“Nick, please don’t say that.”
He had to say it, wanted to because he thought it often enough. “If I hadn’t been, then there wouldn’t have been a legal adult to take custody. She wouldn’t have been in this fucking town, on that fucking campus.”
He was aware of Mia’s soft crying, but he could do nothing for her. There was a time he would have cut off his arm before he left her standing alone and crying, but now… He couldn’t comfort her, and he couldn’t take any comfort from her. There was no comfort for Hannah in the night when she woke screaming. There was no peace.
“You have to think of her getting better for her to get better. You have to picture her whole instead of only seeing her like the day you found her. She’s alive.”
“Stop saying that! Stop saying it like I’m a shit for not being grateful! I can’t look at her and feel fucking grateful!” He just felt angry and bitter and cheated and so, so guilty he couldn’t breathe. “It’s killing me, Mia. It’s tearing me in two like she’s been torn in two, and there’s nothing I can do to help her.”
“You’re doing everything you can. Everything. But… maybe she needs more help than either of us can give her. You’re both stuck, Nick. It’s not good for her.”
He looked at her. “I’m not good for her?”
“I didn’t say that, but there are places she could go.”
He shook his head. “I’m not sending her away.”
“Just listen.” Mia moved to stand in front of him. “There are good places, places she could get more intensive therapy. They have all kinds of things—mountains, animals, horseback riding. Things they can do and new experiences to draw her out of herself. There’s nothing wrong with admitting you can’t do it all, that you don’t know what to do. Nothing wrong with asking for help.” When he said nothing, she kept going. “I talked to her doctor last week, and he agreed.”
“You talked to him about this in front of Hannah?”
“No, Nick. Give me some credit. He told me about a rehabilitation place he’d recommend.”
Nick stared at her, and for a long second, the shock overrode his fury.
“What?”
“What? I can’t believe you. You want to send her away.”
“My God, Nick. You know that’s not true. I want to help her.”
“I’m helping her!” He spun on her, knocked his fist against his chest. “I’m taking care of her. If you think I’d send her away… she’s my baby sister!”
“It’s a place where she can find herself again. Not like a hospital, but a new setting with other people who’ve had similar experiences.”
“You can’t really think there’s a club for something like this? That what happened to Hannah happens all the time?”
“No, of course not, but—”
“It would make things a lot easier for you, wouldn’t it?”
IT LITERALLY KNOCKED HER back a step. His words. The violence of them. Everything in her grew still and cold. “Nick, I know you’re hurting, but you know that’s not true.”
He shook his head, just seemed to deflate.
Even wounded, she moved toward him, wanting only to soothe, but he stepped away.
“I’m sorry,” he said, not looking at her, his voice as empty as Hannah’s. “I’m sorry I yelled.”
She didn’t blame him for the anger he felt. Understood he had nowhere concrete to aim it. It was something, she thought, but it wasn’t a sorry for the words. Or even more for the sentiment.
But it was true, she had been late. He didn’t have to say it. There wasn’t a day that she didn’t think, what if. On that, she was the same as Nick. What if she’d been on time? What if she’d been there early and waiting?
The silence thickened the air. The space between them that had never been there before, not even in the years they were physically miles apart but had been growing for the past eighteen months grew wider. And she didn’t know how to fix it.
Chapter 15
Present day…
NICK WAITED FOR MCKINNEY to close his office door before shutting his eyes and letting his head fall back. Stephen McKinney had come wanting to know what had happened to Hannah, and he’d told him. All of it. To punish or test, he wasn’t sure, but he’d wanted McKinney to know.
He scrubbed a hand over his face. Damn the man for dredging up the details of his past. For bringing it all back in vivid color. He could still smell the scent of death. Still see the dark and dank basement then Hannah, so small, so still. Lifeless. It had changed him, losing Hannah, then finding her the way he had. But McKinney hadn’t been there then. No, that sin lay squarely on his shoulders. He was the one who had let evil touch his baby sister.