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Lane snorted.Clearly, he was not good.
But the guard removed his hold and stepped back.
“Your sister is in danger,” Oliver informed Lane.“You want her unprotected?”
“There are plenty of bodyguards out there.Plenty of other Feds.She doesn’t needyou.” Disgust tightened Lane’s lips.“You broke her heart already.What the hell do you want?To do damage a second time?”
You broke her heart already.“I want to fix what’s broken.”The truth slipped from him.But when it came to Lark, that was all he wanted.
“Not gonna happen.”Lane seemed certain on this point.“She doesn’t trust easily.She doesn’t give second chances.Neither of us do.”He leaned forward.A lean, not a lunge, so the guard didn’t have to pounce again.“You know what sucks?When you trust someone completely, and they shatter that trust.”
“Are you talking about me…” Oliver tilted his head as he watched for Lane’s reaction.“Or your father?”
Lane’s lashes flickered.He cleared his throat.“You here to analyze me?”
Absolutely, I am.He did have a Ph.D.in psychology.Abnormal psych had been his specialty and the reason he’d wound up hunting killers.Someone had to get them off the streets.“Lark and I recently talked about the night your father died.”
Lane’s stare dipped toward the silent guard before returning to Oliver.“So what?Everyone knows about that night.”His voice roughened as he added, “I had to stop him.He would have killed my sister.”His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.“I had no idea he was sick.No one knew.No one could have known.He’d just gotten meaner and meaner, and the man I used to know?The man who’d come to my football games and cheer…he turned into a bastard who’d punch me as soon as I walked into the house.”His lashes flickered.“I was supposed to protect my sister.My mother was on the floor, not moving at all.She was covered in blood, and my old man was going afterLark.” A rasping breath.His chin lifted.“I was supposed to protect her.”
“So you shot your father.”
“That’s already been established, hasn’t it?”
“You pulled the trigger?”Oliver pushed.
“Self-defense,” Lane snapped back.“Ruled that way years ago.I don’t get the point in this twisted walk to the past that you’re making me take.”
He won’t actually confess to killing his father.Interesting.“Lark walked me through the past already.Told me everything about that night.”He paused.Stared straight into Lane’s eyes.“Everything.”
Lane swallowed again.Another quick bob of his Adam’s apple.“My sister would say anything to protect me.”
“Would she?”Now they were getting somewhere.“Would she lie and say that the package I discovered—the one with the dead women’s jewelry—it had actually been sent to her and not to you?”
Surprise flashed in Lane’s eyes but was quickly concealed.
“Lark said the package came to her florist shop.She took it home, forgot about it, and then I found it.”He waited for a response.
Lane’s breathing seemed a bit faster.
“If that story is true, then this really didn’t have much to do with you, did it?If we’re buying the tale Lark is spinning, then the killer was contacting her.”Not that Oliver wasn’t doing more investigating.He was.Or rather, he’d given orders for Jase to track down Katya.Did that before I left the crime scene in that parking lot last night.
But this chat was not about the work Jase was doing.It was about Lane.
Lane wet his lips.
Oliver carefully continued, “The killer is attacking women who look like Lark.And…well, Lark does have the florist shop.And flowers were left with the dead women.Almost like they were brides holding bouquets.Isn’t that why people in the press call you the Bridal Killer?”
“I’m not—” he stopped.
“Not a killer?”Oliver finished for him.
Once more, Lane swallowed.The click seemed extra loud.
“Let’s go back to Lark, shall we?”Oliver mused.“As I was saying, she has the florist shop—or rather, had since she was forced to sell it.”Rage churned in him because he knew how much the shop had meant to her.I’ll get it back for you.But now wasn’t the time to lose focus.He cleared his throat, then said, “She looks like the other women…or maybe the other women look likeher.”
Lane partially turned toward the watchful guard.“I don’t want to be here.Take me back to my cell.”
Fuck.He couldn’t let Lane leave yet.“She was attacked last night.If you didn’t kill the other women, then that would mean the man who attacked her last night…maybe he’s finally going after the bride he really wanted all along?”
