The raw panic in her voice hit me like a sledgehammer. Whatever happened out there had shattered her. This wasn’t my fierce, brilliant Faith.
My?Since when was she mine?
Focus, Ryker.
“I’m not asking you to go back.” I reached out, almost touched her knee, then caught myself. “I need you to tell me where this guy is.”
“I … I just ran.” Her hands trembled as she wrapped her arms around herself, leaving more bloody fingerprints on the white cotton.
“Think. How long did you run?”
“I don’t know.”
Fantastic.This was going nowhere fast. I had no clue how vast those woods were. Could be ten acres, could be a hundred. Could be a crime scene I needed to preserve or a man I needed to save.
“I didn’t run long,” she said suddenly, her eyes coming to life more. “If I had run far, the blood would be dry, wouldn’t it?”
Smart girl.Even in shock, that sharp mind was coming back. “Exactly. So, he’s probably within a couple-mile radius of the mansion.” I kept my tone encouraging, even as my mind raced through legal scenarios, none of them pretty. “You’re doing great, Faith. I need you to think back and tell me everything.”
“I just remember the blood,” she whispered. “So much blood. And the pain in my head—that’s the first thing I remember.”
“Before that? Nothing?”
“Just fuzzy images.” Her voice cracked, and it took every ounce of professional control not to pull her into my arms. “I remember screaming.” My pulse spiked. “I screamed for him to stop.”
A coil of rage, mixed with relief, surged through me. Rage that some man had done something horrific to her. Relief, because that scream was the first tangible factor in building a case of self-defense.
Still, the thought of that guy—whoever the fuck he was—hurting her? My fists clenched before I could stop them. “Stop what? Was he attacking you?”
She blinked. “I just remember being scared and angry, and then this explosion of pain in my head.” She touched her scalp gingerly, wincing. “Like someone hit me with a baseball bat. I’m sorry. It’s coming in pieces.”
“Don’t apologize. You’re doing incredible. So, you rememberbeing in the woods with this man. You remember screaming for him to stop. Then someone or something caused that pain.”
“Yes.”
“What happened next?”
Her lip trembled. “I looked down, and he was just lying there, bleeding. So much blood pooling underneath him.”
Here it was. The moment that some jury might use to determine guilt or innocence. “Did you stab him, Faith?”
Her shimmering eyes locked with mine, and I saw the answer before she spoke. Saw the guilt, the confusion, the desperate need for someone to tell her it would be okay.
Christ, I wanted to be that someone.
“I must have,” she whispered. “I had the knife in my hand. I must have stabbed him.”
“But you have no memory of actually doing it?”
“No, but what else could have happened?”
A dozen possibilities. “What were you doing in those woods? Were you there to meet someone?”
“I …” She shut her eyes for a moment. “I don’t know.”
“Do you remember anyone else being in those woods? Aside from you andhim?”
“No. But it was so dark. Just slivers of moonlight through the trees.”
