so you’d sell only to him.”
“I’m hanging up now.”
“You weren’t selling anyway, Sweets. I made us some money doing what Nolan wanted.”
“And if Bob burned down the shop?” I couldn’t do this anymore. I slammed the will onto the table, but my eyes caught a familiar name.
One that didn’t belong in Granddad’s will.
“I swear I’m going to find who did this, Josie. I’ll fix it. I needed money a year ago. Bad. I planned to marry you. We wanted a baby. I couldn’t live off of Matt’s scraps for electrical work anymore, not when people didn’t trust me enough to let me into their homes.”
Money.
He’d wanted money.
My stomach pitted. I stared at the new name inserted in the will.
Andrew Maddox.
Granddad put Maddox in the will—gave him the entirety of his electrical business, his tools, his clients, and his blessing to marry me.
And he had signed it…two days before the fire.
Maddox was put into the will, and then we lost the store.
He talked, but I couldn’t hold the phone steady to hear anything he said. My mind clicked pieces of a puzzle in place that I no longer wanted to solve.
I thought when my heart broke the pain would end.
It was just the beginning.
Maddox was in the will. He was doing work secretly for Nolan—not just before the fire, but after, even when he knew it was Nolan’s crime.
Unless it wasn’t Nolan’s doing.
The police. The fire marshal. Granddad. Delta. The entire town thought the electrical fire was set by Maddox. I never wanted to see it, never believed that dark side of him. But there it was—spoken every time we had the same fight. He talked of blood. Of violence.
Of revenge.
Was the fire revenge for me breaking up with him? Did he burn down the shop and then deliberately invent motives for other suspects to lead me away from him and Nolan?
“Oh, God.” I whispered, choking on his betrayal.
“Sweets? What’s wrong?”
“I didn’t know. I never thought…”
“Josie.”
“It was you.”
“What was me?”
“It was you all the time. You were in the will. You were working with Nolan. It was you.”
“Josie—”
The words made me sick just to speak them. “It’s why you were at the shop in time to save me. You didn’t know I’d be inside. And you got caught tampering with the breaker box.”
“What are you talking about—”
“It was your fault. You caused the fire.”
14
Maddox
This was what it felt to die without dying.
My heart ripped out, and my future torn apart.
I lost the only thread of hope and stability I had ever grasped within my blood-stained hands.
“You did it.” Josie’s words rattled with shock. “It was you.”
“No!”
“I can’t—”
“Josie!” I nearly broke the phone. “Listen to me!”