Total pages in book: 183
Estimated words: 174715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 874(@200wpm)___ 699(@250wpm)___ 582(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 174715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 874(@200wpm)___ 699(@250wpm)___ 582(@300wpm)
Anger rushes over me and so many pent-up feelings. I’m shaking all over. “You didn’t mean to scare me? You ran at me. You trapped me. You punched my husband.”
His face reddens. “I thought you were—I thought you got off a killer. Her killer. My sister’s killer.” He runs fingers through his hair. “I lost my mind. I’ve never done anything like that.” He leans against the door. “We lost our parents in a car accident. I was a teenager, sixteen. She was twelve. I dragged her out of the car and—” He looks away and then back at me, tears streaming down his cheeks. “The car exploded. My parents died. Our parents died. I’ve always protected her.” His lashes lower, torment ripping over his features, seeming to gut him and it’s then that I realize that I’m crying with him, shaking with the impact of his emotions slamming into me. He looks at me. “I didn’t protect her this time. I thought you didn’t either, but you did. You and the people around you are why he’s in jail now.”
“This wasn’t your fault,” I say. “You aren’t the reason she died. He is. He’s a monster.”
“I was supposed to take her to dinner that night. I had a woman I’d been asking out finally agree to have coffee with me. I cancelled on my sister.” His fists ball at his sides. “I fucking cancelled dinner.”
Oh my God. I feel punched. I don’t know how to help him, but I want to. I need to. “It’s not your fault.”
“Stop saying that. I wanted to scare you. I wanted to scare your husband. I wanted to make you pay. I don’t deserve your sympathy. Just—I’m sorry. I won’t ever bother you again.”
He opens the door and exits and I follow him, gasping as Savage shoves him against a wall. “Cuff the bastard,” he shouts at Smith.
“No!” I shout. “No. No! He was apologizing.”
Savage looks at me. “By cornering you in a bathroom. I don’t think so.”
“Please,” I say. “He just—he’s—”
“Lori!”
At the sound of Cole’s voice, I rotate to have him grab me, pulling me to him. “Tell me you’re okay. Tell me.” He pulls back to look at me. “Lori—”
“I’m okay, but he was just apologizing. Please make them uncuff him.”
“No. No, I’m not making them uncuff him. I can’t. He violated his restraining order.”
“He’s in pain. He said—he said so much.” I start crying again. “Please. I can’t let him get taken away.” I turn in Cole’s arms to find Savage shoving Roger out the back door. I press my hands to my face, and tears burn through me.
“Lori!”
At the sound of Cat’s voice, I just can’t turn. I’m too tormented by that man’s pain and the idea that I’ve just added to it. She steps in front of me and hugs me. “He pulled her from a car before it exploded,” I whisper. “And watched his parents die in the car.”
She pulls back and Cole must have heard because I feel his hand tighten on my waist where they’ve settled. “Oh God,” she whispers, tears springing to her eyes.
“He was supposed to have dinner with her that night and he cancelled for a date.”
“Oh my God,” she says, again. “That poor man.”
Savage opens the door and shouts, “This way.”
I rotate in Cole’s arms. “We have to help him. Please.”
He cups my face. “There are many ways to help him,” he says. “But everything you just said only makes me fear his instability. We have to be careful.”
“I know, but—” I cover my face again and my knees wobble.
Cole scoops me up and starts carrying me toward the backdoor. Not more than sixty seconds later, I’m in the backseat of an SUV with him, and no one else in the vehicle. “You weren’t there,” I say, rotating to face him. “You didn’t see his face.”
“Exactly,” he says. “I’m objective.”
“I’m your wife,” I say, grabbing his lapels. “You’re not objective.”
“There is not a man on the Walker team that believes he doesn’t need a further psych evaluation. He was failed, and not by us. He needs help. We’ll get that for him.” He strokes my cheek. “Protecting you comes first. Think if it was reversed.”
I catch his hand. “I know. It just—it was powerful, Cole. You heard what I told Cat?”
“I heard, sweetheart.”
“What happens now?”
“The police will want to talk to you and we could put it off, but if we want him back in a hospital, I think we need to do it tonight. If you’re up to it.”
“Yes. Tonight. I am. I’m fine. He didn’t hurt me. He scared me and then he just gutted me emotionally. Let’s talk to the police.”
Hours later, Reese, Cat, and her brother, our attorney, Reid, have all joined us at our apartment and we sit around the living room. Cole has me plastered to his side like he’s afraid Roger will come snatch me away. I’m pretty okay with that, though. My walls—gone. My defenses—gone. Tonight, I’m just going to lean on my husband.