Chapter Eighteen
Nick pulled up to Sassy’s house to find a squad car already there, lights flashing.
Her neighbors stood outside in a cluster, each one holding a little girl.
“What’s happening?” he asked, getting out of his truck.
Riot barked incessantly from the passenger’s seat, but Nick left the windows rolled down slightly and closed the driver’s door.
“Not sure,” the man said. “The officer told us not to approach the house.”
“I hope everything’s okay,” the woman added, concerned.
The wail of an ambulance preceded the van as it rolled to a stop on the curb. Perez and Dilinger jumped out. “Nick!” Perez called. “Dispatch said someone’s down inside the house. Is Sassy okay?”
Nick didn’t stop to answer. With the sounds of Riot’s panicked barking chasing him, he hurdled a hedge and charged the open front door. “Sassy?” he called.
The tracks were easy to find. He followed them from the living room down the hallway to the master bedroom, urgency and anxiety pent up inside him. Someone’s down, Perez had said.
Someone.
He entered the room to find Officer O’Connell crouched next to a body. For a second, Nick’s heart racked his ribs painfully. Then he blinked, scanning the figure with more clarity. Ryder.
Ryder was down. Blood marred the whole right side of his face. A blood-tinged knife lay next to his form along with a cordless nail gun.
Nick’s gaze lingered on the knife. “What happened here?”
O’Connell blew out a breath. “She pegged him with the nail gun. The bleeding’s slowed, but the man’s out cold.”
Perez rushed in after Nick, crowding him against the wall. “Is he breathing?” she asked.
Dilinger joined the fray, but Nick had already tuned them out. He’d found the trail of blood across the floor to Sassy’s bed.
His breath backed up in his lungs. There was blood in her sheets. It was wet and vibrant, red and fresh. Fresh blood on Sassy’s bed…
“Where is she?” he heaved, whirling on O’Connell.
He pointed to the cracked door of the walk-in closet. “I couldn’t get her to come out.”
Nick passed through the door and found Sassy sitting against the wall, her knees high, her arms full of Maine coon.
Her wild eyes swung to him, glazed with shock. “Nick?”
“You’re all right,” he blurted, bracing his hand against the wall when his knees softened in relief.
“He tossed her in the hamper and closed the lid,” she cried. “Who does that?”
Nick crossed to her, planted his back against the wall and slid down to the floor, giving in to his own weakness. He fought the urge to drop his head between his knees and breathe until visions of her hurt or dead faded like smoke on the wind.
“She must’ve attacked him when he broke in through the back door. She knew a predator when she saw one,” Sassy went on, stroking Rogue under the chin. The cat clung to her, too, as if she was as afraid to let go as her owner was. “I wasn’t that smart.”
Her voice broke on the last word. He watched her lower lip tremble and gathered her into his arms, against his chest. “You took care of it. You took care of him.” The only one who wouldn’t come out of this unscathed was Ryder.
Christ, she’d nearly staved the guy’s skull in.
“He shouldn’t have come in my house,” she muttered against his sternum, head tucked beneath his chin. “He should’ve thought twice before coming into our town.”
“Damn right he should have,” he breathed into her hair, closing his eyes and absorbing the fact that she was whole. She’d come through. He reached down, cupping her face in his hands. He studied it, giving her a thorough scan. “Are you good?”
Her eyes were still wild, but the glimmer in them was certain. “He didn’t touch me.”
He sighed, dropping his brow to meet hers. There was so much he needed to say to her. He pulled her to him once more and didn’t let go.
* * *
The Coltons arrived in droves. First Ryan, having heard the news from dispatch.
Then her parents. Ava and Chay pulled in shortly after.
Then Jacob. Detective Finbar proved an unwelcome addition to the party, earning an especially chilly reception from Bly and Richie.
While Nick and Jacob tried to prevent him from taking Sassy’s statement before morning, she insisted on giving it anyway.
Nick paced outside the door of the guest bedroom where Finbar had closed himself in with her and O’Connell.
When the officers emerged, Finbar was grim-faced. Nick peered into the room, spotted Sassy sitting on the edge of the bed, her head in her hands. He shoved past the detective to see to her. Finbar caught him by the elbow, bringing him to a halt. “She may need a moment.”
Nick shoved off his grip. “If you had any compassion for her, you’d end this investigation into her and Zephyr before tomorrow.”
Finbar lowered his gaze. “I’ll see what I can do,” he stated.
Perez sent updates on Ryder’s condition, but Nick reported none of them to Sassy.
Her mother and Ava had already stripped the bed in her room, yet when Sassy caught them taking the sheets to the laundry room, she shook her head.
She bundled the heap into her arms, comforter and all, and walked to the front door to toss them in the trash outside. No one stopped her.
Eventually, she wound up on the couch with Riot’s head on her lap and Rogue wrapped around her shoulders like a mink stole.
She listlessly petted the dog’s head and began to answer Jacob and Chay’s questions about what had happened.
The story came out fast—a stream of consciousness that played through the events from beginning to end and left everyone silent.
Richie looked shell-shocked. Bly pressed her hand to her chest, speechless.
Ava paled significantly. She hugged Sassy.
“I hate that this happened to you,” she murmured. “I hate it so much.”
Bly lowered to the couch beside her daughter and wrapped both her and Ava in her arms.
They all offered to stay, spend the night, anything to prevent Sassy from being alone.
She refused each suggestion, promising that she would be fine for the night.
When Richie and Bly insisted, she said, “This is my home. If it’s going to continue to be my home, I need to reclaim my space. Please understand.”
They balked, but at last agreed to go home. Nick doubted either of them would sleep. Bly would definitely sit up long past midnight, waiting for the phone to ring so she could rush to Sassy’s side.
As Nick walked them out, he let the front door swing closed at his back and said, “I won’t let her be alone. Not tonight.”
Bly nodded while Richie shoved his hands in his pockets, lowered his head and remained silent. They were both stricken by the events of the evening. She placed her hand on Nick’s shoulder. “If she’s going to let anyone in, it’s you. Please call if she needs us.”
“I’ll bring ice cream,” Richie offered. “Tell her…whatever she needs.”
Nick nodded. “I’ll make sure she knows it.”
“We need her to be okay,” Bly told him. “She’s not okay. Not right now. That’s why I don’t want her to be alone.”
“She won’t be,” he swore.
Bly patted his cheek gently. “Bless you, Nick,” she said before she walked Richie to the car, her arm curved over the slumped line of his shoulders.
Nick entered the house once more, locking the door behind him.
Everyone else had already gone. He found Rogue on the couch, half-buried beneath the blanket Ava had draped across Sassy’s lap.
She meowed in Nick’s direction. He scratched her between the ears.
Relieved when she didn’t take a swipe at him as she usually did, he asked, “Where’s your mama? ”
He heard whining from the hallway to the bedrooms and decided to investigate. No sooner had he turned the corner than he danced back to keep from getting hit by the full-length mirror that had been leaning against the wall of Sassy’s room. “What the…”
“Coming through,” Sassy said as she hauled it to the guest room.
Riot was close on her heels, his brow wrinkled in concern. He looked to Nick for clarification. Nick gave him a half shrug. Scratching the hair on the back of his head, he crossed to the door of the guest bedroom. “You need a hand with that or—”
She nearly ran into him in her rush to get through the door and back down the hall to her bedroom. “You can help me haul out this carpet.”
Perplexed, he followed her into the larger bedroom and balked when he caught her trying to tear up the carpet from the base in the corner where the mirror had been. “Sassy,” he said cautiously. “Why are you doing this?”
“I have to get it out of here,” she said, yanking. Seams tore; the carpet ripped.
His gaze landed on the blood spots that led from the bed to the door. He closed his eyes, because he knew exactly what was in her mind. She needed to purge the encounter with Ryder from this room before she could even contemplate sleeping in here again.
The problem was that no matter what she did, there would be no forgetting. She could demo the entire house again. Still, the memories would remain.
“Sassy,” he murmured. When she didn’t stop yanking the carpet from the nail strips, he crossed the room to her. He closed his hand around her arm. She pulled away. He didn’t release her, keeping his grip gentle. “Sassy,” he said again.
“It has to go,” she insisted. “It all has to go.”
“It will,” he told her. “I’ll help you. I’ll help you repaint, refloor, refinish everything. But not tonight.”
“I don’t want this to be here tomorrow.”
“You need to take a beat,” he said. “A night, maybe two. You can come home with me and Riot so you don’t have to see this in the morning.”
“I can’t leave Rogue.”
“Rogue can come, too,” he insisted. “Come home with me, Sassy. Let me take care of you.”
She shook her head in a listless motion. “This is my house.”
The quiet strength of her was loud inside his head. Would she ever know how proud he was of her for the way she’d handled Ryder? And terrified of what would have happened had she been someone…anyone else. “After what you did today, there’s no one who doubts that.”
Her throat moved on a swallow. “Nick, did I kill him?”
“No,” he answered. “Though a big part of me wishes you had.”
She gave a little nod, then whispered, “You were right. You were right about him…about everything.”
“Not everything,” he admitted. “I should’ve found a better way to prove he was lying about who he really was. I shouldn’t have used your fundraiser or the gallery to catch him in the act.”
She shook her head again, mute this time.
He traced the line of her cheek with his thumb. “Look, if you don’t want to leave home, I’ll stay here with you.”
Her glassy eyes swung to his, searching. “When we spoke earlier,” she said, “I told you I wasn’t ready to talk.”
He remembered, and it crushed him. “I can’t leave you alone.”
She blinked. “I never said that I wanted to be alone. In fact, I don’t ever want you to leave me alone again.”
He drew her to him. “Come here.”
She let him take her in his arms. Strong woman that she was, she wrapped her arms around his neck and let him carry her from the room. He kicked the door closed. “Tell me what you need. I’ll do anything to make this right.”
“You already have.” She dropped her head back until their gazes locked. “Now take me to bed.”
His steps faltered.
Her eyes flashed, heat and emotion building behind them. “You heard me.”
Images lit his brain in a lightning storm of possibilities. He tried shutting them down, but they remained, fixed and vivid. “That is far from what you need right now.”
“You asked me,” she reminded him. “What I want…what I need… It’s you.”
Her fingers were in his hair, her nails teasing his scalp.
He struggled to speak beyond his muscles tensing, his temperature rising and his jeans growing tighter.
The promise in her eyes silenced every well-intentioned thought.
It muted the sharp pain in his wrist from carrying her.
“Sassy,” he said, latching onto her name.
It was the only thing he knew. The only star in his sky.
“I need you to be honest with the both of us here…”
“This is the most honest I’ve been with myself in weeks,” she revealed. Her lips cruised across his jawline, enticing, bringing his blood up to a boil. “What about you, Nick?” She closed her mouth around the lobe of his ear and released it slowly, grazing it with her teeth. “Stay or go?”