Two more EMTs ran from the apartment. A man was between them on the gurney. His hand fell limply, his fingers lax.
In that instant, everything stopped for Skye as she gazed at that hand.
It was the hand of the man who’d saved her from being raped when she was fifteen. That hand had struck out with vicious accuracy then, beating her attacker again and again.
That was the man who’d saved her from hell. He’d pulled her out of that terrible basement. Carried her. Held her close with that hand.
That was the hand of the man who’d proposed to her. His fingers had trembled when he’d slid the ring onto her finger. Weakness, when Trace was normally so strong.
Trace! They were loading him into the back of an ambulance, and she jumped inside with them.
One of the EMTs glanced up. “Lady, you can’t—”
“I’m his fiancé.” Oh, God, his chest. The blood. “Help him!”
The EMT jerked his head and went back to work. The siren screamed as the vehicle lurched forward.
Skye grabbed for Trace’s hand. She held it like the lifeline that it was. She hadn’t warned him fast enough. Reese had done this. The man they’d trusted.
Her hold tightened on him. “Come back to me,” Skye whispered because she could tell—she could feel—that Trace was slipping away. His face was too still. Too pale. The life and energy—all that was Trace—gone.
“Please,” she whispered while the EMTs hooked him up to machines and poked him with needles. “Don’t leave me, Trace. I don’t want to be without you.” She’d tried that. And she’d felt as if she were only living half a life during those years.
“Come back to me,” Skye said again.
But Trace didn’t answer her, and a cold chill covered her body.
Chapter Sixteen
Skye walked into the morgue. The police chief was at her side. Because of this case, because of who was involved, she’d warranted attention from the man in charge.
Maybe that was supposed to make her feel better. It didn’t. Nothing could make her feel better. Nothing could make her feel then. Her wounds were bandaged. The doctors had wanted to give her pain medication. She’d refused. There was no need for the drugs because a wall of ice surrounded her, numbing her. Each breath was an effort, sawing out of her lungs.
“I don’t want to be here,” Skye said. Her voice was wooden. As cold as she felt.
“We just need the identification process completed, Ms. Sullivan,” he told her. His eyes and his face were sympathetic. Everyone kept looking at her that way. With sympathy. Pity.
She hated those stares.
The first body waited. She glanced down at it. Felt no emotion stir. Not even rage. She’d locked her emotions away. She had to lock them away, or else she’d go crazy.
I’m more like my mother than I thought.
Because she wanted to kill. Wanted to destroy everyone in her path.
Skye cleared her throat as she stared at the body. “That’s Anna Jean Hurley. She was working with Reese Stokes. I believe they killed Ben Sharpe, Parker Jacobs, and Sara Kramer.”
“You believe?”
“Yes. Anna Jean told me they did, so I believed the bitch.”
He sucked in a sharp breath.
Skye glared at the body. For a minute there, rage had cracked through her surface. She couldn’t have that. Because her pain was hidden just behind the rage.
Her gaze slid to the next slab. To the body that was waiting for her. Her lips trembled. Her hands clenched tightly into fists, and her nails bit into her palms.
“That’s Reese Stokes.” And he was missing part of his head.
The chief’s shoulder brushed against hers. “Most people can’t handle seeing a dead body, not one like this.”
“Most people probably don’t stare at the dead and wish that they’d been the one to do the killing.” She looked up at him. “I do.”
His eyes widened.
“Reese was Anna Jean’s partner. I don’t know why. Maybe because he was a psychotic jerk. Maybe because he fell for the wrong woman, and she warped his mind.” Her gaze slid back to Reese. “I thought of him as family, and I hope the bastard is burning now.”
She stepped back. “Now I need to get back to Trace.” She’d been away from him too long already. Skye skirted around the police chief.
“I’m…very sorry, ma’am,” he called.
Her fingers hesitated above the door.
“The doctors briefed me on Weston’s injuries. I understand that he…he—”
Her spine snapped straight. “You don’t know anything about Trace Weston. Neither do they. But I know plenty.” She faced him. “He’s the strongest man I know. And he’s a man who keeps his promises. Trace isn’t going to leave me. He’s going to wake up. He’s going to open his eyes any time.” That was why she had to be there. “And he’s going to make a full recovery.”
The pity flashed in his eyes again. She hated that pity. She wouldn’t look at it anymore. She left the chief, hurrying from the room and running back to the only man who mattered to her.
***
She was only supposed to stay with Trace for fifteen minutes at a time. That was the rule in the ICU.
Skye was breaking their rules, and the doctors hadn’t tried to throw her out yet. Maybe they were afraid of the Weston name. Of the Weston money.
Or maybe…maybe they just had pity in their eyes, too, when they looked at her.
She stood by his bed. Stroked his fingers. They’d told her that machines were keeping him alive.
Skye wouldn’t believe that. He was alive.
His skin wasn’t warm to the touch, it was cool, too cold. So was hers. She rubbed his fingers, trying to force warmth back into him and wishing that she could be the one in that bed.
But she was there, at his side, helpless.
“Is this how you felt?” Skye asked him. “When I was taken and you were left behind, did you feel like this? Like you were being ripped apart, like you were losing your life…and there was nothing you could do but stand there and watch it all fall away?”
He didn’t answer her. He couldn’t. A tube was shoved down his throat. He couldn’t breathe on his own. They’d operated on him—three times. He hadn’t regained consciousness since the EMTs had hauled him out of that apartment.
It looked like something out of a horror movie.
“There’s no one for me to fight.” Her voice had gone hoarse. From the tears? Or from all the hours she’d talked to him?
Skye hadn’t slept. She couldn’t.
“I want to hurt the man who did this to you, but he’s gone.” And she was there. Holding him. “I need to confess something to you.”
She heard the rustle of the curtain behind her.
Skye didn’t look away from Trace.
“I would have killed Reese for you. I would have killed anyone to protect you.” She swallowed, trying to ease the ache in her throat so that she could keep talking. “I was never afraid of the darkness that you carried. Because inside, I’ve got that same darkness. I think…I think I just hide it better than you do.”
She hid her true self from everyone, but him.
“I would’ve killed them. I would’ve done anything for you.” Her hand lifted. She brushed her fingers over his still cheek. “I still will. I’ll do anything, Trace, just please, please come back to me. Because there is one thing I can’t do…I can’t live without you.” She didn’t want to try.
A hand touched her shoulder. “Skye.”
Alex’s voice. He’d heard her confession. She didn’t care. She didn’t care about anything but Trace.
“Has there been any change?” Alex asked her.
Her fingers slid back down to hold Trace’s hand. “Not yet. But there will be. He’s coming back to me.”
Alex’s hand fell away from her. “I heard that…” He cleared his throat. “I heard that Claire Kramer and Drake Archer will be discharged soon.”
Skye nodded. “That’s good.” They’d healed. Trace would, too.
“Noah York is improving. He lost a lot of blood, so the docs aren’t ready to release him yet.” Alex paused. “Noah said that Weston saved his life, and Claire…she said you are the only reason she’s still here.”
She still didn’t look away from Trace. She just needed him to open his eyes. Once he opened his eyes, everything would be all right.
“I saw Reese following me when I left the station. I’d thought that Weston sent him after me.”
She slipped her fingers over Trace’s knuckles. Her engagement ring gleamed up at her. “You always think the worst of Trace.”
“I thought he’d killed Parker because he loved you and wanted you safe.” Alex cleared his throat. “But we found evidence at Reese’s place. Photos. He’d been following Parker. Meeting with him.”
“I guess they both wanted the same thing,” Skye whispered. “To destroy Trace.”
“Reese was…involved with Sara. We showed one of Sara’s neighbors a picture of him, and the neighbor confirmed that he’d been there to visit her several times.”
“He was just using her. He used her, and he killed her.” And Skye had trusted him.
When you put your trust in the wrong person, you opened yourself up for all kinds of hurt.
Skye didn’t think it was possible to hurt more than she did then.
“What I don’t understand…” Alex’s shoulder brushed against hers. “What I don’t understand is why I didn’t get killed, too. He had me. Reese knocked me out. He could’ve killed me at any point.”
Skye blinked at that. Finally, she pulled her gaze off Trace. Focused on the detective. “He didn’t kill you because you were going to be the killer.”
Alex’s brows rose.
“Anna Jean named you…she said that you’d come to find her in Atlanta. She was tossing you out to us all, setting you up as the killer.” Lying so easily. “Then Trace ran over to Reese’s place because Reese called and said that you were watching him.”
“I—”
“It was your gun that Reese used to shoot Trace, wasn’t it?”
He nodded.
That was what she’d thought. “You would’ve been killed, eventually. At the right time—a time that would match up with whatever scenario Reese planned to spin to the authorities. He would’ve killed you, no doubt with Trace’s gun. That way, everything would end tied up nicely. You went after the killer—you shot Trace, but not before he fatally ended you.”
Alex’s gaze flashed to Trace. “Only the plan got fucked.”
“Yes, but not soon enough.” Because if she’d just reached Trace sooner, then he wouldn’t be in that hospital bed.
Silence from Alex. The heavy, rough silence that seemed to push against Skye’s skin. Then, finally, he asked “Is there anything I can do?”
She smoothed her fingers over Trace’s. “He bounced back so quickly when Mitch shot him.” Just a few weeks before. Why—why couldn’t they just have an easy life? “But I guess Reese was a better shot.” Damn the bastard. “They’ve operated on Trace so many times, trying to repair the damage from that bullet, but the doctors just—” She broke off and had to blink back her hears. “I don’t understand why the doctors can’t have more hope.” She had plenty. There was no way that she would give up on Trace. “He survived before. He’ll do it again.” Please, Trace, cheat death again for me.
“I’m sorry, Skye.”
So was she. “If you want to do something, then bring him back to me.” Because that was the only thing that she wanted.
Alex pulled a chair closer to the bed.
A chair for her.
A chair for him.
“It looks like I owe that man my life,” Alex said.
That man was her life.
They sat down, and they waited.
***
Skye was dead. Anna Jean had killed her. Sliced open Skye’s throat. Let her blood drain out.
Skye was an angel with bloody wings. Dead on a snow covered field.
He’d left her behind, and she’d died.
Skye! Trace tried to scream her name. Again and again, but no sound slipped past his lips.
The cold froze him. Numbed him. And Skye was dead before him.
If she was gone, then he wanted to die, too. He couldn’t, wouldn’t go years without her again.
Skye had been his hope. His only dream.
She was gone.
And he wanted to be with her.
***
The machines started to beep louder. Faster.
Skye shot out of her chair. Her knees locked as she stood at Trace’s bedside. “Trace?” Skye whispered.
He was coming back to her.
The beeping grew more frantic.
Alex rose from his chair. “Ah…Skye…”
A nurse and two doctors rushed into the room. They pushed Skye back.
“You have to go back to the waiting room, miss,” the nurse told Skye as she blocked her path to Trace. “You need to go now.”
No way. Skye peered around the nurse’s shoulder. “He’s waking up! I’m not going anywhere!”
“Blood pressure’s dropping…too damn low,” one doctor muttered.
Alex caught Skye’s hand. “We should go outside.” He sounded so grim. So…sad?
“No!” Skye yanked away from him. “He’s waking up!”