Page 75 of The Broken Places

“Yeah, sure, there have been a handful over the years. They tell me at the end of their interview that they don’t want it aired, or they call and say they changed their mind later. I pull it, no questions asked.”

“Does anyone besides you have access to the videos?”

“No. I keep them in a password-protected Dropbox and have for many years. No one else has access. That’s why I didn’t even mention them.”

“Okay. I need to see them.”

Jamal eyed her. “Do you have a warrant?”

“No,” she said. “But I can get one. I’d rather not waste time when there’s a killer on the loose who may be targeting those people.”

He considered her again, for long minutes, and Ambrose could feel her holding herself still as she waited next to him. “I’ll copy them to a thumb drive, but I’d like it back,” Jamal finally said.

Lennon let out a gust of breath. “You’ll get it, I promise.”

They went back to Lennon’s house to watch the videos, sitting on her couch with the laptop on the coffee table in front of them. The first victim they recognized was the older woman from the very first crime scene. She’d grown up in foster care and been terrorized by a woman in one of the group homes who had been especially vicious after a few strawberry wine coolers. She’d come to associate that scent with torture. And fear. And shame. She’d been in and out of jail or homeless for most of her life.

They were all there. The man who’d been regularly whipped by his father with a belt, the slow loosening of that piece of leather making his guts turn to water as he anticipated the pain to his small body. The humiliation. All the items found at the scene made sense. It was gruesome, knowing they’d been right. They’d been used as tools to dredge up terror, and they’d worked.

It was horrendous and unthinkable. It was deeply evil.

They’d seen enough, at least for now. Lennon’s cheeks were streaked with tears, and Ambrose felt the weight of sorrow pressing on his chest,not only for the way these people had died, but also for the way they had lived.

“This is where the killer got his information,” she said. “The victims’ triggers. This person knew just how to torture them. So it’s either Jamal himself, or someone who accessed his Dropbox without his permission.”

Ambrose frowned. Jamal had been completely forthcoming, though. And if he had wanted to hide—or destroy—the videos they’d just watched, he easily could have. “What about an outside hacker?” he asked.

“Possibly,” she murmured. “Or a different angle entirely that we’re not thinking of.”

Ambrose nodded, and Lennon let out a frustrated sigh. She went to turn off her computer but accidentally brushed her finger over the play button, and the next video began. Her eyes widened, and his heart gave a sharp knock. It was him. Ambrose.Jett.Emaciated, jittery, hunched, his hair bleached. “Oh,” she said, the word a breath and a sob. The sight of who he’d been brought him such deep distress and, yes, shame. He’d found peace over the years, and an abundance of gratitude that he’d been healed. He could think about who he’d been and all that he’d experienced without feeling pain. But he’d never expected to sit next to the woman he knew he could fall in love with—if he hadn’t fallen already—as she was confronted with the very real vision of his former self.

But she placed her hand gently on top of his and met his eyes. “I want to know you,” she said.

“That’s not me anymore.”

“I know that. But it’s who you were, and I want to understand.”

And so, with an abiding trust, he drew his hand away and sat back, as she leaned forward to have a better view of who he’d once been but was no longer.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

She watched the interview with Ambrose until the end, her heart swelling so that she thought it might burst. He looked sodifferent, but there was no mistaking those sleepy eyes. Seeing him that way—broken, in desperate need of help—brought her such intense sorrow. The man next to her, this kind, loving man, was inside that jumpy shadow on the screen. He was in there somewhere, trapped, and Dr. Sweeton had set him free.

It humbled her. It scared her. It made a pinball of what-ifs ping through her mind.

She closed her eyes and envisioned those ever-changing numbers from her therapy that hadn’texactlybeen numbers, even though they added and subtracted or compiled and diminished orsomething. What were they? Choices, maybe? That felt almost right, but sort of not. What she did know was that they were real, even if she couldn’t see them now. They existed, and they were there, all around her. If Ambrose hadn’t gone through the therapy, those numbers—or whatever they represented—would be so different. His life would be different, as would so many others’.

Including hers, and the baby they’d created that she hadn’t told him about. The baby she knew was inside her, even though she hadn’t yet taken a test. Dr. Sweeton had given her a pregnancy test as part ofthe protocol before she’d been administered the hallucinogens, and it’d come back negative. It was far too early, and yet, still, she knew.

She turned to look at him, tears burning her eyes as she brought her hand to his cheek and ran her thumb over his cheekbone. He looked so uncertain, so intensely vulnerable, and she knew she loved him. Maybe it was too early for that as well. But how could it be, when she felt it in every cell in her body? She knew. And perhaps she’d known far earlier than this.

He closed his eyes, leaning into her palm, nuzzling her. She remembered going to the cemetery a few days after they’d slept together. She’d known, even then, and so she’d gone to Tanner ... she’d gone to apologize for what she felt inside—a soul that spoke to her own. An acknowledgment—even if deep down—that she’d found the person she was willing to move on with.

But Tanner hadn’t needed an apology. She’d been the one seeking forgiveness. Lennon leaned in and kissed Ambrose gently, and he sighed and returned her kiss.

This time they walked together to the bedroom, and when he entered her body, their gazes held, connected in every way two humans could connect.

She accepted him not only into her body but into her heart, fully and without guilt or reservation. She was being given a second chance, and she wanted to weep with gratitude and with the knowledge that there was all kinds of love in the world. Young love, and more experienced love. Love before pain, and love that overcomes heartache.

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