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Closer.
I felt my pace slow no matter how hard I tried to push.
Almost…
The periphery of my vision began to blur.
I wasn’t near a crosswalk but I couldn’t risk the detour.
My feet carried me into the road with nothing more than a prayer that there were no cars coming. Another step, and the sound of a horn blasted through my consciousness.
I turned, watching a large black SUV barrel toward me in slow motion. I tried to keep moving, but my feet seemed out of my control. Sluggish. Immovable. I didn’t know if I had taken another step or if I just started to go down. My knees hit the pavement as tires screeched.
It didn’t seem like the SUV was that close, but what could I tell? Everything was off.And Stan was coming.
I tried to crawl, but my arms gave out as the squealing noise stopped. My body felt numb. I thought the car had stopped in time, but I couldn’t be certain I hadn’t been hit. I couldn’t feel anything.
So close.
I was so close.
A tear leaked down my cheek. At least Jake was safe. If Stan had to deal with me out here, it gave Zeke time to get to Jake.
Maybe whoever was in the car would wait for the ambulance. Maybe they wouldn’t automatically trust Stan.Maybe…
Everything went dark.
“Kenzie!”The rough growl filtered into my brain, and light jostled through the darkness.
I forced my eyes open, convinced I had to be imagining things. It couldn’t be real. Couldn’t be…
“Zeke.”
CHAPTER21
ZEKE
“Iswear to god, if you don’t tell me he’s in jail, I’m calling Harm,” I said to Ace, rising to meet my brother-in-law’s towering form.
Harmon Keyes ran a motorcycle club that specialized in vigilante justice, and if that was what it took to finally put an end to the terror Stan wanted to inflict on my wife, then I’d sanction it.
Ace stopped in front of me and reached for my shoulder.“Stan’s in custody, and I don’t think he’ll see the outside of a cell for the rest of his life.”
“Good.”
I took my second full breath since we’d returned to the hospital. The first one was when Kenzie woke up. I knew she’d be okay; the ambulance had arrived minutes after Addy and I, and had revived her while Addy kept Stan at bay until the police arrived. The fucker claimed he’d been trying to help her.
By the time we’d made it to Stan’s street, Ace called back confirming the presence of fentanyl in the water bottle. Dex pulled not only the hospital records that established Stan was the one to rescue Kenzie for each of her overdoses, but he also scrubbed through security footage from the Carmel Pub’s exterior cameras—footage that showed Stan adding something to the water bottle before giving it to Jake just moments before they reached the beach.
Fucker.
Like a house of cards, Stan’s twisted story began to unravel. He’d protested his arrest to Addy. To the police. But it was when Addy found Jake at the community center that he unraveled. With red swollen eyes and a quivering lip, Jake told the police that his dad put stuff in the water bottle that hurt me. He told them how his dad would always put “vitamins”in his mom’s food and drink, and no matter how many times he told his dad it made Kenzie sick, Stan didn’t listen.
And that was when Stan’s rage broke through—shattering his heroic veneer. I heard his shouts and struggle, but my whole focus was on Kenzie. Getting her into the ambulance. Holding her hand the whole way to the hospital. Addy took Jake in her car and followed right behind.
We hardly had a moment alone in the hospital before Jake burst through the door and jumped onto his mom’s bed. There were a million things left unsaid, but they would have to wait; Jake was most important. I left the two of them in the room together so I could speak with Ace.
“How is she?” Ace looked over my shoulder into the hospital room. Jake was still curled up against Kenzie’s side as she lightly stroked his arm.
