Dead End Read Online Free Page B

unusual to have an undercover op go bad.”
    “The dealers Dylan and Aidan were meeting didn’t arrive until after Dylan had been shot. They pulled into the alley just after, and of course, the agents in the building across the alley opened fire, and—”
    “So you’re thinking if the dealers had been onto the op, they wouldn’t have shown up at all. If anything, they’d have sent their henchmen to kill Dylan and Aidan and simply disappeared.”
    “Exactly. But these men came to the buy, just like they’d planned. And they all denied having known that Dylan and Aidan were law. They all swore they had no clue.”
    “Of course they’d deny it. No one in his right mind admits to setting up the FBI.”
    “True. But no way, if they’d shot an FBI agent minutes before, would they have shown up at all. That’s just plain stupid, and these guys have been at this a long time. They’re far from stupid.” She shrugged. “And that’s what’s so hard to accept for everyone. Dylan’s killer got away with murder, and no one has the slightest idea who he is. That’s what keeps it raw, keeps it stuck in everyone’s craw. Not knowing why, or who.”
    “Does anyone really think they’ll ever answer those questions?”
    “Realistically, no. But they’ll never stop asking, never stop talking about it.”
    Evan shook his head somewhat vaguely.
    “What?”
    “I’m sorry for what happened to him, I swear I am. But I can’t fight them for the rest of my life, Annie. There are just too damned many of them. Your sister married into the family; they’re always going to be around.” He took a deep breath. “I’m always going to feel as if I’m sleeping in a dead man’s bed. I’m just not sure how long I can go on doing that.”
    “Oh God, Evan, I had no idea you felt that way. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I can’t change the situation,” she said softly. “But I can’t change what was or what is. I’m so sorry, for both of us. I was hoping that you and I . . .”
    Her voice trailed off and she made a gesture—a sort of “I give up” flutter of her hands—before going up the steps and directly to the front door. Once in her car, she sat quietly for a few moments, trying to compose herself, fighting back the tears that had been threatening to fall, trying to stop the hollow feeling inside her from spreading, but it soon engulfed her. With a sense of sorrow and regret, she put the car in gear and headed toward the airport. It was going to be a long trip back to Virginia.
     
    Evan sat on his back steps, his forearms resting on his thighs, mindlessly peeling the label from his bottle of beer, dropping the little scraps of paper at his feet. The deck he’d started building in the spring was just as he’d left it two months ago, mostly frame, some little bit of floorboard. Incomplete, like the basement.
    Like his life.
    Well, he’d almost had it all, hadn’t he? The girl, the job, the future he’d always dreamed of. Then, of course, he had to go and let that green-eyed monster take over his intellect, had to go and open his big mouth. Well, that was the end of that. Shit, he must have sounded like a bratty adolescent who’d caught his girl walking with another guy to her locker.
    He blew out a long breath that was filled with exasperation and self-doubt. He had some big decisions to make, and he’d have to make them now, before things between Annie and him got any worse.
    Like they could get worse.
    He went inside, dropped the empty beer bottle into the glass recycling bin, and got himself another, then went back outside. He walked the deck frame, balancing carefully as he followed the narrow supports that would eventually be covered with flooring.
    If I get that far.
    He stood at one end, the end where he’d planned on building steps that would go into the narrow backyard. A few months ago, back in the early spring, he and Annie had stood out here and discussed flower beds. She’d been excited about the