Page 78 of Still Missing You

“The police will understand,” I add quickly. “When they see what he did. What he’s been doing...”

Her face hardens. “They won’t.”

“They will.”

“No,” she snaps. “They’ll see a woman who poisoned her husband. They’ll see a monster.”

“They’ll see a mother who saved her family,” I insist.

“And what about him?” she demands, gesturing sharply toward Matthew. “What about everything Jim did?”

“That’s exactly why you need to tell the police,” I say. “If you let us go, if you help us, you’ll be a hero.”

Her eyes darken. “A hero whose children grow up with everyone knowing what their father was?”

I hesitate. She’s not wrong. The truth will destroy whatever normal life she and her children have left, but I need her to snap out of her trance-like state. I need her to call for help for Matthew.

I could rush her. Now, with the lock off the door, I could easily get past her, but I don’t trust her alone with Matthew while I try to get help. Hell, I’m not even sure she’s telling the truth that Jim’s dead. What if she’s wrong or lying and Jim comes back? I need to get us both out of here together.

“Nancy,” I say, using my most reasonable tone. “You have to let us go. If you don’t, you’re the same as him.”

“No one can know what Jim did,” she says softly, slipping her hand into her coat pocket. Something shifts in her expression then. Something hard. “He was an evil man, but no one can know.”

A cold knot forms in my stomach. “You can’t cover this up,” I say quickly. “Other people already know. Hunter knows, and Jim was right. Hunter is a private investigator, an ex-cop. He has partners who have been assisting with the investigation. There’s no way you can hide what Jim did, but if you let us go...”

Her gaze sharpens. The flashlight trembles in her grip. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”

Her hand comes out of her pocket holding a gun. My stomach drops. Time seems to slow.

“You don’t want to do this.” I force calm into my voice. “Think of your kids. You don’t want them to lose you and their father in one night.”

Tears shine in her eyes, but her grip on the gun doesn’t waver. “They’ll never lose me. No one knows you’re here, and no one ever will.”

“What about Jim?” I’m speaking too quickly, and I can hear the desperation in my tone. “Police will never know that you killed him to stop what he’d been doing, that it was practically self-defense. Matthew and I can tell them how you saved us.”

She huffs out a laugh. “Police will think he left. They’ll see how he took money from our savings, and they’ll think he ran off. No one will even know he’s dead. I am sorry it has to be this way.”

The barrel of the gun steadies on me, and my heart pounds so hard it feels like it might break through my chest. I don’t move. Don’t breathe.

Behind me, Matthew shifts weakly.

“Please, don’t—”

Nancy’s finger tightens on the trigger. The door explodes inward, the crack of ancient wood deafening. I stumble back at the same time Nancy jerks, startled. The gun wavers.

Hunter fills the doorway. Relief nearly knocks my legs out from under me.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Hunter

The door gives under my shoulder with a crack that echoes like a gunshot in the night. I rush into the shed, gun already half-raised, adrenaline flooding my system so hard and fast it almost makes me dizzy.

My gaze locks on Nancy, gun in her hand. “Drop it!”

Then I see Dylan. Alive. Relief floods my system, knocking the breath from my lungs. He’s on his feet, swaying slightly. His face is bruised and bloodied. One eye is nearly swollen shut. Dried blood stains the skin around his mouth, and the way he holds himself tells me he’s hurting everywhere.

But he’s alive, and goddamn it, I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure he stays that way.