“If that creep already left, we might have seen the back of him by now, but something tells me he might not be shaken off too easily.” Caitlin snorted, her eyes blazing with a mix of protectiveness and fury. “Fucking outsiders. He comes back here, Luc, we’ll get him.”
Lucas listened to everything Caitlin said, though he never looked away from Maria. Caitlin was short, barely coming up to his chin, and he could easily see past Caitlin and into the kitchen.
Ah, Maria.
Her head was bowed, her long dark hair hiding her face from him. She had her hands wrapped securely around a mug. He could smell the chocolate from where he was standing.
Hot cocoa. One of Maria’s favorites. Whenever she was feeling sad, she drank it like it was the finest of wines. After her parents’ deaths, she guzzled the stuff like it was water.
The scent of it made his stomach turn. She was hurting way more than she would ever tell him.
Caitlin leaned in. “I have my radio,” she told him. “If I see anything, hear anything, I’ll buzz you. Do the same?”
He nodded. Taking Caitlin’s hand, he gave it a squeeze. “Thanks, Caity.”
“No thanks needed, Luc. This is Hamlet.” She jerked her pointed chin over at Maria. “And she’s family.”
Another squeeze and he let her hand go. “I’ve got my radio, too. I’ll keep the emergency channel open. No matter how late it gets, I’ll answer.”
“Leave it to us. We’re the cops. You’re the doctor, yeah, but more importantly, you’re her brother. You stay here with Maria. It’s where you’re needed right now.”
She wasn’t wrong.
Moving past Caitlin, sure she could let herself out, Lucas walked over to the kitchen table. He bent his knees, crouching down low so that he was on the same level as Maria. He rested one hand lightly on her arm, a flash of fury coursing through him when she flinched.
“Lucas.” She blinked, clearly dazed. “You’re here.”
He saw the red blotches on her cheek. The fury intensified. That morto struck Maria’s beautiful face.
Lucas could kill him over that slight alone.
Extending his hand towards her, Lucas ran the tips of his fingers lightly over the marks. By tomorrow, they would be bruises. His fingers curled, aching to heal the marks, erase them, make them so his sister had never been struck. But he couldn’t. Dropping his hands to his side, he stood up and turned away from Maria. He couldn’t bear looking at his failures.
“This is my fault,” he murmured.
“No, Luc, don’t—”
“I didn’t want to let him stay. I should have pushed it.”
“I wouldn’t have listened.”
“Too many things on my mind…” With a rough shake, he jerked his head so that he was looking back at Maria. “You’re just as important. More, now. You’ve always stood by me. I should’ve done the same.”
“Are you okay? I… I don’t know what you’re talking about.” When he turned from her again, Maria shakily climbed out of her seat. She moved behind him, then reached out and latched onto his arm. It seemed to her that Lucas needed the contact far more than she did. “What’s wrong with you? Where have you been?”
He presented her with a stony profile. His jaw clenched, tightening as if he had some inner rage just begging to be let loose. His gaze, normally so icy and alert, was frightening in its intensity. A flare of his nostrils, a soft exhale that caused his body to shudder.
“Now? Tonight?” he asked, in a voice with such little emotion that it was clear he was seconds away from snapping. “Or before?”
A chill skittered up Maria’s spine. For the first time she could ever remember, Lucas was scaring her. And she knew, more than she was sure that Turner had terrible intentions, that she didn’t really want to know that answer to either of those questions.
So she didn’t ask.
8
Lucas stayed the night. Maria couldn’t have sent him home even if she tried.
It was harder to get Caitlin to leave. It was only when Deputy Collins buzzed in an update and dutifully reminded the sheriff that there was a villain on the loose in their small village that Caitlin left Maria in the care of her brother.