“Never let me go again,” I asked.
“I swear I won’t.”
“Your tracker failed. We almost didn’t find you.”
“I’ll let Shade know. We’ll fix it.” He brushed my hair back. Gazed at me. “What else do ye need to tell me?”
I swallowed. “A few things. My identity got blown. I’m all over the press.”
Tyler flinched. “Is that my fault? The cameras were on us upstairs. I lost control. If I said something…”
“You didn’t. The video we made was just for us. It wasn’t streaming. My mother is the guilty party.”
He stilled. Accepted the newest example of my terrible family background. “I’ll help ye handle her.”
“To be honest, I’ve barely thought about it. That’s a next-week problem.” I centred myself for the next part. “There’s a reason the skeleton crew were heading to Glasgow. When we realised you’d gone, your uncle told us you would be going after a prisoner. The one you told me about.”
“Ye met Jonas?”
“He…had a lot to say.”
Pain crossed Tyler’s expression. “Did he now? He never did have any discretion. I’m guessing he told ye about my past?”
I felt every bit of that ache. It cut me up worse than anything in my past had. “I hate that that happened to you.”
He heaved a sigh, his big chest inflating. “I wish I’d had the chance to tell ye myself. No moment felt like the right one.”
“Because of everything I was going through. I know.” In the short time I’d had to think about it, I realised that Tyler would protect me from everything, including himself. He wouldn’t want to take the focus off me, even for a minute. But that wasn’t healthy or fair.
“If this,” I pointed between our chests, “is going to work, you have to treat me like an equal partner. Not someone precious and breakable.”
He nodded once. “I’ll give ye it all. The whole sordid story. But…”
“Not now. I know. When you’re ready.”
I hugged him. We stayed like that for another minute. Just existing in a pocket of safety.
Finally, Tyler drew back. “I need to go to Ash.”
“And I need to find my sister and talk to the skeleton girls.” They would have a field day with tonight’s revelations. I wondered if anyone had seen the clues.
He kissed my forehead. “Don’t leave the warehouse.”
“I’ll stay in our apartment.”
“Ours. Christ, woman. I’ll never get over hearing that.”
Tyler escorted me upstairs, and I called in the members of the skeleton girls detective agency. With Mila adding thoughts over the phone from the hospital, I related all that had happened. The murders. The appearance of Denise and Presley. Her death.
Working through the facts cemented it as real. I settled on the sofa and let the adrenaline ebb away.
Cassie goggled at Primrose’s stabby reasoning. “That’s what I was searching for in all the clues. The connection between the three people they killed. If I’d spotted their links to the three of you siblings, I might have guessed.”
Lovelyn wore a matching expression of shock. “I considered Wallace briefly, but not after I met him. I didn’t think he had it in him.”
I raised a shoulder. “On his own, I don’t think he does. But with his mother ordering him, and probably motivating him with money, he turned into a killer.”
Cassie shook her head. “And Presley killed Paul Debrock. Little shit. But he was also the one who hurt ye. I wish Tyler had let Heretic kill him.”
