desk. He tried to sit and not slump down as his body wanted to do. “I’d be inclined to wonder if she hadn’t come back to kill him herself if not for that man chasing her.” And the fact she’d been shot before he hit her with his car. “Maybe they planned it together.”
Aiden winced. So much pain. It had been clear in her eyes when she told him it was better off that she stayed dead.
He wanted to know why.
He also wanted to be there when she found out about her father—if she didn’t know. But that was simply latent care, something he couldn’t switch off. Too much empathy. He could care for her the way he cared for Sydney, wanting to make her life the best he could, because it was the right thing to do. But she didn’t need him.
No one had ever done anything to make Bridget Meyers’s life better than the tragedy it had been.
Then Aiden had used her for his own satisfaction. Yeah, he’d been attracted. Back then he’d have said he cared about her—maybe even loved her. They hadn’t hurt each other. They’d both been in it for the same thing. Barely out of high school, high on adulthood—and other, more potent substances.
Now he knew better.
Or so he’d told himself all this time. Tamping down his grief with the reality of the situation. She’d been gone. Dead. What would be the point in overly romanticizing it?
She’d lied, maybe even paid someone to tell him she was dead. He wasn’t going to forgive a woman who didn’t even seem prepared to try and work on a relationship with her child. It was like she didn’t care at all.
No, he could never forgive.
Even if he’d never met Sydney, there was nothing in this world that could induce him to pretend she didn’t exist.
“There’s more to this woman than what you know.” Basuto shot Aiden a look. “She’s hiding a whole lot.”
Aiden was about to answer when the door opened and Officer Frees muscled something in. “What is—”
A dog barked.
Aiden met him at the door and held it open while a huge, wrinkly-faced beast of a dog ambled in. “Butch.” More memory came rushing back. Thomas Meyers. The dog at his house. Of course.
“You know this dog?” Frees held out his end of the leash. “Here you go. Animal control doesn’t open until the morning.”
Aiden took the leather cord before he realized what he’d done.
Basuto said, “What is this?”
“It’s Thomas Meyers’s dog.” Frees shrugged. “Couldn’t leave him up there with no one to take care of him. Or running loose in the yard where Thomas bled out.”
Butch moved to Aiden. The dog lumbered as though he was tired, or feeling lost. He sniffed Aiden’s shoes. His pants up to his knee. Then the big dog laid down, his muzzle on the toe of Aiden’s boot.
“Guess you just got yourself a dog.”
When he whipped his gaze up to Frees, the officer shrugged. “For tonight, anyway.”
“I have enough problems right now. I don’t need—”
“He’s right,” Basuto said. “You take the dog. Use your day off to leave him with animal control.” The sergeant clapped his hands together. “All done and dusted.”
“I hardly think—”
This time it was Frees who interrupted. “I’m sure Sydney would love babysitting a dog for the day.” The lightness in his eyes said more, and Aiden had to wonder if he didn’t want to point out it was a family dog. Their family, given the animal had belonged to her grandfather.
Even if Sydney had never met him.
Now he was dead, and she never would. Another person in her life she would miss out on the chance to know. And good riddance, as far as he was concerned.
He could say the same about Bridget.
Aiden decided then and there, whether Bridget wanted to meet Sydney, or more than that—something that scared him more than he’d care to admit—there was no way he would allow it.
She had no right to come back now and ask anything of him.
Nine
Bridget gasped and sat up. Pain rolled through her hip and her arm. She hissed out a breath between clenched teeth and flopped back on the pillow. The blanket had twisted around her as she slept. Fitfully, by the look of it.
Beside her lay the scrapbook.
Bridget laid her hand on the cover of her most prized possession. If she told Sasha about it and how she couldn’t go anywhere without it, her colleague and friend would check her into the psych