Kayla mattered to him, and not just her safety. She wasn’t a job.
“You’re saying there are two people after her?” Lauren asked. “That’s a wild guess, right?”
No, they’d moved past that point. “It’s fact.”
“I can’t do this.” Kayla stood up. “I want to go home.”
They should. Garrett could take over and he’d tape it all. Once they reviewed it and figured out Paul’s true danger level they could figure out what to do next. Maybe get him some help. He deserved a trip to the police station and criminal charges, but when it came down to it Matthias doubted Kayla would agree. She already had a note of sympathy in her voice even though the kid had wrecked her house.
“I’ll go with you,” Lauren offered.
Matthias stood up next to Kayla. “No, me.”
Lauren had woken up. In the last half hour she’d flipped from stunned to angry to protective. “She doesn’t need more questioning.”
He didn’t like the suggestion she knew what Kayla needed more than he did. “I get that.”
Kayla held out her hands and stood between them. “Guys, I’m fine.”
That was just it. Matthias no longer believed that to be totally true. “We’ll see.”
Chapter 26
By the time they got back to the inn, Matthias’s mind was racing with theories. The police hadn’t solved the case in seven years. He didn’t think he could leap in and get it done in a week, but he did have an advantage. He knew more than they ever did. He had an inside track right into Kayla’s mind.
He’d watched her under stress. Seen her caring and panicked. The smiling, the anger. Through everything, even while she sat across from Paul, she held it together on one point. One piece of information never wavered. She didn’t build on it or elaborate. She told a perfectly crafted tale . . . and he feared he knew why.
As soon as they were inside the room and the door closed, she turned on him. “Before you start you should know I’m not in the mood for a lecture about Paul or Doug or anything else.”
Tension spun around her. It was as if she could hardly hold it in. Some unknown worry ate at her and pushed her.
He knew it was time for her to let some of it out. Past time. But getting there . . . fuck, he had no good way to do that.
“Okay.” He said that because he didn’t know what else to say. Not yet.
“I can’t believe he was right there all along.” She paced near the end of the bed.
She’d always been a mass of energy. She moved fast and handled a lot of things at one time, but did it with ease. This was different. There was a darkness spinning off her now. Every muscle worked. She moved her hands while her legs took her back and forth.
He knew he had to let it play out. This had to be on her terms. “He’s a messed-up kid.”
She stopped and stared at him. “That’s not really an excuse.”
There wasn’t any anger in her voice. No, this wasn’t about catching Paul or worrying about who else was out there. Her world was unraveling and she was trying to keep it all in. He recognized the tactic because he’d used it himself every damn day.
In so many ways they were different. He wallowed and hid in the shadows. Even though she hid under an alias, she gave off light. He preferred quiet. She talked to everyone. But they both kept secrets. Horrible secrets. The kind that shouldn’t be shared because once the words came out there could be no pretending.
Matthias had lived in that state for so long. That calm middle point where he didn’t look back but didn’t think he deserved to look forward with any great depth. He could dwell on work, but he didn’t get to find happiness or any kind of peace. He’d forfeited that and kept the reason stuffed deep inside him.
So, he knew what she was feeling. That out-of-control sensation. The idea that on this one point she was all alone in the world and needed to stay that way.
As he watched her struggle and deny something broke loose in him. The need to help her overcame the need to hide his shame. He might lose her. Hell, he might lose himself, drop right into the abyss, but it was time to say something. With her, right now.
At first the words wouldn’t form in his mind. He struggled to figure out the right way to say the right thing. When that didn’t happen, he just gave in and talked. Stood in the middle of the room with one arm in a sling and the other hanging loose by his side. Uncomfortable and unsure where this would go. “I know what it’s like to get caught up. Your mind gets warped and you think you’re doing the right thing.”
Her expression didn’t change. “What are you saying?”
He started to talk then stopped again. A lump formed in his throat and he ached to swallow it back but it sat there. “There was this boy named Kevin.”
That name. He never let it enter his mind, but he did now.
When she didn’t say anything, he continued. “I’d been in good foster homes and some mediocre ones. A lot of good people tried and some not so great people pocketed the money and left me alone.”
The churning started in his stomach and worked its way up to his chest. Memories flooded him. Being young and unsure and so unwanted. It all came rushing back, slamming into the man he tried to be now.
“Then there was the home with Kevin. That one sucked.” He couldn’t describe it and didn’t want to go into the details. The lack of food and the punching really weren’t the point. “The father was mean in a sick and twisted way. He got off on hurting people who were weaker than him, and we were kids so we all fell into that category.”
She took a step toward him. “Matthias.”
He put up a hand to ward her off. If she touched him, came to him, he wouldn’t be able to get this out. And he needed to say it. More than that, she needed to hear it.
“One day Kevin didn’t move fast enough or had the nerve to eat a pretzel. Something that wouldn’t matter to a loving parent but mattered to this guy.” Kevin’s face popped into Matthias’s head. He never forgot that blond hair and those big brown eyes. He’d purposely forgotten so many of the people who peppered his youth, but not Kevin. “So, this guy picked up a bat. He didn’t use it at first. He preferred kicking, but then he lost control.”
Her hand went to her mouth. Matthias thought he heard a gasp but he couldn’t be sure. His mind had gone to another place. The room with the paneling and the green couch.
“He swung and Kevin was dead. I was a kid but I knew what was happening. I watched the life drain right out of him. Tried to stop it but was too late. I didn’t pull hard enough on the guy’s arm or step up . . . something.”
She wiped her fingers across her cheek. “You were just a kid.”
“Ten.” Old enough to understand what happened. Not strong enough to stop it, but he should have tried harder. Now when the scene played in his mind he could see he had hesitated. Those precious seconds cost Kevin everything. “The police came and there were stories but no one really believed this foster dad. He’d had trouble before and there were reports but no actual findings of abuse. He tried to shift the blame, because that’s what bullies do. So, I was removed from the house and was much harder to place after that.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know how you survived.”
“Fueled by revenge. Pure and simple, I vowed to kill him.” The words sounded harsh but Matthias didn’t pretty them up. She needed to know that he understood how a person could break. “And when I was twenty, I did. I’d tracked him and knew the state had started giving him kids again. I couldn’t let history repeat.”
She winced. “You told the police?”
From her reaction, she knew. He didn’t have to pretend because the reality of what happened that day had already formed in her mind. “I went to the house, but this time when he picked up the bat I was stronger. I knew how to fight back. There was no hesitation.” A heaviness settled on his chest. Matthias rubbed it but the ache didn’t disappear. “The guy was garbage and he deserved it, but see, it wasn’t my call to make
. I know that now but couldn’t see it back then.”
“Quint helped you.”
The man who saved him. “He’s the only other person who knows.”
She wiped away a few more tears. “I’m so sorry.”
He studied her, looked for signs of revulsion, but saw none. There was pity there and sadness for a boy she never knew. But there was a spark of something else. He grabbed on to that. “So, I know what it’s like to take another life, even when you’re protecting everyone else. I know that your whole body shakes.”
“You don’t have to—”
“There is no feeling like it. Bile rushes up your throat and you freeze. Every time you think about it feelings of hopelessness crash into you again. The guilt. The pain.”
She took a step back and ran right into the end of the mattress. “Please stop.”
“I know all about vigilante justice because I’ve been there.” He couldn’t get the words out fast enough now. It was as if after holding them back for so many years they now overflowed the mental wall he’d thrown up to block them. “You lose a bit of your humanity and you can never get it back.”
Her arm shook. “I don’t want to hear this.”
Because she knew. She wasn’t repulsed because she knew. “There’s this aching inside you not so much because you did it, because you still think that was justified in some way. No, the ache comes from knowing you can do it. You’re one of those people.”
Tears ran down her cheeks now. “I can’t . . .”
“But you figure out how to live with it. You punish yourself but you learn to breathe again, even as you cover your tracks and hope it will all go away.”
She moved her hand as if trying to bat his words away. “We should—”
He took the final step and reached for her. Wrapped his fingers around her hand and held it to his chest. “Tell me about Doug Weston, Kayla.”
This couldn’t be happening.
Pain welled inside her. The kind that could drop a person to her knees. It shot from inside her stomach and flowed through her, covering and destroying everything else.
Her mind bounced from him to Kevin to her friends. All that blood. The questions. The accusations. She’d buried it all so deep and then . . . he was forcing her to think about things she wanted to forget.
She ached for him. If he thought she’d hate him or push him away that wasn’t going to happen, but she couldn’t let her truth come out. Couldn’t join him in any sort of catharsis. She deserved the darkness and all the loneliness. That was a choice she’d made long ago.
She jerked her hand from his. Tried to pull away but the bed slammed into the back of her knees.
She couldn’t breathe. She gasped, trying to bring air into her lungs, but her body refused to work. The walls closed in. She could swear she physically saw them move.
“No.” She held up a hand, tried to ward him off.
“There’s no judgment here.”
He said that he’d been in that place and did what he had to do. She could picture it, knew how it felt to have suffocating desperation clawing at her insides. But their actions weren’t the same. She wanted to pretend she was protecting someone else, but she’d been too late to do that. In her mind she toyed with the idea that she did it to avenge her friends. But she really killed him because no one else would.
“You will hate me.” She forced the words out through gasps.
“Never. I’m the one person who understands.”
She tried to go around him but he didn’t move. He was right there, looming over her and talking to her in that smooth consoling voice. “I don’t deserve redemption.”
“I can’t give it to you, but I can share the burden. You need to let the poison out while you let someone in. I want that person to be me.” The color had left his face and exhaustion pulled around his eyes.
He had told her the worst. Let her see inside him to the thing he hid. She loved that he trusted her. Loved him. God, there it was. She did love him. She hadn’t loved anything or anyone for so long, but with him those barriers fell away.
That made it even more important that she lock this in.
She shook her head, determined to hold it all back just as she’d been doing for years. Refusing to think about Doug and the horrors of that day. About the weeks after as the truth set in and no one would listen to her. As she shouldered the blame while she tried to grieve.
“He . . . he killed them.” The words tumbled out before she could stop them. “All of them. Because of me.”
Matthias reached out for her again, but she pulled away.
“No, don’t touch me. I can’t . . .” She scooted around him and broke into the open space of the room. She inhaled, tried to cool her mind and figure out a way to call it all back. To bury it again.
“He’s dead.”
Matthias said the words that she couldn’t. Her gaze traveled over his face. He should run now. Should call the police. Do something.
“You said you can’t disappear in the water, but he did.” She made sure no one would find Doug. Took the gun courses, learned to shoot. Went to Internet cafés and researched the other things she needed to know, like how to make a body disappear. It had all been planned out, and that’s the part she couldn’t run away from.
“Right after the murders he taunted me, threatened to tell the police it was me. I took it and tried to ignore him, but then the police stopped looking at him. They had those cigarettes. That was the evidence.” She remembered the day she found out about the discarded butts under the tree. She knew then and confronted Doug. He hadn’t even tried to deny it. He said she pushed him to it. Shifted the blame to her.
“But you knew.” Matthias’s voice was coaxing now.
It worked because she remembered every second. It all unspooled in her mind and she walked through it as if she were living it again. “I knew and I watched him move on. Heard he was dating another girl. He would try to take over her life, scare her. Because that’s what he did.”
“So, you did what the police and the courts couldn’t.”
She acted as his jury and found him guilty. “I found him after the press died down. Went to him. Said we needed to talk about what happened. That time when he came after me with his threats, I had a gun.”
The gunshot rang in her ears. Her shoulders jerk at the sound only she could hear.
“I always thought he was a guy no one would mourn, but I did. The throwing up, the crying. I did it all.” Tears ran down her cheeks even now. She couldn’t stop them. Couldn’t beat back the guilt. She looked up at Matthias then. Finally faced him again. “I deserve the stalker.”
“No, baby. You don’t.”
This time when he touched her arm she didn’t flinch or pull away. She let him wrap his arm around her and buried her face in his chest. “You should hate me.”
He lowered his head to look her in the eye. “Do you hate me?”
“No. God, no.” She was back at the bed and she didn’t know how it happened. Lost in thought and desperate to lean on him, she sat down on the edge.
Without a word he sat down next to her and pulled her close to his side. The simple gesture, the ready understanding and acceptance, broke her. The sob she’d trapped in her chest let loose. Tears ran down her cheeks and dripped off her chin. Her whole body shuddered.
He pulled her in even closer. Rocked their bodies back and forth on that mattress. He didn’t stop her or try to calm her down. It was as if he knew she needed this moment.
Sitting there, his warmth wrapped her in a protective cocoon. The sound of her crying cut through the silence of the room. Her chest ached and her fingers dug into his leg. She thought the worst had passed, but the shame kept crashing over her.
“Can we just sit here?” She whispered the question.
“Yes.” He placed a kiss in her hair. “For as long as you need.”
The worst was out. Her sin. The choice she made that changed everything. That turned her into someon
e else. She expected to feel a weight lift but it didn’t. The guilt was still there but she did have a weird sense of relief.
She understood him. They understood each other. They shared this horrible past.
She swiped at the tears. She never cried and now she couldn’t seem to stop. “You should run.”
He continued to hold her. Brushed his lips over her forehead. “We’re both done running.”
Chapter 27
Kayla still hadn’t recovered by the next morning. She wasn’t sure she ever would. Secrets were secrets for a reason. Once you told them, once they were out there, they touched everything. He might say it didn’t matter to him and that he understood—words he repeated all night as he held her and soothed her—and she knew he meant them, but she expected things to change.
She saw him in a different way. Not a negative way. Not at all. Imagining Matthias as a little boy, trapped and afraid, gave her insight into who he was now. She understood the way he compartmentalized. How his rough exterior hid the decency and pain underneath.
“Kayla?”
She didn’t realize she’d been daydreaming until she heard Elliot’s voice. She shook her head and brought her mind back to the present. Standing behind the counter holding the coffeepot while she stared into space must have made a heck of an impression. “Sorry.”
The concerned expression matched the sound of his voice. “I heard about Paul.”
Matthias confirmed this morning what she already knew—Paul broke into her place but he wasn’t behind the shooting. Too many people had seen the chase to pretend it didn’t happen. They played it off in public as the end to a stupid prank by a lovesick kid. She refused to press charges and Matthias somehow kept the police out of all of it.
Some of the marina shop owners were grateful she took pity on the guy they knew as Paul. Others thought she should have him thrown in jail for the break-in. Lauren was in a state of shock. She’d barely said anything when Matthias delivered the news and told her how he’d sent the kid to Wren for a wake-up call and hopefully some help.
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