Sunset Thunder

  ***

  RYDER POUNDED ON Eliza’s door again and finally Carl opened it. The grey-haired man greeted him with a friendly smile within his five o’clock shadow.

  Ryder wasn’t in a friendly mood. “I want to talk to Eliza,” he barked. His first instinct was to push past this man and find Eliza, but he waited a few seconds and Carl stepped aside.

  Eliza was standing in the living room, of an identical laid out suite as Violet’s, only this one had grey walls and black backsplash instead of Violet’s beige and whites.

  “Ryder, I wasn’t expecting to see you.” Eliza didn’t ask where Violet was, so it was likely she’d already been to the suite. Her blinking, tear-glazed eyes gave her away.

  “What does Joel have on Violet?” Ryder cut straight to the chase. This woman wasn’t blind. She was Robert Caliendo’s wife and she would know things. No doubt, the man who walked around Ryder, warily watching him, knew as well.

  “Ryder, it’s not my place.”

  “I’m not leaving until someone tells me.” Eliza or Carl, he didn’t care.

  Eliza glanced down the hall with tightly pinched lips.

  “I’m sorry, Son, we have no answers for you,” Carl said.

  Ryder crossed his arms across his chest. “Like hell you don’t. I refuse to let anyone else hurt Violet. I refuse to stand here and allow the two of you to not stand up and defend her. Don’t you both think Robert has put her through enough hell? And not to mention the result of her marriage to Joel. Do either of you have any idea how scared she is?” He turned to Eliza. “Don’t you think it’s time to make it your place and stand up with Violet? Instead of letting other people walk all over her?” Carl crossed his arms and stepped in front of Eliza, a protection stance for the woman he loved. Didn’t he understand that was exactly what Ryder was doing for Violet?

  “Watch yourself,” Carl warned.

  Ryder wasn’t about to back down.

  Eliza touched Carl’s arm and moved up to his side. “Violet is stubborn. It’s not me, nor Carl that you have to go to for the answers you seek. It’s her.” Stubborn wasn’t even close to defining Violet.

  “Do you think I didn’t try? Joel is holding something over her head and if I just knew what it was, I could fix it.” Or fix Joel, whichever needed to be fixed.

  Eliza’s eyes once again landed on the hallway. At first he thought it was the kids she was concerned about, but the look in her eyes told him differently. Violet was here. Which meant Ryder wasn’t getting an answer out of either of them. Not now. He wasn’t quitting either.

  Ryder shrugged out of his jacket and held it toward the woman whose eyes gave her away. “Can you give this to Violet, please.” If it was his sweater that had given her the first step to reach out to him, maybe the reminder of his jacket would bring her back to him.

  Eliza looked down at it perplexed, but she took it. When her hand reached out, Ryder gently took her arm and brought her ear to his lips, for only her to hear. “I know she’s here. I will find out what Joel has done to her and I will give her the happily ever after she thinks that she doesn’t deserve. I’m not the bad guy. I love Violet.” He let go and turned to leave, but Eliza gripped his arm and he stopped.

  Eliza lowered her voice, so only Ryder would hear. “He holds a secret over Violet, but it’s not about her. It’s about you. He doesn’t know about Donald. Check into Donald’s finance records the year Joel married Violet and if you can find what he fears you will, then you will have exactly what you are looking for. Give me tonight to find the rest and I will contact you tomorrow.”

  That was all Ryder needed to know everything was going to be fine. But tomorrow? Could he wait until tomorrow? What choice did he have? “Thank you.”

  Eliza glanced at the jacket with wonder and said, “I will give her this.”

  “Thank you.”

  Eliza kissed his cheek. “Let my mistakes make you a hero in Violet’s eyes. She needs a hero after all the villains in her life.”

  Ryder smiled at her. “She needs two.”

  Ryder left.

  He wasn’t sure how he was going to spend the night away from Violet, but he supposed that digging that far back into his dad’s finances would keep him occupied.

  What had Joel done?

  As Ryder drove toward home, his chest tight, his stomach sick, he remembered Joel had started a business of some sort back then. It was right before he went bankrupt. Ryder had been dating Courtney at the time and not paid much attention to Joel’s business. However, he remembered investing his money and getting a turnover.

  Ryder rubbed his hands across his face. He wouldn’t know until he got home. He hoped Eliza could come through with enough to put an end to Joel.