Page 79 of Lethal Threat

I shiver.

When Cole’s eyes shift again, they’re not remote anymore, they’re determined, but not a good determined. The kind of look when someone’s about to do something they abhor.

With careful precision, he closes the laptop and slides it aside.

My throat dries.

It’s just me and him, face to face. Nothing to buffer what he’s about to say.

Dread is expanding in my belly, second by second. If he doesn’t hurry, I might be engulfed by the blackness of it. “Just do it. Tell me. Get on with it.”

The two words he says next drive into my heart like a spear thrown at close range.

“Murder-suicide.”

Oh god.

Two words that no one ever wants to hear.

A strange sound in my ear registers first.

Snap. Snap. Snap.

It’s my teeth clacking together. I clench them to make them stop.

The next sound is the clock ticking on the wall. Louder than ever before.

“Go on.” My vocal cords somehow manage to grind out my own two words before I lock my teeth together again.

Cole’s dark eyes still hold mine. “You sure?”

No. Yes.

Nervously, I nod. “It’s time.”

He spreads both his large hands flat on the table. “You came from a home filled with domestic violence. Drugs. Alcoholism. Your father murdered your mother and killed himself.”

My teeth aren’t clenched anymore. They’re chattering. Fast. Like jackhammers.

“How old… How old was I?”

The violent look on Cole’s face says he’d like to kill someone himself. And all bets are on my father. “Twelve.”

Suddenly, my lungs feel clogged. I lean over and gasp for breath.

No.Twelve.How horrible.

When his chair crashes backward onto the floor, I hold up a hand. “No! Just let me breathe. I need to just be with this.”

As I huddle over my own knees, the sound of Cole’s boots pacing the kitchen gives me something to anchor myself to.

But the number twelve is all I can think about.

My heart aches for the twelve-year-old girl inside of me.

But I’m equally shattered that I don’t remember them. At all. The hollow feeling inside of me threatens to take over.

Maybe I should be happy that I don’t remember. But it feels wrong. Even if it was only sadness. Or rage. It’s all gone.