Page 59 of No Second Chances

My fingers clench the arms of the chair so tightly that I feel the tips go numb. I swallow, trying to get past the knot in my throat, but I can’t. I can’t breathe. I can’t move.

Royal’s warnings start to replay through my mind. Every single threat he made against my family. My friends. Linc.

Don’t run, Kennedy.

If you leave me, I’ll kill you.

I’ll find you.

I’ll kill your sister.

Don’t leave me, Kennedy.

I love you too much to let you live without me.

Don’t make me hurt you, Kennedy.

This is all your fault.

If you come back, it’ll be different.

You stupid whore.

I’m going to kill you.

His voice. The reason I still have nightmares unless Linc is there in bed with me. The worst thing I can ever imagine, coming to life.

“I have to go,” I mutter.

When I try to stand, my legs give out from under me.

“Kennedy?” Maya reaches out gently, trying to offer comfort, but I don’t want to be touched. Can’t stand to have any sort of physical contact. I need air. I need to leave. I can’t be there.

“Here.” Maya holds out her hand, leaving it in my eyesight, giving me the time I so desperately need to get my head on straight.

“Do you understand what’s happening here?” Her voice covers me like a blanket, offering protection from what I can see on the horizon.

My nod is broken, hesitating, and fractured. Immediately, I think of Linc and whether he has told anyone what I confided. But just as quickly as the thought enters my mind, I know he won’t. He’ll never do anything like that. He’ll never tell a soul.

I take Maya’s offered hand, needing the strength she gives me. “I think so.”

“Royal Prince is a person of interest, Kennedy. But so is Linc. Royal’s official statement and alibi state that he caught Mallory and Linc having sex. That he was out drinking to forget about the pain of losing not one but two women to him.”

“Linc was with me,” I say quietly. Stubbornly. “All night. I got off work at four p.m., which you know.” I look Maya straight in the eyes. “After work, we had dinner at Lucy’s, then went home.”

“Whose house?” Jake is scribbling down notes on my statement, and that’s when I freeze up.

“Is this you notifying me of what happened?” My tone turns deadly, and I drop Maya’s hand. “Or are you interrogating me for an alibi?”

Jake’s expression turns hard, and I watch as a silent battle takes place between him and Maya. Right in front of me, they argue. And then there is a knock at the door. It opens to reveal Brian, Maya’s husband and chief deputy of Birch County Sheriff’s Office.

“Hey, Jake. Maya.” He steps into the room and shuts the door, then looks directly at me, ignoring both of them. “Kennedy.”

“Why does everyone seem to know something that I don’t?” I snap. “Someone just spit it out already.”

“I was raped,” Maya says bluntly. Both Jake and Brian wince, but Maya’s knowing eyes, staring right into mine, tell me that she’s seen the truth. “And I was stalked. When he couldn’t kill me, he decided to come back and try to finish the job. I won, and now he’s in prison for the rest of his life.”

“What she said,” Brian adds. “We let her make the decisions for herself, and she suffered for it.”

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