“Oh, Van. I’m so sorry.” She hugged his waist, weeping, nose sniffling.
He melted against the floor, blacking in and out. Time seemed to stop and start, his mind full of cotton, spinning around...something. He’d lost so much blood, but there were things to do. He needed to get up.
The warmth of her body vanished, and a scuffle of rubber soles squeaked on the linoleum. Joshua must’ve dragged her away. Was she fighting him? Come back.
He couldn’t lift his arms. Couldn’t open his eyes. Her hiccuping sobs teetered off. Or did he teeter off? He strained his ears through the hum of white noise. Somewhere, water dripped. Plop. Plop. Too soon, his world faded to nothingness.
He woke to the silence of an empty room and blinked rapidly, catching the low rays of the sun where it had dipped below the kitchen window. Christ, he’d passed out. For twenty, thirty minutes? Long enough for Liv to determine him dead and leave, but it wasn’t dusk yet.
Now that the shock of watching her pull the trigger had passed, he needed to find his balls and get the fuck out of there. He wiggled his fingers and toes and tested his strength in his wrists and ankles. Breathing noisily but still coherent, he slowly bent his elbows and knees. With a surge of impatience, he rolled his shoulder and jerked against the sudden stab of pain. “Fuuuuck.”
If she failed in her attempt to kill Mr. E, the cops would come. If she succeeded, she might alert the cops anyway. He needed to get his ass up, make a call, and disappear.
Getting shot wasn’t part of his plan, and dealing with a lodged bullet magnified his aggravation. A hospital would report the gunshot wound. He could wedge it out with a steak knife. And inflict nerve damage. And gouge a damned artery. Or he could drive to Mexico and pay a seedy doctor to take care of it.
Fucking Mexico. Ahi vamos.
He tugged a disposable phone from his pocket and dialed.
“Yeah?” rasped the CTS Decon technician.
“Change of plans.” Van had approached the professional cleaner a day earlier and offered a quarter of a million to discreetly and quickly mop up a crime scene. The blood was supposed to have been Mr. E’s, the prearrangement to remove Van’s DNA from the scene, therefore, eliminating him as a murder suspect. Liv’s bullet changed that. Now, she would have to deal with Mr. E on her own while the technician dealt with Van’s blood.
He rattled off the address of his location. “Need this done by the end of the hour.”
“On my way.” The technician disconnected.
Now for the grueling part. He gnashed his teeth and dragged his body up the side of the counter, stars invading his vision. After a few long, ragged breaths, he finished the climb and stumbled to the medical kit beneath the sink.
As he collected bandages, he tried not to think about what Liv was doing, if she had killed his father or if he’d killed her. He pulled his shirt over his head, and the damnable pain staggered him sideways.
He gripped the counter-top and panted through the blades of heat ripping up and down his arm. The pain was real, pushing his pulse and inflaming his skin. He was breathing, hurting. Alive.
With Liv and Livana’s uncertain future, he had a helluva incentive to live. And to avoid arrest. He draped his upper body over the sink, splashed water over the dime-sized wound, and taped up his shoulder. He needed a bottle of Tequila Herradura and a long nap in the worst fucking way.
Blood smeared the counter, the cabinets, and the linoleum. He had no choice but to trust the expertise and discretion of the technician to erase all evidence of his existence. Hopefully, it would be enough to deceive detectives if they went hunting for DNA.
He dragged his feet to the kitchen table, each step heavier than the last. Two mannequins sat in the chair where he’d left them. When he reached them, he slid his fingers through their silken mahogany hair. Liv’s hair. He’d collected it for years, meticulously weaving it through the mesh caps made for the dolls, one large, one small. His perfected replicas of Liv and Livana. No one could fucking take them away.
Liv didn’t understand his need for the dolls. Only someone who’d experienced a lifetime of loneliness could comprehend what they meant to him and why he couldn’t let them go.
With his arm hanging limp at his side, he gathered them under the other, careful not to overextend their joints, and carried them to the van in the garage.
Liv thought he was dead. And he was certain she would succeed in killing Mr. E, which meant she would be free for the first time in seven years. Would she leave town and try to disappear or would she stay in Austin, near their daughter? Either way, he’d find her. He’d always find her.
CHAPTER 1
One year later…
Simple, mutually-satisfying sex was an acceptable way to alleviate loneliness, even if it was just twenty minutes in the dark with the delivery guy. At least, that’s what Amber Rosenfeld told herself as she flicked off the table lamp in her bedroom, perched on the bed, and waited.
It was silly the way she collected those twenty minutes, treasuring them like souvenirs. Her mementos of normalcy. Proof that fear didn’t own every minute of her life.
The overhead light flipped on, and her breath caught. She blinked through the unexpected glare, narrowing on Zach’s finger where it poised over the wall switch. Oh no. Something was wrong.
She straightened her spine as he regarded her with a heavy slant in his eyebrows. She fidgeted with her hair, arranging the curls to lay in a sensual fall down her chest. Maybe he didn’t like blondes. She brushed it behind her shoulders, out of view. Did he desire a prettier girl? If he turned the lights off, he wouldn’t have to look at her.
“The lights, Zach.” Her tone held
