“Her father traded his life for mine. He gave himself so that Willow and I could live.” He leans forward. “You don’t know how to repay me for saving Rachel’s life, and I lived. How do you repay someone who dies for you? What kind of price can you put on that sacrifice?”

My anger drains away completely. “You think you owe Jared.”

“I know I do. And Rachel meant everything to him. What better way to pay my debt than to keep his ridiculously headstrong daughter alive and well?”

“She is ridiculously headstrong, isn’t she?” A weary smile tugs at my lips. The rest of my life might be an ugly lie, but I can trust Rachel to be exactly who she’s always been.

He rolls his eyes. “I care about Rachel, but you have to admit she’s unbelievably stubborn. Bossy. Never listens. Never! Keeping up with her is a full-time job. There’ll be no rest for the man who chooses to spend his life loving her.”

I feel a little lighter. “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”

“I want to explain what you saw. I think it’s important that you understand.”

“Yeah, I’m still wondering what the girl I love was doing in your lap.”

“The short answer is I was there, and you weren’t.”

Now I’m the one who feels like I just got punched. “In case you haven’t noticed, I have one hundred fifteen people to take care of and a killer to catch.”

He raises his hands as if to placate me, and I notice they’re shaking. He should be in bed, but we are going to finish this conversation outside of Rachel’s hearing.

“I wasn’t criticizing.” His hands lower. “The long answer is I woke up to see her falling to pieces. She was . . . hurting herself. Rebandage her wound if you want to see what I mean. She needed to be stopped. And she needed someone to confront her with the truth so she could stop running away from it and feel it. So I did. And the little piece that you saw was her seeking comfort after the first storm of grief had passed. It could just as easily have been your lap. I was just there.”

I’m silent as I absorb this. As I see the depths to which Rachel has sunk. It hurts that she didn’t trust me enough to tell me how dark things were inside her head. Then again, maybe trusting me isn’t the issue. Maybe Quinn’s right, and she was too afraid of her grief to ever speak of it aloud.

And maybe I’ve been too focused on the things I need to fix, the scenarios I need to be prepared for, to really see how much Rachel needs me.

How much I need her as well. As soon as possible, I want to get her alone and have a long talk about my past, her past, and how we move forward from here.

“Come on, let’s get you back to bed,” I say, and wrap an arm around Quinn’s shoulders to support him. We move carefully out into the hall. Rachel is kneeling beside her bed as if she’d tried to follow us but lacked the strength. I smile at her, help Quinn lie back on his cot, and then move to her side.

“Can I help you up?” I ask softly, and now that I’m paying attention, I see the wild ravages of her grief still etched onto her face.

“Don’t be mad at Quinn,” she says as I scoop her up and lay her carefully on the bed. Her white blanket is covered with a large patch of drying blood. The sight pierces my heart, but I don’t say anything about it as I strip the blanket away and reach for a fresh one.

“I’m not mad at him,” I say, and smooth another blanket over her. My fingers itch to unwind the bandage she wears so I can see what she’s done to herself. What she’s been driven to. But I can’t bring her secrets to light until I unburden a few of my own.

“I want to have a long talk with you,” I say. She glances at her bandaged arm, and her lips tremble. I reach out and rub my thumb along her cheek. “I’ve learned some things about my past, and about who might be hunting us, and I need you to help me figure it all out.”

Her voice is husky, as if the storm of grief that took her left her throat raw. “I need to talk to you, too.”

The tension gripping me eases a fraction. “Good. But first, you look like you need rest. I’ll be back soon.” Bending down, I kiss her gently. “I love you, Rachel.”

“I love you, too.”

Holding those words close, I leave her room and start looking for Drake, Frankie, Nola, and Ian. If we have someone targeting us because of my past, it’s only fair that those I’ve come to love and trust know exactly what’s going on. Plus, they need to know what Willow and I observed while we were on the hospital’s roof, and that if we need to escape whatever is brewing inside Lankenshire, there are tunnels beneath the city that will help us do that.

Best Case Scenario: The tension in Lankenshire doesn’t put us in danger, the triumvirate agrees to an alliance with me, and the next time the killer makes a move, the triple security we’ve instituted stops him in his tracks.

Worst Case Scenario: We’re caught in the crossfires of Lankenshire’s current unrest, the triumvirate throws us out of the city once they learn we’ve brought along danger of our own, and the killer somehow manages to hurt us again.

The answer to all of them is to have backup plans for every backup plan. Heading down the hallway toward Drake’s room, I start working on exactly that.

Chapter Fifty-One

RACHEL

There’s something strange about the look in Logan’s eyes, but I don’t have time to dwell on it. The second he leaves the room, Elim hurries in with her arm wrapped around Eloise.