“I’m just not sure how I can help when I still don’t have the first clue what any of it means.”
“Don’t worry about what it means right now,” he said. “The only thing you need to know is that I’ll protect you. On my life, I’ll keep you safe. The rest will fall into place with time.”
I sighed and pulled my hand away from his as we continued down the path. We were almost back at the house now, and he fresh air had done little to calm my nerves.
Abram stopped in his tracks, and the wind picked up, sending strands of dark hair blowing across his night-black eyes. Some people might have seen those eyes as menacing, as capable of horrible things. And honestly, I might have been one of those people if things had turned out differently. But that couldn’t have been further from the truth now. To me, those eyes were kind and beautiful.
He had tried so hard to explain away the mistakes of his youth. Though he always took responsibility for what he had done, he must have thought me knowing about those things would make me think less of him.
He couldn’t have been more wrong.
To me, that only made him stronger. My own mistakes in life might not have been as grand, but I’d lived enough to know everyone was guilty of something. Knowing that he had been that boy and then came out the other side of the man he was now … I was in awe.
When I didn’t say anything, Abram’s eyebrows arched. “Did I misspeak?”
“No,” I answered, running my hands through my hair. “Yes. I don’t know.” I shook my head. “Look, I get that you want to take care of all of this. And that’s sweet. It really is. Lord knows there are probably a billion girls out there who want nothing more than some gorgeous man to swoop in and save them from their problems, no questions asked. But I’m not one of those girls. I ask questions, Abram.” I pointed to myself. “This is my problem, my fight. You said it yourself—those girls are dying because of me.”
“You can’t blame yourself for that,” he snapped, and despite the anger in his voice, his body language told of a man who wanted to comfort me.
I raised a hand to stop him. “I don’t blame myself. I blame the son of a bitch who’s killing people. But that doesn’t absolve me of my responsibility here. This monster might have been the one to kill these girls, but that doesn’t change that they died because I moved back to New Haven.”
It had been weighing on my mind, and it had to be said.
As the sun behind Abram’s head began its descent westward, we finished our stroll and stepped into the living room. We had little time left before his change, but somehow I sensed that wasn’t going to stop him from arguing with me.
“It started before you came back,” he said, locking the door behind us and waving arm toward to the couch for me to sit.
I flopped down on a soft but dusty cushion and clutched my purse in my lap. “I visited Lulu weeks before I moved back. I couldn’t ask her a favor as big as moving in over the phone, so I’d come by. I’d been here, Abram. Probably around the same time that first girl went missing. If I hadn’t come then—if I hadn’t moved here—those girls might still be alive.”
Abram, seating himself beside me, pressed his lips together into a defeated frown. “You couldn’t have known coming back would start this.”
“That’s just it, Abram. I don’t know anything.” I turned my body toward him, grasping my purse even tighter, as though if I held on tight enough I wouldn’t been thrown from this world that was spinning too fast for me to keep my balance. “Maybe if I knew who this person was, or even if I knew what they wanted, then maybe I could make sense of all this. At least then I’d be able to put reasoning behind why all of this is happening. At least then I might feel like all these people didn’t die for no—”
“I know,” he said firmly.
“You know what?” I scoffed, ready for him to tell me that he knew exactly how I felt so that I could tear into him and assure him that he didn’t.
“I might not know who the person is,” he said, “but I’m fairly certain I know what he wants.”
I blinked hard. “And you didn’t tell me?”
“I didn’t want to tell you anything.” Abram huffed. “If I had my way, you would be mixing drinks for your over-privileged friends or helping Lulu with the baby. The fact that this has touched you even this much is a testament to how much I’ve failed you already.”
Lulu. God, I hadn’t even thought about her. Some friend I was. I would have to call her later and check up on things. Of course, if she was still in labor (very possible given the seventy-two hours it took for her to squeeze out the first one), that would mean I would have to call Dalton … which was a completely different can of worms I didn’t have time to open right now.