Chapter 22: Sebastian - Hunter or Hunted

Tucked deep in the back of the funeral home parking lot, I found the rental. Gwen sat in the driver’s seat, so I slid into the passenger side. It’d smelled like a new car when we picked it up at the airport. Now, it smelled like the exam rooms at work.

“Holy shit, what’s that smell?” I pulled the door shut, looking around.

“Okay, don’t tell me it was stupid.” Bundling a mound of fabric to her chest—the throw blanket she’d used on the plane, if memory served—her wide eyes met mine. Swollen around the edges, the whites burned bright pink. Like she’d been crying. Or like she was actively fighting back tears. The quiver of her lower lip suggested the latter. “I know you’re gonna say it was, but I had to. I had to, Sebastian. He did it. He killed her, and I had to do it.”

I’d just left the guy, so she hadn’t killed him. Whatever she’d done couldn’t have been too stupid.

And that quiver in her lower lip had vice grips tightening around my ribcage. Tears begged to gather across my eyes too, and I didn’t even know what we were sad about. No way I could call her stupid when she made a face like that.

“What did you have to do?” I asked.

She pulled back the blanket. A furry face poked out. Gorgeous yellow eyes, one glassy with yellow pus at the edge. Matted fur gathered behind the ears. “I took Delilah’s cat.”

“Let me see her.” I held out my hands.

“Him. His name’s Samson,” she said, passing him over. “I think he has an infection or something. He keeps blinking at that eye. And the matted fur is everywhere. His butt’s the worst. He needs a cut.”

Trailing my fingers over his head, I pulled back the black-and-white fur. All over, pink skin stared up at me. Missing patches of fur and splotches of red and brown scabs, suggesting fleas or excessive stress grooming.

When I lifted his paws, overgrown nails curled deep below, almost hitting his pads. Inside his ears, dark spots of muck and dirt tainted all the pink. He looked up at me, letting out a soft, “Mrreooow,” that gusted his sour breath to my nose.

His defined ribs poked my fingers as I stroked him there. Not the worst case of malnutrition I’d seen, probably because it’d started after Delilah left, but enough that I wanted to run to the local grocery store and get him eating now. Small, frequent meals until his weight improved.

He rubbed his head against my stomach, kneading the blanket. When my fingers came back to his head, he rubbed into my palm. Not once or twice, but constantly. Samson wasn’t only starved of nutrients, but also for touch and affection.

“He was locked in a bathroom,” Gwen said, stretching out to run her fingers through his fur. “I didn’t see a food or water bowl in there. His litter box was overflowing with shit. It was all over the floor. The whole house reeked of piss.”

“So you stole him,” I murmured.

“He wasn’t his cat anyway.” There was a bite to her voice, but a tremor too. It intensified as she spoke. “He was Delilah’s. And when she got to the ranch, all she had were the clothes on her back. She didn’t have any other clothes, or any belongings, a-and she didn’t have time. He didn’t give a shit about this cat, but he knew she did, so he kept him. He treated him like he treated her. A-and I know what that feels like.”

When I looked up, that puffiness in her eyes intensified. Blood rushed to her full lips, making them even poutier as they quivered. “That’s why I left my husband. He hurt Honey. And the way it played out, I had the time. I was able to grab her and run.”

A punch soared through the center of my chest.

“But Delilah didn’t have that time. She had to leave her baby with him, and she hated herself for it. She hated herself so much, she named herself Delilah, because Delilah killed Samson. That’s the story, right? It was Delilah’s fault Samson died. Every time we called her Delilah, we were reminding her what she’d done. That pain of leaving this sweet little baby with that monster, and, and⁠—”

A gasping breath cut her off. A few tears glistened on her cheeks. She shut her eyes and blew out slowly, carefully.

Composure regained, she said, “The window was open, so I broke the screen. Evan’ll just think he got out.”

When Gwen had first arrived at the ranch, she came to my office with Rhiannon. Honey had just undergone surgery on her mouth. I’d assumed a broken tooth from chewing on a bone.

Now that punch through my chest became a deep ache.

I thumbed a few of those tears from Gwen’s cheek. “I would’ve stolen him too.”

Letting out a half laugh, she relaxed into my hand. Her fingers slid over the back of mine. We stayed there for a moment, just staring into each other’s eyes while Samson purred in my lap.

Eventually, I took her hand and twined our fingers together. As she lowered them to her thighs, she cleared her throat. “A pair of shoes from his collection were missing. On that shelf, he had this.”

She reached into her pocket and came out with her phone, turning the screen towards me. A cheap little bracelet, like the kinds Lizzie used to make at daycare.

“J plus D,” Gwen said, pointing to the beads. “Junie plus Delilah equals best friends forever.” She sniffled and let out another calming breath. “She was wearing this when she died. We can ask Edwards if this was given back to the family, but it was on the shelf with the missing shoes. I think he took it off her when he killed her. A souvenir, I guess. He did it, Sebastian. He needs to pay for it.”

After my chat with him, I couldn’t disagree. “He had scratches or something on his wrist. Almost looked like a brush burn. If she’d had winter gloves on, she wouldn’t have had skin cells under her nails, but she might’ve left a mark like that.”

She swatted some dampness from her cheeks. “Is that all you got from him?”

Did she need that visual? Delilah struggling as he garroted her from behind, just how violent and painful it had been.

The thrashing. The clawing.

My stomach churned again.

No. She didn’t need that mental image.

“He said something,” I said. “It wasn’t an admission, but it was pretty close.”

Sniffling again, blowing out a few more calming breaths, her gaze turned out the window to the blue sky above. She shook her head. “I’m gonna cancel my flight. I’m doing it, Sebastian. I’m killing him before he ruins Ava too.”

“No, you⁠—”

“Don’t tell me no.” She snapped her head toward me, eyes as cold and furious as her voice. “Even if I show this to Edwards, it’s not enough. It’s not proof he killed her. Not in a courtroom. It’s only proof he saw her, and that won’t be enough to send him away. To keep him from doing this again. I have to kill him. I don’t care what anyone thinks. He deserves it. He⁠—”

“He does, and you deserve to live the life you’ve worked so hard to build.” I kept my tone deeper and certain. Unwavering. “I’m not saying we let him live. I’m saying we kill him right. We give it a couple weeks, maybe a couple months, and we craft a plan. A solid one. So that when they search for him, they don’t find us. So that we get away with it.”

The slightest bit, her eyes softened. “We?”

After that conversation with him, that smug look on his face, the way he talked about Ava, my blood was as hot as Gwen’s. The prick deserved everything we were gonna do to him.

“We.”

Another sniffle, and another swat at her tears. “What about the damage he’ll do to Ava in the meantime?”

“It won’t be much worse than the damage he’s already done,” I said. “I hate to make that risk versus cost decision, but if we get caught, we won’t be able to save the next Ava.”

Her eyes flicked between mine for a few heartbeats. “We’ll help the next Ava too?”

“If we have to,” I said.

She swallowed hard, surveying me. Waiting for my conditions, waiting for my rebuttal.

I didn’t give one.

I understood now. I’d seen it. And I couldn’t look away.

“I’ll cancel our flights,” I said. “We’ll get on the road when we leave the funeral. We can’t bring Samson on the plane. There can’t be any trace of us taking him. We’ll get home around the same time we would’ve landed. We’ll stop at my office, I’ll clean him up, we’ll get some sleep, and then we’ll start planning.” I took her cheek in my hand, thumbing away any dampness that remained beneath her eyes. “Let’s go say goodbye to your friend.”