Chapter Eighteen
He couldn’t get the image out of his mind.
The similarities he’d noted in those few chaotic seconds before he’d shoved their attacker through the window.
The same bottom lip—a little fuller than the top—the spread of freckles, though not as many as Winnie, the shape of her face.
Maybe a little longer through the cheekbones, but familiar.
Their hair color was different, the killer’s more blond than red, and Winnie’s frame was a little fuller through the hips, but he couldn’t deny the resemblance.
Which didn’t make a damn bit of sense. Winnie was an only child.
Her extended family had been close to her parents once upon a time, but as far as he knew, there’d been little contact over the years.
And Winnie knew her cousins. She would’ve recognized the killer if they were related.
“I don’t know what you mean.” Winnie tried to sit up in the bed, but it was obvious her strength hadn’t returned.
The attack had taken far more of a toll on her than he’d realized when he’d found her in that boathouse, and her body was still at risk of dropping back into hypothermic levels if she couldn’t keep her body temperature regulated.
“Her eyes are a different color. Her hair, too, but there are a lot of similarities between the two of you.” And that understanding would have its own impact on Winnie. On the fact that someone she may know had admitted to killing her father, had tried to kill them out there on that lake.
“That’s not… That’s not possible.” Winnie shook her head, and from the pinch between her eyebrows, he could read the signs of the start of one of her migraines.
“I know it’s hard to hear, but we may be looking at someone you know.
” Adrial shifted forward, the stitches in both his shoulder and his thigh pulling tight.
He eased off. It was a good reminder that he wasn’t at one hundred percent, but he needed to be that for Winnie.
He needed to. “Can you think of anyone in your family that would have a connection to the Lila Mercer case or any reason someone might want your dad dead?”
“No. Nothing like that. My dad’s family is all back east. I haven’t talked to them in years, and my mom’s parents passed away a couple years ago.
There’s no one left.” Her throat bobbed on a strong swallow as those hazel eyes seemed to get stuck on the blankets draped over her legs.
An edge of detachment slid into place, but Adrial couldn’t let her do it. Not now.
He’d already suffered through his own violent loss when Katie died.
He couldn’t take watching Winnie pull away from him.
Not again. Not after everything they’d been through together.
Not after he’d just gotten her back. It was selfish—but practical.
He couldn’t let her disappear when she was the only person aside from him who knew anything about their attacker.
Sliding onto the side of the bed, Adrial slipped his hand into one of hers, and she looked up at him. Her eyes widened as she realized he’d moved without her noticing, but her pupils were clear. “What is it? What happened after you ran for the SUV?”
He started small circles on the back of her hand with his thumb.
There were few times and even fewer people she let anyone see her like this.
Vulnerable, coming apart at the seams, and she needed someone who would do whatever it took to hold her together.
He hadn’t realized it until the panic had set in when he couldn’t wake her on the lake that he wanted to be that person.
He wanted to be her person again. Not because he felt like he owed her his help on the investigation, or to make up for how he’d ended their engagement, or because no one else would be there when she needed it.
He wanted her. Just Winnie. Her smile, her dry sense of humor, that wicked glint in her eyes right before she said something biting.
Silver tears rimmed her lower eyelashes, and Winnie swiped at her face, watching him trace those circles over and over. “She… She said my dad was the one who took the missing evidence during the Lila Mercer investigation.”
The circles came to a stop. His throat dried, his heart suddenly thudding too hard behind his ears. Adrial tried breathing through the dread pooling in his gut, but all he could focus on was his hand in Winnie’s. How she grounded him, reminded him to stay present. “Did she say why?”
Her watery gaze lifted to his. “She said it was because he didn’t want anyone asking questions as to why his DNA would be found on the body.”
“She claimed Arthur is responsible for Lila Mercer’s death?” The hospital room threatened to rip straight out from under him, and Adrial only held on to Winnie’s hand tighter.
“Not in so many words, but what else could she have meant?” Based on the rise in her voice, she wanted him to give her reasons, excuses, theories—anything that she could swallow more easily than the fact her chief-of-police father may have been involved in Black Hollow’s most famous cold case as more than an investigator.
“The hair found stuck in the chains used to weigh the body down and Lila Mercer’s underwear could both hold DNA evidence, and they’re missing. ”
The glaze in her eyes told him he was losing her all over again, and Adrial couldn’t stomach that. Lowering his face to hers, he skimmed his hand up her arm and around the nape of her neck. “Hey, look at me.” He angled her head to the point it would be impossible not to see him. “There you are.”
He brushed his thumb along her jawline, that hollowness in his chest practically purring at the contact.
The kiss they’d shared at the lake had done a number on him—reminded him that he could still feel—but this?
This was better. This was the kind of connection so few people got to experience.
They’d had it before, and he’d blown up his entire life by leaving Black Hollow.
He’d tried finding it with a few women before Katie, but even though he’d loved his wife, something had never clicked like it had with the woman in front of him.
This feeling… It was a rightness he couldn’t seem to find anywhere else, and hell, that scared him. That she might not feel the same way.
All these years he’d worked to provide closure to others while assuming finding Katie’s killer would grant him his own.
But maybe it was this. Maybe he’d been uselessly searching for something he couldn’t even name for the past ten years only to come right back here.
To her. “We will figure this out. Together. You understand me? I’m not going anywhere.
You’re not in this alone. We’re partners, and we’re going to get to the truth. No matter what.”
Because she needed that. She needed to know what kind of man Arthur Hutton was, but he didn’t have the heart to come right out and tell her.
Winnie needed to see the evidence for herself.
That was how her brain worked, why she’d been so drawn to study psychology and make a career out of writing research-based articles to help others understand complicated topics.
“Do you think he did it?” Her mouth parted on a plea, and he wanted nothing more than to fix this for her, to take away that doubt crowding her mind. “You were his partner for two years. Do you think my father was capable of what she said?”
Adrial shook his head. “There was nothing to suggest the case had been compromised while I was assigned, least of all from Arthur, but he was the lead investigator. Everything I worked on had to be run through him, especially when it came to the evidence.”
And if Arthur was responsible for that evidence going missing… It would break Winnie’s heart.
“You’re saying it’s possible?” She swiped at her face again, wincing as she cut across her temple. The killer—whoever she was—had done a number on her while they’d been out there on the ice, and the bruises were already darkening to an ugly purple and blue.
He’d make her attacker pay for every single one by the time this was over.
Because while he’d managed to get Winnie out of that boathouse, the killer had slipped away without him noticing, leaving nothing more than a stumbled drag of boots in the snow into the woods.
Officers had taken his statement downstairs in the emergency room, but nothing had turned up from the search around Hollow Lake yet.
“I’m saying we don’t have proof of what the killer told you.
” Adrial threaded his fingers through her hair.
It’d been frozen through when he’d found her, was now tangled in thick damp strands.
“She knew you were Arthur Hutton’s daughter.
She may have just been trying to mess with your head before driving the stake home.
If she has a connection to Lila Mercer, it’s possible she’s taking out twenty years of anger on whoever is left investigating the case. ”
Winnie nodded, her eyes no longer glossy or distant. “I didn’t want to leave you. I’m sorry. I should’ve—”
“I told you to run, and I meant it, Red.” Setting his forehead against hers, he practically melted against her at the skin-to-skin contact.
Breathing her in. Reminding himself she was here.
She was real. “You did the right thing. I lost you once. I’m not sure I’m strong enough to lose you a second time. ”
Her laugh rumbled through her chest. She pulled away from him, swiping at her face again then tugging at invisible wrinkles in the blankets. “You mean you don’t want to feel responsible if something were to happen to me.”
Confusion chased the warmth from his chest. Then a cold burst of clarity. “I meant what I said, Winnie. You. I don’t want to lose you.”
“We don’t even know each other anymore.” Pressing her hands to her temples, she squeezed her eyes closed. “I understand why you agreed to help me with this case, but you don’t have to pretend there’s anything more between us.”
He added the few inches of space between them she obviously would’ve achieved herself had she not been relegated to a hospital bed, but didn’t leave his position at the edge of the mattress.
“I’d like to think that’s not true considering we got together in middle school and stayed together until our twenties.
Considering we chose each other every single day, even when our parents and friends tried to convince us otherwise.
Hell, Winnie, we were engaged. We planned on spending the rest of our lives together.
You don’t do that with someone you don’t know inside and out. ”
“People change.” Her gaze was on his again.
There weren’t tears in her eyes anymore.
Instead, she was bordering on seeming apathetic.
Like she’d written a prepared statement and just had to get through the tough parts.
Or maybe she was just so depleted, she couldn’t summon anything close to an emotion anymore.
He couldn’t blame her either way. “We’re not those naive teenagers who thought they knew what love was anymore.
We changed because you decided you didn’t want that future with me. ”
“I understand you’re dealing with everything from the past week, Red.
Your dad’s death, coming back here and being in that house and what went down at the lake.
I get that. It’s a lot for one person to shoulder, and I’m going to be here to help you through it.
” Adrial slid off the bed, every muscle in his injured leg screaming in protest. Whatever pain meds they’d given him a few hours ago were wearing off.
“But I’m not going to let you pretend we never happened or that it didn’t mean anything to me because I left. ”
He headed for the door, the toe of his boot catching on the linoleum, then turned back with his hand on the pull handle.
Winnie wasn’t looking at him, didn’t even seem to breathe.
He hated leaving her alone in her head like this, but he wouldn’t force himself on her, either.
“And I’m not going to let you pretend that we couldn’t happen again. ”