My refusal to pursue criminal proceedings to save myself from Dickson’s anger seems to have presented the cops with a motive for me to do away with Caleb as part of some sort of money scam.
I can’t wrap my head around it.
How is this even happening?
Caleb stole my money and died in an accident, yet I’m being treated like a suspect.
How much more of this can I take?
I wander the hallways in a daze, letting voices and noise wash over me as I take a loose path toward the bathroom.
Before I get there, however, something cool wraps around my wrist and I’m guided out of the corridor and into a dark patient room where the blinds are pulled closed and the only light comes from a monitoring machine left in the corner.
“Sit,” comes a familiar voice that makes my heart leap.
Still in my daze, I’m encouraged to sit down on the bed and then Xander’s face swims through the darkness and appears before me.
“Xander?”
“Tell me what’s wrong,” he says softly, his fingers curling under my chin to keep my head up and my eyes on him. “June told me the cops took you away and then I find you wandering the hall like a zombie. What happened?”
“I…” How is he here? Xander somehow found me in this maze of a hospital. I’m amazed.
“Take your time.” His voice is low and soft.
The handsome features of his face appear angular in such a low light but his eyes, dark as they are, become my grounding point.
I blink and tears warm the corners of my eyes.
“What if it’s too much?” I whisper.
“It can’t be too much.”
“You’re the only good thing I have left. I don’t want to be too much.” How I ache to bury in his chest and forget everything, to exist just as me and him for the rest of my life.
“Talk to me,” he says. “That’s the only way I can prove you’re not too much.”
“The cops wanted to talk about Caleb. Pursuing criminal proceedings against those who the money went to, and they wanted my help, but all I could think about was Dickson. If anything happens and he loses that money, he’s going to come looking for it again. And he’ll take it from me and I don’t have it.”
Xander doesn’t speak.
“Plus, if they find out I went there and attacked him… it’ll look so bad for me. So I said no, but they said the bank could do it without me. And then they were asking me questions about Caleb and my car as if I had something to do with what happened to him, like it’s connected to my missing money. And it is, technically, but I didn’t do anything. I swear I didn’t.”
Xander’s hand remains a comforting, cool grip just under my chin until I’ve poured out every detail from the cops, then he moves to sit next to me on the bed. His hand rests on my forearm, then it slides down to my wrist until we’re palm to palm and our fingers curl together.
“The cops might be fishing for a way to close the case with a bang, but you haven’t done anything wrong. Caleb stole your money and your car. His debt will be traced to that asshole. You’re within your rights to try and get your money back, and you forgot something important.”
“Which is?” I turn and look up at him as he gazes down at me.
“You reacted in self-defense. He wasn’t letting you leave, and I can attest to that, given what I heard on the phone.” Xander’s hand tightens in mine. “You’re not alone in this.”
“How are you able to work through all of that so clearly? It feels like it’s crashing together in my mind and I couldn’t breathe. All I could think about was how guilty I felt because if I hadn’t argued with Caleb and said all those awful things, then he wouldn’t have been so angry and he might have driven better.”
I blink and the tears finally fall, tracing two wet paths down my cheeks.
“I tell myself he was an asshole, and I know he was. I know he was a horrible person, but he just keeps fucking up my life and he’s not even here anymore. And I don’t know what to do.”
“Easy. Take a breath, darling.”
