Forgiving Lies (25 page)

“Drop your weapons,” I said through gritted teeth, and forced my eyes not to move from Blake’s hands. I wanted nothing more than to keep my gun aimed right at his head, but training took over and I put it at his chest instead. My finger itched to move closer to the trigger. Mason was right. I was too close to this and I wasn’t thinking clearly. But I couldn’t have left someone else to save Rachel.

Blake started lowering his body over Rachel again.

“Freeze or I will shoot you!”

“You really don’t want to do that,” he said calmly.

Want to fuckin’ bet?

“If my men don’t hear from me every fifteen minutes, they have orders to kill. Since I was listening to Rachel during your
touching
phone call earlier . . . I know
you
know who will die. So you decide. Shoot me or arrest me and have the deaths of Rachel’s loved ones on your hands . . . or let me go and we can hope you can get an ambulance out here fast enough so that our poor Rachel doesn’t bleed out.”

My eyes betrayed me and flashed back over to Rachel, running over her blood-covered body. There was a lot of blood, and she was pale and drenched in sweat. I prayed one of the guys was calling in an ambulance; I didn’t even have a radio on me and wasn’t about to reach for my phone. Just before I looked back over at Blake, I caught her gaze and wished I hadn’t. She wasn’t even looking at the man practically lying on top of her with knives. She was looking at me as tears poured rapidly down her face. And it was a look I’d been dreading for months. Like she had no idea who I was.

I could hear the other sheriffs and detectives trying to get Blake to put down the knives, but I couldn’t stop looking at her. I had failed her. And I hated myself for it. When I came to Austin, I’d had one job to do: find the Carnation Killer before he found another victim. When I met Rachel, I was given a new job: love her and keep her safe. Not only had I let her go with the killer I was supposed to find, I’d kept a part of my life from her to keep her safe, and in doing that had ultimately put this look in her eyes. This look of distrust mixed in with the fear. My chest ached and I prayed that one day she would understand why I’d kept all of this from her.

Tearing my eyes from her, I leveled my gaze back at Blake. He was still ignoring orders and was looking directly at me with the same smile he’d had when we’d first walked in. Detective Ryder switched out his gun for his Taser next to me and gave final warnings. At the last moment, Blake raised his hands up high, the sickle and scalpel hanging directly above Rachel dangling from his fingertips. I knew if he got tased or shot, those would fall down, and I had no doubt the sickle positioned directly over her throat would do serious damage.

Before anyone could act, I quickly holstered my weapon and threw myself over the bed at him. I knocked into him and we went flying over the other side of the bed; the sound of metal hitting hardwood had never been so beautiful as it was then. I heard the guys moving in behind me, and though Blake didn’t even attempt to struggle against me, I couldn’t stop myself from punching him over and over again until Mackey and Barnes were pulling me away and Ryder was rolling Blake over to cuff him.

Turning around, I found Mason taking the gag off Rachel and I pushed his hands away, taking over for him. “Get the cuffs, Mase.” Running my hands down her tear-streaked face, my heart broke when her eyes met mine. She was looking at me, but she wasn’t seeing me. There was nothing in those beautiful blue eyes. No pain. No fear. No betrayal. No love. They were empty and were looking right through me. “I’m so sorry, Rach. I’m sorry. We got you, baby. You’re safe now.”

I kissed the top of her head and looked down at the rest of her body. There was so much blood and her skin was turning an unnatural gray. I couldn’t tell if the blood was coming from multiple wounds but ripped my shirt off to press down on her stomach, where some was still pooling out.

“We need an ambulance here.”

“Already on the way. Dispatched one right before we caught up with you,” Mackey said as he emerged from the bathroom with towels. He and Mason wrapped them around her arms.

Keeping my shirt pressed firmly to her stomach, I took one of the towels and began gently wiping where more blood was coming from her chest. Lifting the towel to make sure I was over the wound, I saw what looked like a word carved into her chest before blood was pooling out of it again. I pressed down harder and whispered over and over again how sorry I was as I searched the rest of her body to see if we were missing anything. Just before Barnes announced the ambulance was here, Rachel’s body started gently shaking, then full-on convulsing.

“She’s going into shock,” Mason breathed. “Get EMTs in here,
now
!”

“Come on, babe, stay with us. Keep your eyes open, Rachel. I need you to stay awake, okay?” Her chapped lips were a chalky white and her eyes rolled back; fat tears were falling down her face and into her hair. “Stay awake, Rachel!” I felt someone pushing me back, and when I tore my eyes from her I saw three EMTs with a stretcher.

As they worked over her and loaded her onto the stretcher, Mason was handing me my blood-soaked shirt and pushing me out of the house. “They’ll take care of her, but we’re in the way, Kash. Let’s go.”

“I can’t leave her.”

“I know you don’t want to, but we still have a job to do. The faster we start taking care of this, the sooner you can be with Rachel.”

This was a case going back years, and investigations on this man went back months. No way this could be over quick enough. They’d just have to come find me in Rachel’s hospital room. She was my priority.

We’d just reached Detective Ryder when Rachel was wheeled past us, and both he and Mason had to keep an arm on me to keep me from going after her.

“We’ll get you out of here soon enough, Hendricks. I know you want to be with her.”

Need
.
Need to
. I turned and my mouth popped open. “Who the fuck gave him a phone?!”

Mason’s head snapped to the right to see what I was looking at, and we both took off for the squad car Blake was in the back of. The back door was wide open; his hands were cuffed behind his back and a phone was between his shoulder and cheek.

“He’s calling off his men,” Mackey explained when we reached him. “I’m listening to the call, he’s doing as he’s been told.” Grabbing the phone when Blake looked up at him, he put it in an evidence bag and stepped to the back of the car.

“Why are you smiling, dipshit? You’re going down for three murders and an attempted murder.” Mason was gripping the top of the door tightly as he stared over it and at Blake.

His shit-eating grin just got bigger.

“For those three girls, I will make sure you rot until you die. But for Rachel, I will make sure every one of those days you are suffering more than any of them ever had to,” I promised, and stepped back to let Mason shut the door.

Blake’s smile somehow broadened even more. “Such harsh and unnecessary words. Too bad that won’t be happening.”

I heard the distant crack a split second after Blake’s head flew back and blood sprayed me. Mason and I turned as yells that there was a shooter went through the scene. Another two shots and Mason hit the car before sliding to the ground. I’d barely registered he’d been hit when I felt the pain tearing through my body. My knees gave out, and as one arm struggled to keep me up, my other hand pulled away from my bare chest, which was covered in blood. The last thing I saw was Mason checking his bulletproof vest and reaching for me.

18

Rachel

“H
EY THERE, SWEETHEART
.”

My eyelids fluttered against the harsh light and I turned toward the voice. Mason—if that was even his name—was sitting next to my hospital bed, holding the hand that wasn’t completely covered in tubes and wires. Removing my hand from his, I looked straight ahead and continued to blink until my eyes adjusted to the buzzing fluorescent lights.

“How are you feeling?”

“You both lied to me,” I whispered, and continued to stare at my door.

He sighed heavily. “Rachel, you have to understand something—”

“No. I need you to leave.” Why was he here with me? Where was Kash? Or Logan . . . or were either of those even his name? My vision got blurry and my chest heaved with a sob. The man I had fallen in love with, the man I was engaged to marry, had been lying to me the entire time. I had been about to marry a man I didn’t know a thing about. Other than the fact that apparently he was a cop and a liar.

“There’s something you—”

“Go.”

A heavy sigh followed tense silence between us. “All right.” Getting out of his chair, he bent over the bed and kissed my forehead. “Love you, sweetheart. I’ll tell the nurses you’re awake.”

When he was almost to the door, I called his name. “Tell your cousin—or friend, or whatever he is—not to come in here. I don’t want to see him and I don’t want to hear from him. Ever again . . . okay?”

“Rach, he—”

“Tell him, Mason.”

Mason grimaced and just continued to stare at me before turning and leaving the room.

I heard familiar voices mixed with Mason’s, and a few seconds later, Candice stuck her head in. “You’re awake!” she cried, and her smile shook before she burst into sobs. “Rachel, I’m so sorry!”

“Candi, it’s—” All the air in my lungs left me in one big rush when Eli and her parents followed her in. “You guys are okay?! I-I-I watched it, I saw your car. It was all my fault!”

I was quickly surrounded by the only family I had left and could no longer hold back the tears when Candice and her mom covered me with hugs. “No, it wasn’t. They told us everything, sweet girl. None of that was your fault. He was very sick, there was nothing you could have done to stop him.”

“George,” I whispered. “I thought he was going to make me watch you die.” My voice cracked at the end and soon he was covering his wife in order to get in on the hugs. Eli stood at the foot of my bed with his hands resting on my feet, just staring at me with water-filled eyes. Being the strong and silent one as always.

“I’m okay, Rachie,” George said. “We’re all okay, just worried about you. How are you?”

I had no idea. My body ached from where Blake had cut me, and overall I felt like I’d been run over by a dump truck. But my broken heart was worse than any pain I’d ever known, and my exhausted mind was taking too long to numb myself to everything. So how was I? I was shattered. “I . . . I’m really not sure.”

“You must be exhausted,” Janet said. “The doctor said you should rest after everything that you went through. And I know now that you’re awake they’ll be coming in to give you something for the pain again soon; that should help you fall asleep.”

Speak of the devil . . . the nurse walked in and started shooing Candice’s parents aside so she could give the next dose of pain meds and check all the machines I was hooked up to. As soon as she was gone, Janet spoke up again.

“Rest, baby. Visiting hours are almost over and we came here straight from the airport. We’re going to go get settled in at a hotel and we’ll be back in the morning to take you home. Do you want us to bring you anything other than a change of clothes?”

Shaking my head, I studied each of their faces and thanked God for keeping them all safe. “Love you guys.”

“We love you too, sweet girl. We’re so—we’re sorry.” She cried and stepped back so George could hug me close, before Candice did.

When they were gone, Eli walked silently up to me and bent low to press his forehead to mine. “I love you, sis. I’d kill him if I could for hurting you.” I just nodded my head and squeezed his hand when he pulled the chair up next to the bed and sat down.

“You should go back to the hotel with the family, Eli.”

“There’s no way I’m leaving you alone. A guy I’d always looked up to just tried to kill you. I’m not going anywhere. Go to sleep.”

I wanted to fight him on staying, but my eyelids were already drooping and I was asleep before I could try to say anything.

T
HE NEXT TIME
I woke it was dark in the room. The only lights and sounds were coming off the multiple machines I was hooked up to and the hallway outside my cracked door. I wasn’t in much pain this time, but the wraps on my torso and arms, as well as the bandages on my throat and chest, were making it impossible to forget why I was in there. My body felt heavy, like I was weighted down with bricks, and even turning my head was—

My body locked up and I tried to throw up my walls, but my heart was betraying me. It pounded just as hard as it always did when Kash . . . Logan . . . whoeverthefuckhewas, was near. I looked at his handsome face through the sliver of light peeking in the room and tried to figure out just who he was.

This man who had stolen my heart.

His expression was kept carefully blank, but I saw the haunted look in his eyes. And knowing Kash, I’d bet that if the room had been well lit, I’d have been able to see the muscle tic in his jaw. But . . . I didn’t know him.

“Who are you?” I asked, my voice hoarse and raspy from a combination of too much sleep, stress, and trying to scream against the gag.

My haunted stranger’s eyes widened and he jerked back in his chair. Looking at the door, to the machines, and back to me, his mouth opened and shut once before a horrified whisper filled the room. “Rach, you—y-you don’t . . . remember who I am? They didn’t—they didn’t tell me you were having memory loss.”

He stood quickly and grabbed the chart off the end of my bed. Laying it near my feet, he started flipping through pages and leaning close to read in the dark. It was only then that I noticed his right arm was in a sling. He was hurt? Had that happened when he tackled Blake off me?

A shudder rolled through my body and I cleared my throat. “I remember you. I remember everything.” He stopped looking through the file and looked back at me. “But I don’t know who you
are
.”

His face looked pained as realization set in. “Rachel—”

“You look an awful lot like a guy I was engaged to. But that guy—” My voice shook and tears filled my eyes. “See, the funny thing about him . . . is he wasn’t real.”

“Rachel.” His voice was full of anguish as he walked back to the side of the bed and pulled the chair close to me. “I didn’t want you to find out that way . . .”

“Who. Are. You?”

“Babe, you
know
me.”

“No. I don’t, and you don’t get to call me that.” The tears were now falling freely down my face and my heart began cracking all over again. “What is your name?”

“Logan Ryan. Not Hendricks, and my middle name
is
Kash; I’ve gone by that my entire life.”

“And Mason?”

“Mason Gates. And he’s not my cousin. We met at the police academy almost five years ago.”

I nodded and tried to swallow the lump in my throat. “So, you’re a cop?”

“Uh, yeah. Mason and I are partners. Up until we moved here, we were undercover narcotics division.
Why
we’re here is a long story, but we came to find the killer behind the Carnation Murders. We had to stay undercover as we looked for him. And, Rachel”—he leaned forward, putting a hand on my arm and keeping it there even when I tried to jerk it away—“I swear we had no idea it was Blake West. We were following a trail for someone else. If I had known, you wouldn’t have ended up here. Babe, I’m so sorry.”

I let the
babe
slip as my mind raced. “Carnation Murders? What— I don’t— Wait. Plural? Blake . . . Blake killed people?” I remembered what Blake had said to me:
So none of them deserved to have your beauty . . . And like the other Rachel imposters . . . Oh my God.

Kash’s eyes roamed over me, his face twisted in what could only be described as agony. “He won’t hurt anyone again. He’s dead.”

I couldn’t have stopped them even if I tried. My steady tears as my heart broke over Kash suddenly turned into loud sobs as I took everything in. Blake was a killer. He’d tried to kill me. He was dead now. Kash was an undercover cop. Kash, the only person to see through my walls and knock them down, was a stranger.

He hunched over the bed and, with the arm that wasn’t in the sling, cupped my cheek and attempted to brush the tears away. His forehead rested on mine as he tried to calm me.

“It’s okay, Rachel. He’ll never touch you, or anyone, again. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I failed you. I didn’t protect you, and God, I’m so damn sorry. I love you so much.”

Turning my face away from his hand, I spoke through clenched teeth. “Please stop touching me.” Another sob worked its way from my chest and I took a deep breath, trying to steel my body against the pain that wouldn’t stop coming.

“Babe, you have no idea how many times I wanted to tell you. I’m so sorry. But everything we had was real.”

“I need you to leave.”

“Please don’t ask me to do that. I love you, Rachel. More than life itself.”

“I don’t love you. I’m in love with an illusion. Please just—don’t make this more difficult than it needs to be. I can’t do this with you, Kash. You lied to me. And it wasn’t just something as simple as you telling me I look beautiful when I’m sick. You lied to me about
you
.
That
is an unforgivable lie. You hated my shields and broke them all down. You didn’t want anything between us. But you made me fall in love with a man who doesn’t exist.”

“He does. I’m that guy. I’m him, Rachel . . . everything about us was real, I swear to you.”

“When I woke up today, I didn’t even know what your name was. I thought you were a bartender, Kash! And now that I’m thinking about it, you’ve still never told me where you’re from.”

“Tampa Bay, Florida. Ask me anything and I’ll tell you, but you know me.”

I shook my head and blinked back the new tears pricking my eyes. “It’s too little way too late. How can I ever believe anything you say?”

“Rachel—”

“Go. Please.” He started to speak, so I cut him off again. “Don’t come back, Kash. I don’t want to see or hear from you again.”

He stood there staring at me for countless minutes. I could see his eyes gloss over in the dim lighting in the room, and when he turned for the door, I saw the tears start falling down his face.

And then he was gone.

I barely held it together for ten seconds before I felt myself shatter into a million pieces and heard my sobs fill the room. I’d protected myself from ever experiencing this type of hurt again by making sure I never gave anyone my heart. But I had never stood a chance against Kash. From the minute he almost took my car door off, he had taken my heart and kept a firm hold.

And now there was nothing left to protect. I somehow knew that I would never have to worry about guarding my heart again. Because even now, through the pain in my chest, through the betrayal I felt down to my core, I knew that Logan Kash Hen—
Ryan
would always have my heart.

Kash

O
N AUTOPILOT
, I walked out to the waiting room, where Mason was sleeping on one of the chairs. I couldn’t make sense of my emotions, and every bit of me was fighting to go back into Rachel’s room despite her pleas. But I knew I’d fucked up the best thing I’d ever had and would ever have.

She was right. I had hated her shields, and I’d pushed her every day until they were gone. Funny that it would be my fault that they had all gone back up, thicker than ever.

Someone cleared his throat, and I glanced up to see Candice’s brother standing there. He stuck his left hand out toward me and cleared his throat again. “Eli Jenkins. Thank you for saving her. She’s always been like a sister to me.” When I didn’t respond at first, he looked at Mason, then back to me. “You’re her fiancé, right?”

My stomach tightened.
Ex,
I thought to myself.
Ex-fiancé.

He dropped his hand and it was only then I realized I still hadn’t said anything. “I’m sure it’s been a long day for you. We can talk later. I just wanted to say thank you.”

When he started to turn around, I quickly spoke. “You don’t need to thank me. I would do anything for her.”
Including walk away.
“Watch out for her, okay?”

He gave me an odd look but nodded before walking back toward her room. I sighed heavily and ran my free hand down my face.

Mason shifted in the chair beside me, and a few seconds later he spoke gruffly. “Give her time, bro. She’ll come around.”

“I don’t think so. She trusted me, and I broke that trust beyond repair.”

“She’s just stressed, it was a hard day. Give her—”

“And it’s
my
fault, Mase! All of this was my fault. In less than forty-eight hours, my fiancée gave me back the ring I’d given her to protect the people she loves, was almost murdered, and then broke up with me
again
. For real this time, and it’s because of what I am. I told you, who we are . . . what we do . . . we can’t have relationships. And this is why. I don’t blame Rachel for anything. I put her in this situation, she was in danger because of me.”

Mason quickly stood up and began pacing. “No she wasn’t. All that shit had gone down with her and Blake before we’d ever even shown up. It had been going on for
years,
and it had nothing to do with your job. You being a cop is what saved her yesterday morning. Like I said, give her some time. She’s gone through a lot over the last few months, but she loves you.”

I don’t love you. I’m in love with an illusion.
I’d known heartache before, but what was happening now couldn’t be described as heartache. Those words had shattered my soul. I felt hollow and lost. And like I could easily drown in the searing pain making its way through my body. “She doesn’t want to see me, Mason. She wants me gone. I couldn’t keep her safe even after I promised her I would. The least I can do is give her what she asks. It’s over.”