Page 80 of The Lovely and the Lost

Ness had raised Cady. She loved her. But as I breathed the stale air inside that tree and watched the way Ness looked atmy mother, at Jude, still unconscious on the floor, I suddenly knew that Bales had been wrong.

Ness might not have come here intending to hurt Cady, but she could do it.

Mac must have sensed the same thing, because he held his hands up, stepping back and away from Ness, and he started to talk. “We went down to South America to retrieve a client’s daughter. She’d been taken and was being held at a camp farther into the jungle than anyone else was willing to go.”

Cady shifted to put her body more squarely in front of Jude’s. She had a two-handed hold on Saskia now. “We found the girl.” Cady’s voice cracked. I could see her folding in on herself, see the memories taking hold. “We got her out. We made it to the extraction point. But Ash…”

Words failed Cady. I’d been there. I wanted, more than anything, to go to her, to block her body with mine the way she was blocking Jude.

“Ash what?” Ness prompted silkily, her voice so soft that the lack of volume almost masked the intensity underneath.

“Ash went back.” Mac provided the answer. I could sense him willing Ness to turn the gun his way, but she kept it focused on Cady.

“Why?” Ness demanded. “Why would he go back?”

“I don’t know,” Cady said.

“Why?” Ness took a step forward, her fingers tightening around the rifle. Saskia strained against Cady’s hold, but Cady hauled her back. “Why, Cadence?”

“I don’t know.”Cady lost it. “The girl we’d saved was in bad shape. Mac had taken enemy fire. We made it back by the skin of our teeth, with minutes to spare, andAsh went back.”

I knew, beyond any human knowing, that Cady had relived that moment, again and again. This was her forest. Her Girl.

“You left him,” Ness said, her volume rising.

“There was an explosion.” Cady shuddered. “Enemy forces were incoming. We were outnumbered and outgunned, and…” Her head bowed with the force of what she was about to say. “We left him.”

The silence that followed that statement was deafening. I calculated the space between Cady and me, the space between Cady and Ness, the chances that I could get to the gun, the risk that Saskia would break Cady’s hold, the consequences if she did.

“Ash knew.” Mac took first one step toward Ness, then another. “When he went back in—whatever he was thinking, whatever he was after—he knew that he wouldn’t make it back out.” For the first time, I could hear something that wasn’tcalmorsteadyin Mac’s tone. “Ashknewwe’d have to leave him there.”

Ness turned her head toward Mac, the gun still aimed at Cady’s chest. “Why?”

As hard as it sometimes was for me to read people, I heard echoes of a thousand more questions in that single word.Why would Ash choose to go back? Why would he take that kind of risk? Why hadn’t he thought, in that moment, of her?

“Ash was always in it for the adrenaline.” Mac shook his head. “He liked taking chances. He liked winning. But in the weeks leading up to that mission, he was different. The chances he was taking were less calculated.” Mac shook his head, his voice tightening. “I confronted him about it, but he kept pushing, right up to the end.”

“He knew,” Cady whispered. Then she repeated the words again, louder.

“Knew what?” Mac asked the question before Ness could.

When Cady answered, her answer was only for him. “Ash knew that we were together, Mac.” She swallowed, her eyes closing, just for an instant. “He knew that I was pregnant.”

Silence fell, for one second, two, three. And then Ness spoke. “Loving you,” she told Cady, her voice almost tender, “killed my son.”

“You never told me.” That was from Mac. “That you were pregnant. You told Ash?”

Cady stared at the barrel of the gun. “He found the test. He asked me. I couldn’t lie to him. I was going to tell you, Mac, but then we lost Ash. And I didn’t tell you, because I didn’t deserve to.” She lifted her gaze to Mac’s. “I didn’t deserve you.”

Cady had blamed herself for what had happened with Ash. She’d given up the man she’d loved in penance. It was sick and twisted and wrong, but I’d been to the dark place, too. I knew what it was like to push people away because you couldn’t stand to be comforted. I knew what it was like to hurt the people you loved when the person you really wanted to hurt was yourself.

“What else?” Ness said suddenly.

Cady shook her head. “There is nothing else.”

“What else don’t I know?” Ness asked, like Cady had never spoken. “What else aren’t you telling me?”

The answer wasnothing, and I knew, in the part of my gut that could feel danger like the vibration of a tuning fork struck against metal, thatnothingwas the wrong answer. Ness didn’t want to hear it. And if wemadeher hear it…