Page 21 of Frozen Secrets

Silver tears rimmed her lower eyelashes, and Winnie swiped at her face, watching him trace those circles over and over. “She… She said my dad was the one who took the missing evidence during the Lila Mercer investigation.”

The circles came to a stop. His throat dried, his heart suddenly thudding too hard behind his ears. Adrial tried breathing through the dread pooling in his gut, but all he could focus on was his hand in Winnie’s. How she grounded him, reminded him to stay present. “Did she say why?”

Her watery gaze lifted to his. “She said it was because he didn’t want anyone asking questions as to why his DNA would be found on the body.”

“She claimed Arthur is responsible for Lila Mercer’s death?” The hospital room threatened to rip straight out from under him, and Adrial only held on to Winnie’s hand tighter.

“Not in so many words, but what else could she have meant?” Based on the rise in her voice, she wanted him to give her reasons, excuses, theories—anything that she could swallow more easily than the fact her chief-of-police father may have been involved in Black Hollow’s most famous cold case as more than an investigator. “The hair found stuck in the chains used to weigh the body down and Lila Mercer’s underwear could both hold DNA evidence, and they’re missing.”

The glaze in her eyes told him he was losing her all over again, and Adrial couldn’t stomach that. Lowering his face to hers, he skimmed his hand up her arm and around the nape of her neck. “Hey, look at me.” He angled her head to the point it would be impossible not to see him. “There you are.”

He brushed his thumb along her jawline, that hollowness in his chest practically purring at the contact. The kiss they’d shared at the lake had done a number on him—reminded him that he could still feel—but this? This was better. This was the kind of connection so few people got to experience. They’d had it before, and he’d blown up his entire life by leaving Black Hollow. He’d tried finding it with a few women before Katie, but even though he’d loved his wife, something had never clicked like it had with the woman in front of him. This feeling… It was a rightness he couldn’t seem to find anywhere else, and hell, that scared him. That she might not feel the same way.

All these years he’d worked to provide closure to others while assuming finding Katie’s killer would grant him his own. But maybe it was this. Maybe he’d been uselessly searching for something he couldn’t even name for the past ten years only to come right back here. To her. “We will figure this out. Together. You understand me? I’m not going anywhere. You’re not in this alone. We’re partners, and we’re going to get to the truth. No matter what.”

Because she needed that. She needed to know what kind of man Arthur Hutton was, but he didn’t have the heart to come right out and tell her. Winnie needed to see the evidence for herself. That was how her brain worked, why she’d been so drawn to study psychology and make a career out of writing research-based articles to help others understand complicated topics.

“Do you think he did it?” Her mouth parted on a plea, and he wanted nothing more than to fix this for her, to take away that doubt crowding her mind. “You were his partner for two years. Do you think my father was capable of what she said?”

Adrial shook his head. “There was nothing to suggest the case had been compromised while I was assigned, least of all from Arthur, but he was the lead investigator. Everything I worked on had to be run through him, especially when it came to the evidence.”

And if Arthur was responsible for that evidence going missing… It would break Winnie’s heart.

“You’re saying it’s possible?” She swiped at her face again, wincing as she cut across her temple. The killer—whoever she was—had done a number on her while they’d been out there on the ice, and the bruises were already darkening to an ugly purple and blue.

He’d make her attacker pay for every single one by the time this was over. Because while he’d managed to get Winnie out of that boathouse, the killer had slipped away without him noticing, leaving nothing more than a stumbled drag of boots in the snow into the woods. Officers had taken his statement downstairs in the emergency room, but nothing had turned up from the search around Hollow Lake yet.

“I’m saying we don’t have proof of what the killer told you.” Adrial threaded his fingers through her hair. It’d been frozen through when he’d found her, was now tangled in thick damp strands. “She knew you were Arthur Hutton’s daughter. She may have just been trying to mess with your head before driving the stake home. If she has a connection to Lila Mercer, it’s possible she’s taking out twenty years of anger on whoever is left investigating the case.”

Winnie nodded, her eyes no longer glossy or distant. “I didn’t want to leave you. I’m sorry. I should’ve—”

“I told you to run, and I meant it, Red.” Setting his forehead against hers, he practically melted against her at the skin-to-skin contact. Breathing her in. Reminding himself she was here. She was real. “You did the right thing. I lost you once. I’m not sure I’m strong enough to lose you a second time.”

Her laugh rumbled through her chest. She pulled away from him, swiping at her face again then tugging at invisible wrinkles in the blankets. “You mean you don’t want to feel responsible if something were to happen to me.”

Confusion chased the warmth from his chest. Then a cold burst of clarity. “I meant what I said, Winnie. You. I don’t want to lose you.”

“We don’t even know each other anymore.” Pressing her hands to her temples, she squeezed her eyes closed. “I understand why you agreed to help me with this case, but you don’t have to pretend there’s anything more between us.”

He added the few inches of space between them she obviously would’ve achieved herself had she not been relegated to a hospital bed, but didn’t leave his position at the edge of the mattress. “I’d like to think that’s not true considering we got together in middle school and stayed together until our twenties. Considering we chose each other every single day, even when our parents and friends tried to convince us otherwise. Hell, Winnie, we were engaged. We planned on spending the rest of our lives together. You don’t do that with someone you don’t know inside and out.”

“People change.” Her gaze was on his again. There weren’t tears in her eyes anymore. Instead, she was bordering on seeming apathetic. Like she’d written a prepared statement and just had to get through the tough parts. Or maybe she was just so depleted, she couldn’t summon anything close to an emotion anymore. He couldn’t blame her either way. “We’re not those naive teenagers who thought they knew what love was anymore. We changed because you decided you didn’t want that future with me.”

“I understand you’re dealing with everything from the past week, Red. Your dad’s death, coming back here and being in that house and what went down at the lake. I get that. It’s a lot for one person to shoulder, and I’m going to be here to help you through it.” Adrial slid off the bed, every muscle in his injured leg screaming in protest. Whatever pain meds they’d given him a few hours ago were wearing off. “But I’m not going to let you pretend we never happened or that it didn’t mean anything to me because I left.”

He headed for the door, the toe of his boot catching on the linoleum, then turned back with his hand on the pull handle. Winnie wasn’t looking at him, didn’t even seem to breathe. He hated leaving her alone in her head like this, but he wouldn’t force himself on her, either. “And I’m not going to let you pretend that we couldn’t happen again.”

Chapter Nineteen

I’m not going to let you pretend that we couldn’t happen again.

Winnie couldn’t get the voice out of her head as she crossed the threshold of her childhood home. The damn rubber seal round the door groaned loud enough to make her heart stop as the heavy wood closed behind her.

Winnie dropped her purse, recovered by the Cold Hollow Investigations team, onto the floral couch. She’d been discharged from the hospital after two consecutive days of monitoring. Seemed the hypothermia had abated, and the head would hadn’t even resulted in a concussion, but she’d been warned to return if confusion or headaches set in. No matter how many years had gone by, the walls still smelled of light cigarette smoke in this room. Her dad had quit the day her mom had announced they were having a baby, but thirty-six years later, she still caught whiffs. Weirdly enough, she’d missed that smell. It reminded her of him. And that pierced deep enough that she stormed into his office. More now than before, when she’d believed he’d lived his full life and died peacefully in his sleep. Not that his life—and the years they might’ve spent reconciling—had been stolen from him.

The death certificate was around here somewhere. Winnie shifted papers across his desk—even more notes from the Lila Mercer case, more scribbled theories and copies of pointless documents that only seemed to distract from the original investigation. If what the killer had said was true—that her father took an active role in compromising the case—then it was possible he’d send whatever investigators might take over the case in spirals just trying to get through a vast amount of crap. Excellent strategy.

She clutched a handful of papers and slammed them down onto the desk. The bite of pain felt good. Something familiar to hold on to when everything else felt like too much to deal with right now. She was good with pain. It made her feel like she was in control. In the moment. Nothing else mattered when she hyperfocused on the pain, but it was only temporary. Soon, all those feelings she’d been shoving to the back of her mind would come rushing back. There was no stopping it, but she could put it off for a while and do this.