Her attention was caught by Ben moving behind Ethan, not fast or sudden. It was all deliberate, as if he confronted men with guns on a regular basis.
Kelly watched him from behind the Suburban and thought about the man she'd met in their apartment building in New York. The polished businessman with the expensive shoes andthe easy smile. The guy who ate Cheetos and watched reality dating shows. The man who had kissed her in a hotel room and admitted he was a workaholic who forgot to call.
That man was walking toward a gun.
Her heart squeezed painfully in her chest at the thought of anything happening to this man. This amazing, wonderful man that she’d found and now didn’t want to let out of her life.
I’m in love. It’s actually pretty wonderful.
Ben stopped. He was close now. Maybe six feet from Ethan. Close enough that Kelly could see both of their faces in profile from her angle behind the car. Ben's expression was calm. She had never seen anything quite like this. Ben Reilly, standing in a parking lot in his rumpled dress shirt, looked like a man who had been doing this his entire life.
His father's son. Whether he wanted to admit it or not.
"Ethan," Ben said. His voice carried across the lot, clear and steady. "Put the gun down."
Ethan's arm was still extended. Still shaking with that fine tremor Kelly had noticed before. The gun's muzzle drifted in tiny circles, never quite leaving Rob's direction. Rob was still on his knees. He'd stopped talking. His mouth was open, but no sound came out, which was probably the first time in Rob Bateman's life that he'd run out of words. Kelly supposed that confessing to murder had a way of depleting a person's vocabulary.
"He killed her," Ethan said. The words were wet and thick, pushed through a throat that had been screaming and crying and holding back eleven years of rage. "You heard what he said. He killed her."
"I heard," Ben replied. "And so did Kelly. We all heard it. He confessed. He can't take it back."
Something shifted in Ethan's posture. A fraction of uncertainty entering the rigid line of his arm. Kelly saw it. She held her breath.
"It won't matter," Ethan said. "He'll get a lawyer. He'll get out of it. People like him always get out of it."
"Not this time." Ben's voice didn't waver. "The law will deal with him. That's what should happen. He should have to face it. Every day, in a cell, for what he did to Lori."
Ethan made a sound. Not quite a laugh. Not quite a sob. Something between the two that was worse than either.
"It will make me feel better," Ethan said, and the gun steadied. The tremor stopped. His arm locked.
Kelly's heart seized.
"For a moment," Ben said. Quiet. Certain. "For one moment, maybe. And then you'll have to live with it. Every day after that, you'll carry it. Is that what Lori would want? For you to carry that?"
The name landed differently than anything else that had been said. Lori. Not "her." Not "the girl." Lori. The name of the person Ethan had loved. The person he was doing this for.
Ethan's face crumbled. The locked arm began to shake again. Worse this time. Visible tremors that ran from his shoulder to his wrist, the kind of shaking that happened when the body and the mind were pulling in opposite directions.
Rob let out a whimper. An actual whimper. The sound a cornered animal makes. Kelly looked at her brother, kneeling on the asphalt in his expensive suit with his tie askew and his face a ruin of tears and snot, and she felt something she'd never expected to feel in this moment.
Nothing.
Not rage. Not pity. Not satisfaction. Just a vast, empty nothing where her brother used to be. As if the person she'd known her entire life had been replaced by a stranger the moment those words came out of his mouth.
My hands were around her neck, and then she was quiet.
She'd grieve for the brother she thought she had. Wait, no. The brother she’dhoped and wantedto have. But later. Not now.
Ben took another step. He was within arm's reach of Ethan now, and Kelly's breath caught because the gun was right there, close enough that one wrong move could end everything. The sirens were louder. Much louder. Coming fast. Kelly could see the faint pulse of red and blue light reflecting off the trees at the edge of the property.
But Ben wasn't waiting for help.
"You're not a killer, Ethan," he said. His voice had dropped to something barely above a murmur. Kelly had to strain to hear it from her position behind the car. "Don't stoop to his level. You loved Lori. Honor that. Honor her. She wouldn't want this for you. She wouldn’t want you in prison for the rest of your life. She’d want you to live it. For both of you.”
Ethan's face contorted. Fresh tears spilled down his cheeks, catching the floodlight and turning silver.
"You're better than he is," Ben said. "You always were."
