CHAPTER 22
Grant
Through strength training, I could focus on my body, pushing my muscles to higher feats, to keep my mind clear. Whatever it took to stop thinking about Hazel. How I wanted her. How I knew she needed me. Or the guilt I felt for letting myself fall for her. How falling for her wasn’t fair to anyone, but most of all, it wasn’t fair to her. She didn’t need anyone on her back. She needed to be sufficient by herself. And I had screwed that up.
My phone buzzed;Kileyblinked on the screen. I braced myself for what was coming next. Kiley’s call meant that she had found a definitive answer. I racked the weights and answered the call.
“Yeah?”
“This person, the stalker, or whatever, mentioned Dean before in their messages, right? Didn’t state his name, but implied that the reason for the death threats was because of how Hazel was involved with Dean’s death,” Kiley said.
“Yes.”
“Dean has a younger sister, Renee Harris. Ring a bell?”
Get on with it, Kiley. “No.”
“I’m emailing you her picture right now.” Still keeping the call on, I checked my phone; there was an attachment of a picture: a woman with dark hair, and gray, almost white eyes.Christine. I looked at the door to the hallway, hoping Hazel was occupied so that she wouldn’t hear the rest of the conversation.
“Christine is her alias?” I asked.
“Yep.”
How many weeks had passed with Christine being close to Hazel?
“And it took you this long to find that out?” I barked.
“Look,” Kiley sighed, “she was using some kind of program to block her information. Not the stuff I’m used to. Something new.” She scoffed. “I ought to add a ten percent insult fee to your invoice.”
She was joking, but it was still irritating. And it wasn’t Kiley’s fault that I had let Hazel become friends with Christine.
But I couldn’t control Hazel. She had made that clear.
And yet I could have done a better job of protecting her. If I hadn’t gotten close to her.
But I could make those kinds of changes now.
“You’re sure it’s her?” I asked.
“I wouldn’t have called otherwise.”
We ended the phone call. I sat on the weight bench, contemplating the best way to tell Hazel the truth. It would break her. She had held onto the hope that she had finally found a friend, someone who would accept her, the real her, but I should have listened to my instincts all along. Something was off about Christine. She was keeping Hazel close, only to destroy her.
But Christine couldn’t have worked alone. Those pictures of Hazel at the Afterglow had beenwithChristine in the frame, perhaps to help prove her innocence. Which meant that she likely had an accomplice. Maybe it was Oliver.
I should have listened to my instincts about Christine. All it took was one drive alone together, one trip to her house, and something could have happened to Hazel.
My only hope was that there was some part of Hazel that didn’t trust Christine. An inkling of instinctual distrust. Perhaps Hazel doubted her too, like she doubted me.
Hazel came into the doorframe. Shorts hugged her thighs, and a loose tank top with a bandeau showed off her curves. The light shone behind her, complementing her clean face, her eyes bright and fatigued at the same time. I wanted to hold her, but I knew I couldn’t. It wouldn’t be right. Not when I knew the truth I had to deliver.
“Hey,” she said. Her voice was calm.
“Hey,” I said. I wasn’t sure what else to say. After we had dumped Ron’s body in the desert, she had refused to speak to me. Even if I had protected her, she was horrified by what I had done. And she had every right to be. Iwasa monster. I had never verified that Ron had killed those women. I held onto Jones’s word, hoping that he was telling the truth. Like I had held onto the belief that Hazel knew what she was doing and who she trusted, even though I had never trusted Christine myself.
“Maybe we should do some training?” Hazel asked. “I don’t know how much you saw, but I aimed for the right places, and I missed. Badly.”
I had seen it. Ron had been quicker than I had expected as well. But he was not as alert as he should have been. Should we go to the suite? Perhaps the atmosphere would help center her mind. Make her forget about the horrors she had experienced recently. We could even move her furniture up there. A complete change of pace. But knowing what we had done inside of that room would have made things worse, by reminding her how much she trusted me.
