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He leans in to cup my face in his hand, brushing my hair out of my eyes with his other. The gesture is so sweet and familiar that I can feel my heart threatening to break free of my chest.
“Fine,” Aimee mumbles somewhere in the distance. “I’ll leave you guys to it.”
I kiss the inside of Arnie’s palm. “I’m okay. Or at least, I will be when I get my strength back.”
“Did she tell you what happened?” Arnie asks quietly as we listen to the door close once more.
“I overdosed, didn’t I?” I ask tentatively, examining every micro-expression on his face.
But Arnie gives nothing away other than his pure, unfiltered relief. “Kate found you first. She said you were weirdly coherent, to begin with, but from what she saw, you’d taken enough to kill a horse.”
I flinch a little. “Restraint was never my strong suit.”
Arnie is already shaking his head. “Strengthis your strong suit. Eda manipulated you, hurt you, forced you into a situation that could have destroyed you. The fact you’re still standing is a testament to your resilience.”
“She was going to hand me over to Padraic,” I whisper. “She told me stories about him.”
Arnie takes my trembling hands in his own, kissing them softly. “He will never get his hands on you. Not while I breathe.”
The ferocity of his words triggers a memory. A gunshot. Arnie’s unwavering stare.
“You were there too, weren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“You killed her.”
Arnie pauses. “I couldn’t let her live. Not when I saw what she’d done to you.” His voice is cool, precise, and remorseless. It’s enough to make me shudder.
He immediately takes off his jacket and tucks it over my bed sheets.
“She could have been useful,” I try to reason. “We could have used her to get to Padraic.”
“We didn’t even have confirmation she was even allied with Padraic until just now,” Arnie nods toward me. “If she was really that important to him, Jack would have picked up on it before now.”
I tilt my head in confusion. “Are you saying she exaggerated their relationship?”
“I’m saying she was desperate for power and was willing to take as many risks as necessary to achieve that goal. Throwing herself at Padraic included.”
“What happened after–” I cut myself off, unable to finish the sentence.
Despite everything, there’s a strange, tainted sense of grief that I can’t seem to shake. Eda had not been a part of my life for so long, but I think some part of me remembers what she had once meant to me. Even if I had meant nothing to her.
“You collapsed. Kate started CPR, and I had to get you both out before you went into cardiac arrest. There was someone else there. Diane, do you remember? From your brother’s distillery?”
The patronizing face of the girl who’d flirted with Arnie in front of me fills my mind. “All too well.”
“I shot her in the shoulder.”
I can’t keep my grin at bay. “I know I shouldn’t be smiling, but…”
“She’d been working with Eda, couriering information on Connor to anyone who’d listen, apparently. She’s the reason theDead Eyesfound us that night,” Arnie clarifies.
“And you only shot her in the shoulder?” I say with mock seriousness.
Arnie gives me an unamused look. “She made for a run for it after you collapsed. Only she wasn’t smart enough to lock up behind her. Led us straight to an emergency exit with a vehicle already primed for us to escape in.”
“Did you catch her?”
