Chapter 60
sixty
Xander finds me sitting against a wall with my head in my hands.
Through the echoing emptiness inside of me, a dumb, blank voice points out that I am in the hospital where he works and I hadn’t even thought to text him. That is probably stupid; he knows people. But I couldn’t think long enough to even look up and check the hospital logo emblazoned on every wall.
Wordlessly, my former comrade slumps beside me, crossing his arms over his bent knees and reaching over to grip my bicep in a vise. It’s a grounding technique we’ve used before, usually while riding in the back of tanks. This time, it doesn’t work.
Still, he keeps his fist around my arm, squeezing.
“She’s dead?”
“She died,” I correct. “They were—they’re trying to—”
I can’t speak. Xander nods, staring across the hall while he speaks for me. “I talked to the terrifying British dude. He’s an asshole, by the way. But once I told him how I knew you and the situation, he came around a bit. Told me it was that sniveling little bitch boy you hired all along?”
Barnes has already set to work, unraveling the false identity Pierce used to gain employment with us. Turns out, his real name was Pierce Prescott. And he had planned to torture and kill the two people I loved most because I’d taken his father from him.
Fresh shame burns my lungs. If I’d only had the fucking courage to face up to what I’d done that night… If I’d looked that scared teenage boy who’d just lost his dad in the face… then I would have recognized him the second he came in to interview.
“I tried to call his alleged wife.” I don’t recognize my own voice, bleak as it is.
Xander growls. “Why would you call that piece-of-shit’s wife?”
It seemed like the right thing to do at the time.
I kept picturing my mother the night Pierce’s father shot mine; a new widow, lost and alone in the world.
But when I asked the precinct to pull up Pierce’s wife’s information, they informed me that their system had no record of a Mrs. Pierce Prescott.
Only a Miss Sarah Prescott—his seventeen-year-old sister, not his wife.
Xander listens while I explain, grimacing as he says, “I hate to give the guy credit, but lying to you makes sense. Anyone who observed you for any time at all would see that the easiest way to gain your trust or respect is to be a good family man. He probably passed off his sister as his wife to seem like a stand-up guy. Plus, it’s easy.
There were probably already pictures of them on social media and all that shit. Didn’t you say she was pregnant?”
My nod feels mechanical. “He showed me pictures and everything.”
“And a pregnant teenage sister would be even more motive for him to work with Ted. Once you explained the situation with the Strykers, I’m sure he approached those evil fuckers for a paycheck. Take care of his sister, get himself out of town. It was a good plan.”
My voice rasps. “And here I thought he just helped Daniel assault Ella to make me look incompetent. Thank God there was a fucking reason for it.”
Xander sighs. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant… The kid was deranged, obviously, but he also had to be somewhat intelligent if he managed to fool you. He probably figured making some cash on top of ruining your career couldn’t hurt.”
I hear what he isn’t saying—any way we slice what Pierce has done and why, it all comes back to me. I was the one he was after. I was the one who should have known better.
I’m the reason my sweet girl might be gone.
All of this is my fault. Every failing I have, every time I tried to make things better but only fucked up more… it all led to my mother on an operating table and Alice bleeding out on the dirty floor of that fucking warehouse.
If I lose either of them and somehow manage to live through it…
Well, I mostly hope I won’t.