Chapter Seventy-Two Raine
Chapter Seventy-Two
Raine
Most of the cuts on my back were minor, but a few were deep enough to require stitches. The emergency room doctor ended up using seven stitches and multiple butterfly bandages on the wounds.
The painkillers had kicked in, but the nurse had warned me that I’d be very stiff for a few days. She’d also instructed me not to lift anything heavier than twenty pounds. I’d been in a hospital almost a month earlier and knew the drill.
The curtain slid back. I shifted carefully on the pillow. Judson. He stood silent, his face an unreadable mask.
“Don’t look so serious,” I said.
He crossed the room and kissed me on the forehead. “How’re you doing?”
“Not bad,” I rasped. “My throat is on fire. My back is Swiss cheese. Feels like a boxer hit me with a couple of right hooks. But other than that . . . good. Where’s Molly?”
My humor didn’t soften his frown. “She’s with Edith.”
“Did you tell Edith what happened?”
“I did.”
“How did she take it?”
“Like she always does. Stoic. Hard to read.” He sat beside the bed. “She did thank you for saving Molly.”
“We’ve found something in common,” I said. I shifted forward, and my stitches pulled, sending me back to the pillows. “Where’s Ken?”
“Jail. Already called his lawyer. Claiming you were confused. Insisting he arrived at Hale House to help. That Pete was the one that messed up your back.”
I swallowed. My raw throat burned. “Ken is very clever. If anyone can beat charges this bad, it’ll be him.”
Judson’s jaw clenched. “He won’t get out of it this time.”
“What about Pete?” Fear slid under my skin.
“He’s dead. Shot in the head. Looked execution-style to me. But Meg and her team are collecting evidence now. Ken is insisting he shot Pete in self-defense.”
“Don’t believe him. I’m convinced he sent Pete to hurt me.”
“Why?”
“To throw me off my game. Ken thought I’d go running to him.
” I explained Ken’s confession that he’d wanted Hale House for most of his life.
He’d slept with Amy in high school and then again in the last year.
He and Maria were lovers. He’d goaded Maria into filing a suit against me—into poisoning herself.
“I heard back from the lab. The DNA found in Maria’s body wasn’t Gabe’s,” he said. “I’ll have it checked against Ken’s.”
“An affair is not a crime,” I said. “What I’ve told you is ‘he said, she said.’”
“Maybe. The forensic team has been working overtime. We now have security footage from a warehouse showing a woman torching Amy’s abandoned car. Hunting cam footage on your property of a smaller-framed person chasing Amy as she was dying. I’d bet the hair fibers on Amy’s body belonged to Maria.”
I tensed. “And Maria left Molly alone.”
“Not alone. With you.”
I would never know how long Maria had been planning all this. It didn’t matter now. “What matters is that Molly is safe and with me,” I said.
My eyes drifted closed before I forced them open. Exhaustion rippled through my body. “We won’t be safe as long as Ken is free.” He was in jail, but he knew the legal system. He’d find a way to get out and double back one day.
“I won’t let him hurt you,” Judson said.