Page 442 of Cold Case, Warm Hearts

“The fingerprint.” He thought for a second that he’d already mentioned it, but his mind couldn’t think straight. “That was you?”

“Why else do you think I came to your house for breakfast? Because we’re friends?”

Jacob pressed his lips together.Come on, Mona.He needed Addie as well. But the person he should be crying out for was God. The one who had held him together all this time, the way He held the world together with the word of His power. God had seen him as good this whole time, a new creation.

Jacob should have seen it before now. He might have realized some other things and saved people from being hurt.

He winced. Poison again, the way he’d always seen himself. It might be something he would struggle with for the rest of his life.

But at least he knew now it wasn’t true.

“Addie isn’t coming.” Jacob needed to know what would happen next.

“She doesn’t know where we are.”

Hank said, “You think she won’t find you? Have more faith in your girlfriend.”

“Did you kill Becca?” If there was no accomplice and Damen hadn’t done it, maybe Hank had faced the same scenario as Jacob and Addie—and all the others taken—and made his choice. Ended the life of his girlfriend so she didn’t have to suffer.

Hank said nothing.

Jacob wanted to know, but he needed to persuade a man he didn’t know to trust him. Or comply with the distraction. Or give Hank the space and ammo to stab at Jacob with words instead of a knife.

“Ivan told me to kill Addie.”

Jacob stared down a killer and let go of his darkest secret.

“To end her suffering, and then my own. He gave me the knife like he did with all the others he took.”

That was Damen’s MO. Set up the scene, torture the victim until they were at their end, and give them a way out. Ivan had never directly killed anyone. At least not by his hand. Instead, he had his victims do it—while he watched.

“I would’ve done it, Hank. I understand what can push you to take a life. I wanted to end Addie’s suffering. So I didn’t have to see her in that much pain.”

Hank had always maintained that his scenario with Becca had been different. But what if that was simply, so he didn’t have to face what he’d done? So the cops wouldn’t think he was anything like Ivan Damen.

Had Hank been hiding that guilt and shame all this time?

“If you did kill Becca—” Jacob looked him in the eyes. “I’d understand because I went through what you did.”

“You think you’re anything like me?” Something dark drifted through Hank’s expression.

“What happened, Hank?”

“As if you’d get what that kind of pain is like.”

“Damen hurt you?”

Hank huffed out a breath. “He wasn’t the first.”

Jacob’s throat closed. He was about to speak when Mona scrambled up from the floor and raced for the door.

Hank roared and spun around.

Jacob swiped out with his leg and slammed it into Hank’s shin. Hank fell to the floor, still screaming with rage. The sound split the air—and Jacob’s eardrums.

Mona raced out into the night, screaming. Her arms and legs pumped as fast as Jacob had ever seen anyone, propelled by fear.

And then she was gone.

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