Her stomach recoiled in protest, and her skin crawled in denial. No. It wasn’t Zach. Couldn’t, wouldn’t be, wasn’t. Why did she ask? Why did she insist?

If she weren’t writhing in her own pain she’d be flinging herself at the woman, screeching out, Liar!

“It was him, Paige?”

God, would she shut up!

She scrambled in her mind to get a look at the driver, saw his face only feet away as the car rammed into them, and then raised her voice until she yelled at the hypnotist in return. “No!” she cried. “It’s not Zach. It’s not! It’s …” Who was it? “The driver was … he wore a stocking over his face but he was bald. And Dad said there was evidence in an envelope, and that I should get it to the district attorney. He said that …” O’Neill is dirty.

Her body tensed. Her entire system jolted back to full consciousness. O’Neill.

Bald. Stone-faced O’Neill.

If you dare open your mouth I swear to God I’m going to break your boyfriend into little pieces. And then I’m going to break you.

Zach was with him.

“What does your father say, Paige? Who did you see?”

Emergency alarm bells clanged inside her head. She’d lost Zach once. She’d lost him once to this man. She would not do it again. No no no no!

The camera. It was honed in on her. Zach could see her. But O’Neill watched, too. How could she signal? Let him know the danger? Oh God oh God oh God.

Her mind raced. Her blood was rushing so fast inside her she thought she’d collapse. She could barely hear her own words through the cacophony of her roaring heartbeat. Striving to appear dazed when in fact she had never felt more alert, all she could think of saying was, “I should button up my sweater.” A heartbeat. Two. God, he didn’t remember, he didn’t understand. “I should button up—”

Wood splintered as the door came crashing down.

Zach filled the doorway, gun drawn, and Paige would never forget the wild, love-filled look in his eyes.

She wanted to fling herself at him, say, “I love you! I’ve been quietly fighting to come back to you!” but she was paralyzed by her terror.

Sob catching in her throat, she pointed toward the figure of O’Neill looming behind him, now raising something gloomy and glinting to Zach’s head. “It’s him.”

CHAPTER 7

The mellow overhead lights dimmed in Zach’s eyes as if a cloud had passed over them. Dread, ice-freaking-cold and paralyzing dread, slammed over him.

O’Neill.

Lieutenant O’Neill.

Every face he’d seen that day in the hospital seven years ago flashed across Zach’s mind—mocking him.

He’d seen Paige’s friends. Her mother. The doctors. Nurses. The cops. The old lead investigator, Lieutenant O’Neill, who’d interrogated Leticia Avery that day along with two other detectives, had been there.

Son of a bitch! No wonder O’Neill had never allowed him to reopen the case. He’d never let anyone reopen it because he’d killed the judge.