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Her eyelids fluttered opened. She gazed up at him in a daze, filled with uncertainty.
“Am I dreaming?”
A smile burst out of him. He covered her with kisses.
“No baby. It’s me. You’re safe now. I’ve got you.”
Her eyes turned bright with tears, though the smile she gave him could have lit up the darkest night.
“You found me?”
“Of course I did. I found you and I will never let you go again.”
To prove he meant it, he claimed her lips with his own.
She welcomed him with her heart and soul, grabbing onto him as if she would never let go. Bud whined with excitement, picking up on their emotions and joining in with his own.
Holding her in his arms, the rest of the world faded away until there was only the three of them.
And, he realized, he had finally found his home.
27
Within the hour, the place was a zoo.
News crews and paparazzi littered the small property and were only held back by the strong presence of police that had since arrived. Stan and a few of his other men had come too, to give whatever backup he might need.
Standing to one side, Ruth was a mess of tears and confusion.
Her usually impeccable self was nowhere to be found. She dabbed at her eyes with a soaked tissue. Her nose, red from crying. In-between sobs, she tried to convince the two cops who were interviewing her of Hank’s innocence.
“My son would never hurt Lexi. You must know that. He has social problems, but he isn’t a monster. There must be a simple explanation for this.”
Wrapped in a blanket, Lexi sat inside an ambulance while staff checked her vitals. She gripped onto Kane’s hand, refusing to let go for even a second. Seeming to have understood the situation, Bud stayed glued to her side, perched before her like a brown and black guard dog, intimidating anyone who dared to come her way. Neither one of them would move, not even when requested by the emergency crew.
Once Detective Summers arrived on the scene, he took over the situation. One look at the officious cop and it didn’t take long for Hank to blurt out his side of the story to him. Summers put the pieces of it together and explained the sorry tale to them now.
“Hank considered you all an extended family of his,” he told Lexi. “He was a constant fixture at the property when he was young, when he and Ruth lived in your guest house. With his lack of social interaction and Ruth’s chatty nature, he’d developed unrealistic expectations of how close you all actually were.”
Lexi’s eyes took on a faraway look as she recalled the past. “I do remember him of course, but he was at least ten years older than me and that seemed like a world of difference when I was a child. We never really spoke other than to say hi. I can’t even think if we’ve ever had a real conversation.”
“In his head, you’ve had plenty. He actually considered the two of you friends,” Summers continued.
“Then why did any of this happen? How did he go from thinking they were friends to this?” Kane couldn’t quite make the leap.
“A few months ago, a job came up in the house. Ruth had lobbied hard with your parents to give Hank the chance to prove himself to them.”
“Right,” Lexi confirmed, remembering. “But I told them I wasn’t comfortable having him around us all the time.”
“Had he done something to you?” Kane was quick to ask, wondering if it was something he should have caught earlier. He could already feel the shame starting to rear its ugly head.
“No. But it was the way he stared at me. I would always catch him watching me in this way that kind of spooked me. I don’t know. I just didn’t want to have to deal with that in my own home.”
“I understand,” Summers nodded. “Problem was, I don’t think he meant to make you uncomfortable. In fact, he’d long harbored a crush on you.”
Lexi fell silent for a moment, trying to picture this fact and how it slotted in with her view of events.
“I had no idea.”
