I didn’t expect Ness to believe that. I didn’t expect anyone to believe it. I couldn’t swallow. I couldn’t breathe.

But I could keep Ness’s attention on me as Gabriel moved in behind her.

“He had a scar.” I choked out that sentence. Ness stared at me for a moment, then eased back, just enough to allow me the breath to speak.

“What did you say?” Ness asked, suddenly hoarse.

“The man who saved me,” I said quietly. “He had a scar.”

Most people did—especially those with devil-may-care grins, who liked winning and taking risks and lived in a dangerous world.

“What scar?”

My heart jarred my rib cage with every beat. Gabriel was nearly behind Ness now. I couldn’t let her turn around. I couldn’t let her take her eyes off of me. So I thought back—to the picture in Cady’s old room, to the one Ness had left in the envelope when she’d taken Jude.

I pictured John Ashby in my mind. I pictured his face.

“Here,” I said, raising my hand and sliding it down my jaw and across my chin. “The man I saw in the woods—the man who saved me—he had a scar here.”

Ness’s body seemed to give out beneath her. The gun dipped, and Gabriel lunged, grabbing the barrel with both hands. An instant before Ness collapsed to the ground, Cady lost her hold on Saskia.

I heard my girl go for Ness. I saw it in slow motion—and then I saw Bales. Had he been waiting outside? Had he just found us? He threw himself in front of Ness, and Saskia’s teeth sank into his arm.

“Bales.” Ness choked out his name. Cady called for her father. I threw myself forward, getting a hold on Saskia the way Bales Bennett had held me in the sheriff’s office. I whispered to her.

“I’m here. I’m okay. Saskia. You’re Saskia. I’m Kira. I’m here.”

As Saskia turned toward me, her whole body shaking as she attempted to burrow into mine, Bales sank to the ground, where Ness was still saying his name, over and over again.

“FBI is incoming.” Bales kept his tone gentle enough that I could barely push air in and out of my chest. “Ness,” he said softly. “Nessie.”

The glassy look in Ness’s eyes disappeared as she turned toward Bales. “I wouldn’t have hurt them.”

I didn’t believe that. Maybe Bales did. Maybe he didn’t. Either way, he let his arms curve around her. “I know.”

Chapter 55