“Cassie,” he said. His voice hummed barely above a whisper. “Tell me what?”
Izzy and Jayce were back in the parlor, so where were Joel and Cassie? My veins burned through my limbs, causing my left hand to twitch—that old “tell” I loathed, but no one seemed to notice. Except her, and she wouldn’t tell anybody. She never did.
I pumped my hands in and out of fists.
They. Were. Going. To. Pay.
I wouldn’t hurt Cassie. Well, not to that extent. She was mine, but there’s a lot of pain up to the point of death, and if she couldn’t listen—wouldn’t listen—she’d need to be punished too. Brought in line. They both were going to pay.
I fought the urge to barge right in there. Take Cassie, kill Joel, but I had to be calm.Focused. Patient. I knew what I was doing. I just had to remove emotion, but that was never hard. Just separate from my feelings and work the plan that’d been in motion since I found our exit strategy.Our. Soon it’d be me and Cassie like it always should have been.
Tears ran down Cassie’s sweet face. So much pain.
“Shh,” Joel murmured, not anticipating this reaction to Brady’s death. It was upsetting. Downright heartbreaking. And he’d shed a few tears on the way back, the moisture freezing the second it left his eye. But she was visibly shaking. Not that she shouldn’t care, but she was an autopsy assistant. She lived with dead bodies. At least, in a way. But ... this was nobody.This was their friend. Hepinched his nose, trying to stall his tears. Now was not the time for sorrow, as heartbreaking as it was. Now was the time for action, and when they were safe, then he’d deal with the grief.
Cassie swallowed back a sob. “I need ... I need to tell you something,” she started again.
“All right.” He wiped her tears away with the pad of his thumb.
“He’s here.” Her voice shook.
Joel frowned. “Who’s here?” It took a moment of studying the horror on her face for it to hit home. “Your stalker? You’re saying he’s back?”
She nodded, tears flowing again.
“How do you know?”
“I dozed off, and he left a letter—actually two letters—in the room with me.”
He straightened, his body growing rigid. “He’shere? As in the lodge? He did this?” He turned and pointed to poor Brady.
The sicko was back to torment the woman he still loved. After the terrorizing year the stalker haunted her, Cassie leaving him at the altar, and the subsequent year apart... Through it all and in spite of it all, he loved her still. Her and only her.
“He must have killed Brady.” She handed him the letters, her hand shaking. “He said he did it to teach me a lesson.”
He gripped hold of the letters. “A lesson?” Flipping the letters open, he read them in succession. He finished and frowned. “What is the cardinal rule?”
“The one I’m breaking now.”
“I don’t understand.” He slipped the letters in his pocket for evidence.
She released a whoosh of air, a fresh wave of tears springing to her eyes. “Telling you.”
“Telling me what? That he’s back?”
She bit her bottom lip, her gaze drifting down.
He nudged her chin up with the crook of his hand. “Cassie? I know that avoidance glance. What’s up?”
“He sent me a picture.” She sniffed. “It was a laser scope with the red dot you put on the bullseye, you know? It was centered on you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The night before we were to get married, he sent me the picture and a message. If I married you, he’d kill you. If I told you, he’d kill you. If I...” She heaved on a sob.
“Shhhh,” Joel whispered, caressing her cheeck in smooth strokes, aiming to calm her, at least enough to explain. “What are you saying?”
She hiccupped on a sob. “I had to call the wedding off, or he’d kill you.”
