Page 61 of Restitution

He sighs, and as he takes in my face, his bloodshot eyes studying me, I feel content. Enough so that I fall asleep with his hand on my cheek, faintly feeling his thumb stroking under my eye.

The last thing I hear are whispered words in Russian.

“Moya vechnost.”

19

STACEY

“If you fart in my face, I’ll tell Kade.”

I scoff as Tobias pushes me further up the tree with a camera strapped around my neck. “Kade has heard me fart plenty of times, thank you very much.”

When I look down, he’s shaking his head then smiling. “Aria accidentally farted once, and she was mortified. It smelled terrible, and she walked out of the room with the reddest face. I found it cute.”

I screw my nose up. “I don’t think anyone has ever referred to my farts as cute.”

Tobias snorts. “Well, you aren’t Aria.”

I nearly slip on a weak branch, glancing down again as he holds me up by the backs of my thighs. “You relate everythingback to her.”

He shrugs. “You don’t see her the way I see her. Everything reminds me of Aria.”

My foot slips, nearly hitting his face, and I giggle out an apology. “Sweet but obsessive. One would assume you were a psychopath, Mr Mitchell.”

Tobias is used to our banter, so he just chuckles deeply. “At your service, little one. Can you hurry the fuck up? You’re not exactly light.”

I fake a gasp. “I haven’t trained in a studio for months.” Far too long. I miss it. “And you and Aria keep cooking the fattiest foods ever.”

“Spare me. Move, or I’ll intentionally drop you.”

I laugh loudly as I grab a thick branch and pull out of his hold. I sit myself securely, unravelling the camera from my neck and wrapping the strap around the thick trunk. Once it beeps that it’s on, facing the river, I give Tobias the thumbs up and head down.

As I descend, Tobias tells me about a time Aria visited with food and a thousand-piece jigsaw of Mount Everest. He flipped it only four times before she decided it was best to do something else. He regrets it and wishes he’d had more patience.

He completely ignores my struggle when a branch snaps beneath me, and I grab on to other branches for dear life. He’s leaning on the trunk, ankles crossed, continuing to reminisce while I try not to die.

He huffs when he finally notices me dangling and helps me back down, and I feel ten times safer when my feet touch the forest floor.

He pulls a branch from my hair, flicks it aside and says, “Let’s go.”

“Where to next?” I ask, trying to keep up with him. I’m out of breath from climbing, and he’s soldiering on like I’m a nuisance child who won’t hurry up.

He can climb the next goddamn tree.

We walk around the lodge to place more hidden cameras and end up thirty minutes into the forest, his paranoia amping up as we set up another six along the way – all on lower branches or in bushes that require no climbing. Bernadette knows where we are – she sent Kade to shoot me after all – so why isn’t she here? It’s the biggest question mark above our heads. Her daughter died – it’s obvious Kade killed her, since it’s his bullet in her skull. Bernadette will know.

She’ll know.

It makes me feel uneasy, waiting for her move. Hence all the cameras.

Barry said he’d get someone to do it, but me and Tobias needed a breather, and he wanted to talk to me about Kade’s current mental state.

It’ll take time until he breaks through, and we’re all willing to wait – to help him every step of the way. We all love him, and the struggles he’s going through won’t break him. We’ll make sure of it.

I’ll spend the rest of my life by his side, even if he can barely look at me, register that I’m sitting beside him or speak to me. I’ll hold his hand when he needs me to. I’ll just… be there.

Always.