Chapter 47
Forty-Seven
Sawyer
“I remember him,” Lainey says softly, her body pressed into mine as we stand in the hallway, watching through the window as Ollie and the other kids play in the Family Suite.
Lainey had asked for Ollie a heartbeat after she was back in my arms.
And Faye brought him down as soon as Jonah was packed off in handcuffs.
“You do?” I ask.
She nods.
“He said…” A shudder. “He said that he remembered me by Ben’s side—”
“Ben?”
“My husband,” she tells Detective Roberts—who’s very much not on vacation. “He died a little over a year ago.”
“And you knew Mr. Colemont from that time?”
“Not really. I…he worked in the infusion clinic where my husband was getting his treatment. We talked some, because you’re there for hours at a time, several days a week, and you inevitably get to talking to people.” She pauses, eyes going wide.
“What?” I ask.
“I just remembered him being really upset because his girlfriend left him.” She closes her eyes, brows furrowing.
“It was right around the time that things got really bad with Ben, and oh my God, he talked a lot about how I was one of the good ones because I stuck by Ben’s side through not just the good times, but the bad ones too. ”
I hold her a little closer when she shudders again.
“How did it turn into this?”
Detective Roberts looks up from her notepad. “Did he ever give you any indication that he might be dangerous?”
Lainey shakes her head. “No. I mean, I was so wrapped up in Ben’s health and raising Ollie, I hardly thought about him.” A sigh. “And then Ben died, and I moved across the country. How would he even find—?”
She freezes.
“What?”
“I shared the move in my newsletter, posted a few pictures of the area. Nowhere near our house or anything, but I did mention the state and how I was moving in next door to Faye.” She clenches my hand.
“With all that press she and Gray had last season, it probably wouldn’t be all that hard to track me down. ”
“Fuck,” I whisper.
She groans, slips her hand from mine and buries her face in it. “I’m such an idiot.”
“No,” Detective Roberts says. “You’re human, and he is a deranged asshole who thinks you owe him something. None of this was your fault.” Her phone rings and she moves away to take the call.
“You okay?” I ask softly, drawing her into my chest.
She nods, takes several deep breaths. “I’m fine.”
“Your head?” I smooth my palm over the back of it.
“It stings, but I’m okay.”
“The rest of you? Your shoulders and hips and—”
“I’m okay,” she murmurs. “I was scared—really scared. But I knew I only had to hold on for a little while. I knew you’d come.”
Emotion makes my throat go tight. “You scared the shit out of me, Pages. When I looked up and saw your seat was empty—then stayed empty—I could barely think.”
Her arms convulse around me. “I’m sorry.”
Leaning back, I cup her cheek. “You have nothing to apologize for. Nothing. It was his fault, not yours.” I tug at a curl, force my lips to curve into a smile even though amusement is hard to grab on to.
“I’m just glad Coach listened. Then he had someone call security and let Gray, Leo, Ryan, Rip, and me leave the game. ”
Her mouth falls open. “What?”
“Yup. He didn’t even question it,” I say, surprise rippling through me. “Just sent us off, told us he’d finish the game with the rest of the lines.”
“Really?”
“Really,” I tell her, drawing her close again.
“And some of the guys from the Hawks even joined in on looking for you as soon as the game was done.” A flicker of that fear, that panic and darkness I felt for far too many minutes moves through me again—although thankfully not all that many, considering how things turned out.
“That’s really sweet.”
“Don’t know if a dozen hockey players roaming the halls, searching for some asshole they all want to murder is sweet,” I say dryly.
She grins.
Then sighs and slumps against me. “I don’t know what to think. About any of this.”
“You don’t have to think about anything right now, Pages.” I inhale the scent of her, hold her close, thanking every deity in the universe that she’s safe in my arms. “Just know that you’re loved, Pages.”
“I do know that.” Gorgeous brown eyes on mine.
“I just…I’m terrified he’s going to be right back on the streets.
These charges rarely stick, and what if he comes after us again?
Oh, God!” She digs her nails into my chest. “I don’t want to move.
I love living next door to Faye, love the neighborhood, love the house—” A tear slips down her cheek.
I wipe it away. “We’ll figure it out, sweetheart.”
“But how can I risk it if he gets out again? Ollie—”
“You don’t have to,” Detective Roberts interjects gently.
“The charges—and several more from at least two other states—mean it’s unlikely that he’ll be released anytime soon.
They should have come up during his initial arrest, but he didn’t have identification on him and he gave a fake name.
” She sighs. “Unfortunately, my fellow officers assumed he was homeless and on drugs, and when the name he gave only brought up a few minor charges for trespassing, public intoxication, and disorderly conduct, they decided to let him go before fingerprinting him.” Her eyes narrow.
“Obviously, that was fucking stupid. The name belonged to a local homeless man at least twenty years older than him. I’ve spent the last few weeks trying to track Jonah down.
” A muscle in her jaw flickers. “Clearly, not quickly enough. I’m extremely sorry about that. ”
“Thank you,” Lainey murmurs. “But…”
“What?”
“I don’t understand how he could have called me from the police station’s number.”
“It’s something people do that’s called spoofing. They can make the number look legitimate. In this case, he made it look like it was the precinct. How he got the uniform and access to the arena and to this level, I’m still working on.”
“And the ring?” Lainey asks.
“I sent a team over to check out your house,” she says and holds up her phone, showing a picture of the nightstand on my side of the bed, and a ring…
Lainey exhales in a rush.
“Not Ben’s?” the detective asks.
“No.”
I frown. “What’s this, Pages?”
“Jonah said he left a ring on the nightstand, said he read what I was writing. If he got into the house—”
I go stiff. “What the fuck? That’s—” But then I lean closer. “That’s my ring.”
“What?”
“It was my dad’s. I thought I lost it. I remember taking it off the first night we—” I cut my eyes to hers. “Not my finest moment, but I chucked it at the house.”
She winces at the memory of how our first night ended.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers.
“Old news, Pages, remember?”
Her lips come to my cheek. “Luckily, I got my head out of my ass and fell in love with you, huh?”
I chuckle, tug a curl. Then sober. “So, how’d it end up on your nightstand?”
She blanches, whispers, “He said he was inside the house.”
Fuck.
“There were footprints on the exterior balcony,” Detective Roberts says. “As though someone had climbed up. And scratches on the lock from it being picked.”
Lainey shudders. “And my office has that big window…and no curtains.”
“We’ll order some tonight,” I promise. “Make sure that nothing like this ever happens again, that no one can get in if they’re not welcome.
” Even if I have to get the guys together and we tear the fucking balcony off the house, install curtains on every window, pay for a security system that rivals Fort Knox.
We’re going to make her feel safe again.
I touch her cheek. “We’ll make your house yours again, Pages. ”
She covers my hand with her own. “You’re right. We’ll figure it out together.”
“Damn right, we will.”
“I can give you some recommendations on security companies,” the detective says.
“Thank you,” I tell her.
She nods, and when her phone rings again, she excuses herself.
“Is it wrong I hope he goes away for a long time?”
“No, Pages. I think that makes you human.”
She exhales and we stand there for a minute, and maybe I should blame myself for pushing her to come to the game, for the way it all went down.
But the voice in my head that likes to scream at me for all the ways I’ve fucked up is quiet.
Because she’s okay.
Because my family helped make sure that was the case.
Because she fought for herself too.
So, no, it’s not blame I’m feeling as we hold each other.
It’s relief and contentment and love. It’s the knowledge that I don’t have to do it alone as Ryan lifts Ollie onto his shoulders and bounces him around, teasing laughter out of him.
It’s truth in my bones that our family is strong as Faye loops her arm through Lainey’s and teases her into a sip of hot chocolate—because hot cocoa has all the medicinal and healing properties.
It’s the connection between us all that grows stronger every day as Bri appears, worry etched on her face, and Rip intercepts her, saying something I can’t hear, but it’s something that has her nodding and shifting a little closer to him.
And it’s love as we go home and Lainey and I tuck Ollie in together…right alongside his bevy of stuffed penguins.
But most importantly, when I hold Lainey as she finally breaks down and cries, it’s knowing she trusts me enough to believe in forever.
And that, at last, so do I.