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“Are you an investigator?” The man’s breath reeks of alcohol. “Did that slut send you?” His callous laugh elicits a spark of anger. “Are you here for that couple? That fucking wreck?” he seethes through clenched teeth, his hands closing tighter around my throat. “It was an accident. You’ll never prove anything. I’ll make sure of that.”
“Oh, god.”I merely mouth the words, frantic for air that won’t come as bile burns like acid at the back of my throat.
The reel won’t stop flipping. I see my thumbs mash his eyes. I feel the heaviness of the tool in my hand. I feel the iron reverberate off his skull.
I see the blood.
My vision blurs as tears well in my eyes, and I’m pleading for the images tostop.
With a fierce groan, Kallum releases me, freeing my throat and wrists at once. I fall against his chest and swallow down air into my deprived lungs, hungrily breathing in his scent. He presses his mouth to the top of my head, our heavy breaths the only sound in the still room.
Wellington killed them.
Critical mass is reached when the gravitational force of matter halts the expansion of the universe.
Everything grinds to a halt.
Still struggling for a breath, I curl my fingers over the warmth of Kallum’s skin, the ring clasped in my fist. “It was him,” I say, my voice raw, throat enflamed. “He was the one who hit my parents and just left them to die.”
Kallum’s strong arms enclose around me, where I’m comforted by the solid feel of him before I’m lifted up against his chest. I drape my forearms around his neck, buried in the pocket of his shoulder as he carries me into the living room.
“Wellington thought his wife had hired me,” I say as he deposits me in front of the fireplace. “That I was there to investigate him. Because I had been following him…he’d seen me. He thought I knew about the hit-and-run.”
After I’m draped in a fleece blanket, Kallum sets a glass of water on the hearth. He then kneels before me, his beautiful features cast in sharp relief by the firelight. My gaze travels over him, taking in the inked sigils and scripted tattoos as if for the first time. I’m rocked with a shiver, unable to deny the truth as my eyes sweep up to find his.
“Synchronicity,” I whisper.
“Everything connects.”
The history lesson Kallum gave me in the killing fields our first night on the case wasn’t really about the case at all. It was about me. About us—our history.
Everything connects.
History repeats itself.
Three is the magic number.
A shared, hidden wisdom.
“Shit,” I mutter. With a shaky hand, I drop the ring next to the glass, then lower my face into my palms. I suck in two deep, sobering breaths to cleanse the lingering ache from my lungs.
Delicately, Kallum hooks his finger under my chin and forces my face up. “Keep going,” he says, an echo of my own words.
“You knew,” I say, the accusation clear. “You knew it was Wellington who killed my parents. How?”
His eyes catch the blaze of the fire as he tenderly strokes my jawline. “I saw Wellington’s car,” he admits, lowering his hand. “It was something petty I did, slash his tires just to fuck with him.” He shrugs, indifferent. “But on that particular morning, I saw the dents, the smashed headlight. The silver paint deposit. The evidence of an accident. Then the news hit campus of a couple—Silvia and Darrin St. James—who had lost their lives due to a hit-and-run and their daughter who was seeking information. It didn’t take a genius to link the pieces together.”
I swallow hard and touch my throat that still flames. “Kallum…I… Why didn’t you just tell me it was him?”
He releases a rough exhale. “Wellington had his car towed within an hour to repair and hide the damage.”
I shake my head. “But there was still a record of him doing so, it still could’ve proven?—”
“Would it have been enough to give you his name?” He cuts me off, his intense gaze hard on mine. “To arrest him? See him imprisoned? If he even would’ve been. Would it have been enough, Halen?”
The same question he asked of me once already. Only now, I understand why he needed the answer from me.
“No.” I blink away the remaining tears. “I wanted him dead.”
