So heavy it was a wonder it didn’t rip the flesh from her skull.
Seeing it, he froze to the spot.
“This isn’t going to work,” she declared.
“Rebel,” he whispered.
“Maybe if . . . maybe if . . .”
He watched her look around, seemingly randomly. The wall to her left. Her boots. Behind him into the kitchen. Her boots again.
Then her eyes came back to him.
And he was at once glad they did and hoped like fuck he’d never see that look in them again.
Jesus, fuck.
“You have a beautiful voice,” she whispered.
Why did she tell him that?
Where was she now?
Wherever it was, he had to get her the fuck out.
“Baby, come here,” he whispered back.
“Maybe if—”
“Rebel, please come to me.”
“I got that call.”
“What call?” he asked when she didn’t keep going.
“In the middle of the night telling me if I cared about Chantilly, I needed to go to her.”
Chantilly was Diane’s porn name.
That he knew.
But . . .
She got a call?
Hawk’s file didn’t say dick about a call.
Rush had a different feeling in his gut, one that tightened his chest and the muscles in his neck, but Rebel kept talking.
“I went. The door was . . . I went. And called the cops. And waited as they went in. Sat there in my car and waited. And then to the station. And Hank. And Eddie.”
She wasn’t making any sense.
He didn’t say a word.
He just stood there, holding her eyes, and listened.
“We went to Paul and Amy. We told them.” She nodded her head. Shook it. Nodded it again. Christ, she was gone. “We told them,” she repeated.
But her voice cracked.
That he got, without her words making much sense.
He couldn’t imagine being there when cops told two parents their daughter had been murdered.
Raped and murdered.
He didn’t want to imagine.
But Rebel didn’t have to imagine shit.
She’d been there.
“Sweetheart, come to me or I’m comin’ to you. Serious.”
He didn’t move when the new look hit her face. The wet hit her eyes. Hovering there.
“You have such a beautiful voice, Rush. Maybe if you’d been there. Maybe if you’d been there to go to. Maybe after we told Amy and Paul that Diane had been killed, if I could have gone to—”
Fuck it.
He took the three steps to her and yanked her into his arms.
He was just in time.
She dropped her phone and purse to the floor, face-planted in his chest and lost it.
He gathered her closer.
She clutched his shirt into her hands and pressed it to her cheeks like she was trying to hide from him.
But she did this sobbing and begging, “Talk to me.”
His voice.
He dipped his head to put his lips to her ear and tightened his arms further, using one hand to stroke her back.
“I’m right here,” he murmured. “Get it out.”
“I can’t stop.”
“Then keep crying.”
“No,” she wailed. “Valenzuela.”
Goddamn it.
“Just feel what you’re feelin’ now, baby. We’ll deal with that later.”
“Mom a-sked us t-to Thanksgiving. It w-was after that. A-after I’d started my p-plan o’ vengeance,” she stuttered. “I w-was d-deep in my p-plan o’ vengeance.”
Say what?
“Honey, where are you goin’ now?” he asked.
She threw her head back, pounded his shirt into his chest and snapped, “Mom! She couldn’t leave well enough alone! She had to ask us to Thanksgiving!”
“Okay,” he said carefully, “I’m not following.”
“Fabulous,” she snapped.
“Reb—”
“You’re going to think I’m a nutcase, and I like you.” Another chest pound. “You have a beautiful voice, you don’t mind being teased and you’re a really good kisser.”
He beat back a grin.
Good to know.
But not where they needed to be right now.
“How about you cry it out then we’ll talk about Thanksgiving and after that, we’ll talk about Valenzuela again.”
She shoved her face back in his chest. “You don’t want to talk about Valenzuela.”
“That was before I knew how much you liked my voice.”
She made a sound like a laugh that ended like a sob and slid her arms around him.
He held on, and he held on thinking it was freakishly uncanny how his father could read shit.
It took less time than he thought it would before she turned her head, rested her cheek on his chest and let out a big sigh that he heard and felt.
He lifted one hand to wrap around the side of her neck and used his thumb to stroke the skin there.