Free One Last Hold by Angela Smith Page B

leave, waiting a good five minutes afterward just sitting in his car and staring into the dark.
    Caitlyn. How could he have treated her like that? How could he have left without looking back when she’d been the constant in his life? He’d been so young, so stupid. All these years she had blamed herself, and he’d done nothing to prevent it.
    The past was the past. She had her life, he had his, and there was no rekindling what they once had.
    Even if it had been the best thing that ever happened to him.
    *
    Wesley carried the last of the boxes into his house and placed it in the corridor along with the others. Movers had already come and gone, but he chose to bring these up himself.
    The scent of construction tickled his nostrils, and he reveled in the clean fresh smell. His nerves throbbed in excitement at his first night in his brand new home.
    Roaming the house, he stopped to admire the immense windows drawing the outside in. The windows offered such an amazing view that he could imagine he was stepping in the snow that laced through the mountains, could sense the cold on his cheek.
    Stepping outside, he checked the pork searing on the grill. The air was crisp and tight, but the news cautioned a wintry weather mix for later this evening
    He lumbered up the stairs that snaked the side of his house to the deck outside his bedroom. Although he didn’t need such a big house for himself, maybe one day he would. It’d be a great place to raise children, even though children never crossed his mind until now. Now, when he was about to hit the thirty-year mark, he wondered what it would be like to come home to a family of his own.
    Opening the door to his bedroom, he jogged down the stairs, fetched a box, and proceeded up again. Back and forth, moving boxes from out of the corridor into their respective places and imagining ways to make his home cozier. He found his trophies, old and new and ones since high school. His mother had saved them, insisting he should always remember his accomplishments. He sat on the floor, lifting trophies out of the box, and stopped at one he’d received for track.
    Earning that trophy had been a cornerstone for him. It’d been the day he’d finally decided running wasn’t for him, track and field wasn’t for him, and law school definitely wasn’t for him.
    He was an auto racer, through and through.
    A knock at the door startled him. He dropped the trophy into the box, stood, and jogged downstairs.
    He opened the door and frowned when he recognized the officers, Sikes and Brew. “Can I help you?”
    Sikes flashed his badge and a piece of paper.
    Fuck.
    “We have a warrant to search this house and the premises.”
    Wesley swallowed the air that furled in his cheek. They hadn’t found a suspect. They were still looking at him. “What?” He clutched the door tighter and took the warrant from the detective. Words swam in front of him. The first time worried him but not too severely. This time had to mean he was a potential suspect, probably because they had no others.
    “If you’ll move aside, Officer Brew and I will get started.”
    Not knowing what else to do and having no other options, Wesley stepped aside. Dread fissured cold in his blood. “I just moved in today and I’m not all the way unpacked yet.”
    “This won’t take long.”
    “I’m calling my attorney,” Wesley said.
    “Go ahead. Won’t stop us from searching your house, though.”
    The officer thumbed through one of the boxes that Wesley hadn’t moved from the corridor yet. The box held racing memorabilia, and Wesley’s gut clenched as they haphazardly filched through his belongings.
    He’d play their game...for now. They wouldn’t find anything here. But in the back of his mind, worry gnawed at him. They’d found enough to secure two search warrants: one for his RV and one for his home. It was time to stop ignoring the problem.
    He called an old friend from law school. Jacob had gone into criminal law and