Page 53 of Locked In Ice

“And here I am, asking you to trust me…”

“Even as you build a profile on me.”His hands were still fisted.Deliberately, he forced himself to relax.He exhaled.“My sister ran upstairs to get the gun.My dad used to keep it for protection.”I always keep my gun unloaded, son.Locked away.Bullets separate.I have to be safe.His dad’s image flashed in his mind.An image from the precious time before Roger Lawson had turned into a stranger.I couldn’t stand it if something ever happened to you or your sister.You kids are my world.Lane inhaled.Exhaled again.Hard.“I took the gun from her.Pushed Lark behind me.I was going to shoot him but—” He stopped.

“What happened?”

“My mom made a sound.A cry.”Fuck it.Why hold anything back now?“My name.She said my name.I looked at her, and my dad drove into me.We slammed into the floor, and he hit me so hard.Over and over.He got up.I…couldn’t.”He’d tried but just hadn’t been strong enough.“I knew he was going to kill me.I could see my own death coming.Then the gun fired.”

“Lark fired the gun.”

His head moved in a jerk that was a nod.But his eyes did not leave her.“If you tell anyone else this story, I’ll deny it.”

She inched closer to him.

“My sister isn’t going to have her life ripped apart for something that happened years ago.”

“The shooting back then was ruled self-defense.Even if the investigators learned the truth—”

“No one else hears the story.”He’d clenched his back teeth and gritted out those words.With an effort, Lane loosened his jaw.“I told you because, if you’re going to make a profile, it should at least be based on the real me.”There.Done.“I said you wanted to stop the killers because something bad had happened in your past.Something that sent you to the FBI in the first place.”

She tipped back her head.

“I think you and I are alike.”Was that why he was so drawn to her?Because they shared a darkness deep inside?“I want to stop them, too, and all my past is…it’s darkness.”Share with me, Ophelia.Let me in.And he realized he’d just bared his twisted soul because he wanted a piece of her soul in return.A secret from Ophelia.Something for him alone.“Tell me.”

Her lashes flickered.Such long, dark lashes.“I was sixteen.”

His body turned to stone.Nothing in this world could have made him move in that instant.Not when Ophelia was opening herself to him.

“It was our first official date.Joseph and I had grown up together.Elementary school.Middle school.High school.”A smile came and went on her trembling lips.“But my dad had a rule—he’s always been big on rules—and I didn’t get to date until I turned sixteen.So Joseph waited.And on my sixteenth birthday, he picked me up.He brought me sixteen red roses, and we went to a concert.”She rocked forward onto the balls of her feet.Her toes pressed against the hardwood floor.“I had to be home by eleven.Curfew.So we left before everyone else.And we snuck through an alley to get back to the car.But there was a man in the alley.He just—just sprang out of the dark, and he had a knife.”

Lane’s hands flew up and curled around her shoulders.He had to touch her.A sudden, surging fear pierced him, even though she was talking about the past.

“Being in that alley with Royce?It sent me back there.Back to when I was sixteen, and my world changed.I tried to act like it didn’t—I didn’t want to show any fear to Royce.But everything was the same.Same scents.Same feel of hard bricks.See, Joseph pushed me away.He tried to shove me to safety.I hit the bricks.And he…” Her voice trailed off.This time, she didn’t wipe away the tear that trickled down her cheek.

Since she didn’t wipe it away, he did.With very careful fingertips.

She wet her lips.“When he picked me up from my house and gave me the flowers, Joseph told me that he loved me.He’d told me before.Joseph would talk about our future and the house we’d have and the places we’d visit one day.I know we were kids.Kids are supposed to be too young for love, aren’t they?So…I didn’t say the words back to him.I was waiting.I don’t even know what I was waiting for.To grow up?Maybe?Who the hell knows?But I did love him.I felt it inside, and I knew it with utter certainty when he was dying in an alley, and I couldn’t stop the blood.”

He hauled her closer.Wrapped her in his arms.Why the hell had he started this?Why?Because I wanted her to come to me?To share her darkness?Screw this.He hated Ophelia’s pain.And he’d just made her relive it all.

She wrapped her arms around his waist.For a moment, she just held on.So did he.He held on far too tightly.

But then she eased back.When she looked up at him, her lashes were wet.“And, yes, I joined the FBI because of what happened.The man who killed Joseph was never caught.A scared sixteen-year-old girl didn’t run after him even though she wanted to.She wanted to pick up the knife he’d left behind, and she wanted to chase him.To drive it into his back.To hurt him as he’d just hurt her.But I didn’t do that.I stayed with Joseph.I called for help.He didn’t have long.Barely minutes.I tried to stop the blood, I tried to tell him how I felt about him, but he was…he wasn’t really there.”Her hands were back at her sides.“And I had my hands covered in his blood as he released his last breath.”

Lane forced himself to let her go.

“Our pasts make us into the people we are.I wanted to stop the predators who hid in the shadows and ripped lives apart.I joined the FBI, only to find out that a killer was training me.”Her gaze remained on him.“I get that trust is hard for you.It’s hard for me, too.But I just took a big first step with you.Consider it the start of your precious lesson seven.”Ophelia turned away from him.“Good night, Lane.”

She disappeared down the stairs.

“Good night, Ophelia,” he rasped.

He knew the night would be anything but good for him.It never was.

Now, though, he’d have a new nightmare to join the others that swirled in his head.A young, innocent Ophelia…crying in the alley as the boy she loved bled out in front of her.

Chapter Eleven

She heard the creak of the stairs.

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