Page 105 of Knox

A smile spread over her beautiful face. “I happen to know a brilliant business woman who’d love to help you with a business plan.”

“Oh, yeah?”

She nodded, then pressed a few kisses along the underside of my jaw.. “She won’t even ask you to pay her in cash.”

“I’m definitely going to take you up on that.”

Chapter 34

Sloane

I was making tea when Knox appeared in the kitchen doorway later that month.

My hands only shook slightly now when I was alone. Progress. According to my therapist, all steps toward peace, big or small, were worth celebrating. I tried to celebrate whatever I could these days. “Hey,” I said, glancing up at him when he didn’t speak or approach me. “What’s up?”

“Walter Senior is here,” Knox said.

The kettle slipped from my grip. Hit the counter with a metallic clang. Whatever I’d expected him to say, it wasn’t that.

Knox caught the kettle before it hit the ground. “He wants to talk to us.”

My muscles clenched, and my ears rang. Images of the day a serial killer choked me inside my home and held a knife above my battered body returned in a nauseating flash. “Why?”

“I don’t know. But he asked to talk to us. Both of us.”

“What? Why?” My voice came out sharp. Defensive.

“You don’t have to,” he said quickly, setting the kettle down and moving closer. “I can send him away. Or I can talk to him alone.”

I rolled my shoulders back and raised my chin. “I can’t promise I won’t get up and leave.”

He nodded. “No one will blame you if you do.”

Knox set his hand against the small of my back and led me outside. A small blessing. I didn’t want that man to step foot across the threshold.

The father of the monster who’d tried to kill me stood on Knox’s porch. It seemed ridiculously unfair for him to ask anything of me.

My throat ached with phantom pain. The barely healed bruises throbbed. I felt the gloved hand pressing against my skin, stealing my oxygen.

We moved to a set of chairs together. Knox stayed close, his hand in mine. Protective. Ready to intervene if I needed him.

Walter Senior leaned against the handrail. He looked terrible. Hollow-eyed. Gray-faced. Like grief had carved him out from the inside.

I let my thigh touch Knox’s leg beside me. Drawing strength from his presence.

“I won’t ask for forgiveness,” Walter began. His voice was hoarse. Broken. “I don’t deserve it. But I need you to know... I need you to understand.”

My eyebrows snapped up. Knox brushed his thumb across the back of my hand.

“I suspected Junior was up to something bad for some time. For months. Maybe longer.” Walter’s hands knotted together in his lap. “I didn’t know what it was, and I didn’t have much more to go on than a gut feeling, so I didn’t do anything to stop him.”

The world fell silent except for the distant sound of waves and gulls.

My chest tightened. He’d known. He’d suspected his son was killing women, and he’d done nothing.

“It started small,” Walter continued. “Things I could explain away. Junior would come to the island during tourist season. Said he loved the crowds, the energy. I believed him. Why wouldn’t I? It’s paradise on earth.”

Walter swallowed hard, Adam’s apple bobbing. “Then women started disappearing. And the timing... the timing was always when Junior had been here. But I told myself it was a coincidence. That the island gets thousands of tourists. That correlation isn’t causation.”