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I frowned. “Xander is dead.”
A painful sob bubbled up from her chest. “Not him.” She shook her head, and the look in her eye had a shiver slithering down my spine. “The Shadow Stalker.”
40
Lark
I came back to consciousness with a strong arm wrapped around my stomach and the scent of cinnamon flooding my senses. I inhaled deep, shifting closer into the warm body curled up against my back.
Soft lips kissed the bandage near my temple. “Does your head hurt?” he whispered.
“No,” I answered. We had gotten home from the hospital hours ago. I had a clean bill of health but for the cut on my head and a slight concussion. They’d given me painkillers, and I didn’t feel a thing now.
“You should go back to sleep.” Reid rubbed a soothing hand up and down my arm.
He was probably right, but the sun streaming in through the windows made that difficult. And there was a lot on my mind. I turned around in his arms, coming face-to-face with the man who I had fallen completely in love with. A deep line carved his skin between his pinched brows, concern and worry settled in the fine creases around his eyes.
Seeing his face again felt like a gift after everything that had happened. Tears burned in my eyes, and he was instantly on alert. His arm tightened around me.
“What hurts?”
I shook my head. “Nothing. I’m okay.”
His mouth turned down at the corners. “No, you’re not.” He leaned in, pressing a gentle kiss to my forehead. “I’m so, so sorry.”
My back teeth clenched. He had said those words to me a thousand times during the hours we’d spent at the hospital, but I hadn’t been in a state to refute them. I had only been able to give a statement to the police about what had happened in that trailer, while Reid held my hand. I’d tumbled into a deep sleep the moment my head had hit the pillow when we got back to his house.
“Why are you sorry?” I placed a hand on the side of his face. “You saved me, Reid.”
His eyes screwed closed briefly as he leaned into my palm. “I didn’t save you,” he breathed. “I should’ve protected you. You should’ve never been in that situation.”
It broke my heart at the self-loathing in his eyes. “Stop it,” I said, voice firm. “It’s not your fault. You did your best to keep me as safe as possible, while respecting my own decisions. No one had any clue what Xander had done. We trusted him.”
Reid gritted his teeth, but a deep sadness shone in his eyes. “I can’t believe it was him all this time. He killed her. We thought he had a damn alibi.”
It still hadn’t sunk in for me. In a way, everything felt like a bad dream. Part of my nightmares. Xander had killed Thea that night. He’d killed Delainey, because she’d seen him. He hadn’t known that I’d caught a glimpse of him, too.
“He was scared and desperate.”
“And enabled by his damn father.”
The former Sheriff Cohen was currently being investigated for the part he played in covering up his son’s crime. But he had friends in high places. There was no telling how that would end.
“Right, which means there is no more blame left for you to take.”
His eyes darted away from mine. “I don’t know about that…”
“Reid,” I said, resolute in my tone. “Look at me.”
He didn’t, not right away. He turned his face, pressing a kiss into the hand that was touching his cheek. Reluctantly, his eyes found mine. “I feel like I failed you.”
“You didn’t.” A pang hit my chest. “Reid, you saved me.”
He rolled his lips, pressing them together as a crushed look crossed his face. “I wish I had. I wish I’d gotten there before—”
He cut himself off, a mix of anger and shame flaring in his eyes. He was going to say he wished he’d gotten there before the Shadow Stalker killed Xander…and before he, my father, knocked me unconscious and got away.
The thought that I shared blood with a man like that had a shiver racking through me. But I couldn’t let that consume me. Those were feelings to work through eventually, not at this moment. This moment was about us, Reid and me.
