“It does to me.”
He tries to pull me back into his embrace, but I refuse to move, staring at him for an answer. Finally, he heaves a heavy sigh. “Look, there are ways to make hergo away.”
“Such as?”
“Like what she did to Bianchi.”
That was not at all what I expected him to say. Nor was it what I was trying to get at.
“You don’t mean that.”
“I think that maybe I do.”
“That’s not who you are.”
“Well, then I guess it’s who she drove me to be. Let’s forget for a moment that she murdered your parents and abandoned me with an abusive alcoholic. I made it clear to her, Cassie. Repeatedly. You’re the most important thing I have in my life, and she still tried to take you away.”
I think back to Monday morning, as Janine sat glaring at me in court. Jake being overly affectionate with me was his way of trying to send a message to her, it just wasn’t the one I thought. And apparently, it wasn’t one she was willing to hear.
“She’s made her choices. If it comes down to it, I’ll make mine.”
“But if it got traced back to you—”
Jake smiles sadly as he cups a hand to my face. “I’m already going to prison.”
“What?”
This feeling is worse than being tied up in that shack. Worse than waking up handcuffed in a serial killer’s basement. It’s like all the light is being sucked from my world, the darkness closing in around me, with no chance that things will ever return to the way they were.
“I’m pretty sure I killed that man earlier.”
“You were saving me.”
“How are we going to prove that? Both the Feds andthe sheriff thought you were safe. I’ve watched enough crime shows to know that they’ll be able to determine that his time of death happened after I said you were back.”
This isn’t happening. I’m not going to let it. I spent my entire career solving crimes, which puts me in a unique position to also know how to cover one up.
Falling into investigator mode, I say, “The burden of proof will be on them. What is there linking you to that old storage facility? Do you own it? Did anyone see you there? Did you—”
“The bullet, Cassie. It was fired from a gun registered in your name.”
“Is that all?”
“Isn’t that enough?”
“No. Jake, you can stop worrying—”
“I can’t. I know about bullet striations and how they can be traced back to the gun that fired them. Once they figure out who that guy is and what he did, the first person they’re going to look at is you, and if you believe for one second that I’m going to let them think you did it—”
I silence him with a kiss, the kind I dreamed about giving him during all my conscious hours in the shack. When our lips part, I say, “All of our handguns are loaded with frangible ammunition. It’s safer for when you shoot indoors because it disintegrates upon impact which means no ricochets. It also means that most police departments don’t have the technology or the manpower that would be required to even try and recover trace evidence off the fragments.”
He stares at me for a long minute with an expression of shock. Slowly, it morphs into a hopeful half-smile. “Really?”
When I nod, his smile becomes complete. This time, he kisses me, lifting me from the ground until I feel like I’m floating. I do my best to shut off my brain and enjoy the moment—because you never know how many more moments you’re going to get. And I don’t have the heart to tell him that I suspect the body in the warehouse is the least of our problems.
CHAPTER 30
Dusk is falling by the time we reach our destination. Gravel crunches under the tires as Jake turns into the lot, parking in one of the spots at the far edge of the circle of light cast by the registration office. As I stir, he puts his hand on my arm, shaking it gently, catching me before I slip back into sleep.
