“No…” My heart dropped to my stomach. Not my sweet Will. Tears filled my eyes, but I resisted letting them fall. I could think about this later. I couldn’t afford to fall apart now. Instead of sadness, I let myself feel rage. Will had been a good man, the best and I would always love him. “What made you think they killed Will?”

“At first, we thought what everyone did, that it was a random hit-and-run. But now, I’m pretty sure they did it. A few months ago, they figured out that it was us who tipped Will off, and that we were working with him. They wanted us to gather any evidence he had managed to collect. I knew Will had the flash drive because I gave it to him. I tried to tell them it would be useless without knowing what it was. I mean, it’s just lists of places and routes. Will never found anything that would stick, other than our word against theirs and our word would have been useless without proof. We needed to find tangible evidence. I tried to explain that we had nothing on them, but they had become so paranoid and reckless—”

“You broke into my house?”

He nodded.

“You know, you are a really crappy stalker. I knew you were watching me. I knew you were following me,” I accused.

“I wanted you to know. I wanted to scare you so that you wouldn’t be alone in that house with your kids. I’m not a bad person. I made stupid decisions, but I never wanted anyone to get hurt. I thought if I scared you enough, you’d get protection. You would go hide out with your father, or your cop brother, or even Trevor. I didn’t want to hurt you, or your kids. I sure as fuck didn’t want Will to die. I never wanted any of this to happen.” He was so earnest, I believed him.

“Why didn’t you just explain all of this to me? Why didn’t you just turn yourself in? This is out of control,” I asked.

“Because they have my dad,” he bit out. “They made him take vacation from work, so no one would realize he was missing, and they locked him up. They had me out trying to get the flash drive from you. They put me in here about two days ago when they figured out I was trying to warn you. Dad and I were tapping Morse code on the walls to communicate with each other. He hasn’t responded since yesterday. I don’t know what happened to him. I’m worried. His heart isn’t too good. And Madison—that can’t come out.” He sank back against the wall and shut his eyes.