Page 73 of Aftermath
My heart raced and my chest ached. I couldn’t continue like this. I needed air, to get out of the pub.
“Len, I’m here. It’s okay,” Stone said, and I heard the worry growing in his voice.
“I need to get out,” I said, standing and finally opening my eyes.
The entire memory fell away, the darkness retreating right back to where I kept it locked up. I hurried past Stone, whose wide eyes were on me. I couldn’t stay; I had to get air.
I barely made it outside before I collapsed, my back against the side of the building as I slid to the ground, my vision darkening. My hearing was fuzzy, and I let my head fall into my hands.
Strong arms wrapped around me, and before I knew what was happening, Stone was holding me. He guided my head to his chest, and I listened to the steady beat of his heart.
“I’ve got you,” he said. “I’m here, Len.”
“No one was there,” I said, tears falling down my face. “I was alone. He should have been there. Someone should have been there.”
“I know,” he said.
“No one stopped them. How did no one stop them?” I cried into his chest.
“I will never let them harm you again,” he promised, and I almost believed the words.
“You can’t promise that,” I whispered, trying to wipe the tears trickling down my cheeks.
“I am promising that,” Stone said.
We sat for a few minutes before I heard footsteps.
“You can’t loiter here,” a male voice said from above us, and I glanced up to find someone sneering down at us.
The man wore a hoodie with High Tide Pub written across it, his hands shoved into the front pocket. I tilted my head, something about his face familiar.
“We were just leaving,” Stone snapped.
He stood, only inches from the man, towering over him. I slid myself up the wall, still using it for balance, not ready to trust myself.
The man scowled up at Stone, and I realized immediately where I knew him from.
When I glanced around the room at Calvin and our friends, there had been one person. Behind them, cleaning off the counter and carrying the empty glasses away, it was the same man, the same scowl plastered to his face.
16
STONE
“I’msorry you got nothing from my memory of the night,” Len said, sitting on the couch.
I’d waited until she was stable enough to walk and then helped her back to my rental. She was still shaking by the time I helped her to the couch, and my stomach sank knowing I was the reason why. I never should’ve pushed her.
“That’s not true,” I said.
“It is. I panicked, and I cut us short. I should’ve pushed harder.”
“That would have done neither of us any good, Lenny,” I assured her. I needed to diffuse the situation, fast.I’d learned basics of diffusing a bomb, talking down a gunman from pulling the trigger, working through hostage negotiations, but no book or instruction manual ever told me how to solve this.
“Len, you gave us more information than we had. No one knew the Coastal Killer was using drugs to subdue their victims.”
“Wouldn’t the morgue have found that in their assessments?” Len said, glancing up with her big brown eyes.
God, I loved the way she looked at me.So intuitive; she really would make a great agent. Maybe I wasn’t entirely messing things up.
