Lara puts her tiny hand on my forearm. “Are you sure you don’t want something to eat or drink?” She leans over and looks inside a giant tote. “I brought pomegranate juice, a fizzy Kefir drink, flavored water…”
She always has a million and one drinks on her.
“I’ll stick with water.” I don’t think my stomach can handle anything with flavor right now. My mind is reeling with way too much, and I’m not sure there’s any energy left to process food.
Until I’m discharged, I won’t stop worrying about my little girl and…Anton.
Please, please, please let him be okay.
On top of these worries, Callum got permission to come in and fill me in.
Mike confessed immediately, in the patrol car, on the way to the station. He confessed to a trail of horror stretching farther than anyone in Echo Valley could ever imagine.
Hearing it didn’t surprise me so much as settle something cold inside me. My instincts were right. My work mattered. But God, I wish being right didn’t come with so much weight.
But one thing keeps making me think I’ve been blessed. For some reason, Mike called Anton to tip him off. Or did he?
Could it have been Ingram instead?
I asked Callum to hold him and allow me to question him so long as I’m released before three. When I said I wanted to question him, I felt it was my duty as the lead officer and wanted to confront Ingram once and for all. But now, all I want is Anton. And home.
More than even answers.
Lara sits beside me, fingers woven through mine. Her hand is warm, so different from the cold prickle still lingering in my bloodstream.
“Your breathing just shifted,” she says. “You okay?”
No. Yes. Maybe.
I squeeze her hand.
“The cliff keeps replaying.” I keep it simple.
“It probably will for a long time,” she says, empathetically. My best friend knows about trauma. She knows about bad dreams. And she’s a realist. What I love about her is she’s never been one to hide from the truth, nor damn it.
She lives in a rooted way that almost makes me comfortablesaying more. But for now, I only want two things. For my baby to be well enough to get out of here, and to see Anton.
I look toward the door again. The hallway outside is quiet except for footsteps now and then, rolling carts, and the distant rustle of someone drawing a curtain. A strip of fluorescent light spills across the floor tiles, blinking slightly with every shift of movement out there.
I have to trust that I’d know if something serious was wrong. But I’ve seen too many assassination documentaries. I know someone can be stable and then…not.
A soft knock sounds on the door frame, and for a split second, my heart slams so hard, I’m sure the monitor picks it up. But it isn’t Anton. It’s the nurse coming back in with a chart tucked against her side.
“Doctor said twenty more minutes on the monitor,” she says gently, checking the placement of the sensors. “Baby looks good. Consistent. No decelerations. You two are strong.”
It should settle me, but it doesn’t—not fully. Because even with a strong heartbeat filling the room like a lullaby, my mind keeps circling that missing piece.
Justin.
Why did he do what he did? Cover for a killer? Even if it was his brother. Would I? And did he know about all these women? Help cover things even in Nevada? What did he think of me all this time? Was he worried I’d crack it, and he figured he’d send his brother in again?
I still don’t understand the part he played or why he was willing to turn himself in when he had a ticket to Mexico in hand. Mike told me at the cliff’s edge that the police would be chasing a dead man. He’d planned on ending his life there at the quarry.
He thought that would save his brother. But with so much of his logic being that of a psychopath, it’s hard to use Mike’s logic to trace Ingram’s.
The thoughts lead me back to the cliff, and I rub the cuts on the front of my wrists.
Lara notices instantly. “Hey.” She shifts closer, rubbing slow circles on my arm. “Breathe.”
