As we headed up the path, Roan met us. His expression was harder than anything I’d seen on him in a long time, and his gaze was locked on me.
“You need to brace.”
An electric current raced through me. “Tell me.”
Roan just shook his head. “You need to see.”
I wanted to deck my brother for his cryptic statements, but I picked up my pace. A burn lit in my muscles as I rounded a bend in the trail. And then my blood went cold.
Crime scene techs had already put up lights since the sun was sinking low in the sky. Their forethought meant every inch of the visual assaulted me.
Adrienne lay sprawled across the trail but arranged as though she might’ve been sleeping. Flowers were woven through her hair, and she was clad in one of those damned white nightgowns. Only you could see the blood seeping through it from too many wounds. Dark, angry bruises littered her throat.
Nash muttered a slew of curses behind me.
I jerked my gaze to a tech. “You get all the photos?”
He nodded, his face pale.
My back teeth ground together. “Lift the edge of the nightgown so we can see her hip.”
The man crouched low, carefully lifting one side of the gown.
There weren’t any cuts this time. There was an angry red brand.
The same one that had been burned into Hallie.
31
HALLIE
The soundof a video game battle filtered in from down the hall. Grae just shook her head as she tucked her legs up on the couch. “They get vicious.”
Aspen grinned. “I just hope Drew doesn’t end up teaching Cady the F-bomb. She’s already calling mebruh.”
A laugh bubbled out of me. “It drives Lawson nuts, but I think it’s kind of cute.”
“You and my brother seem pretty close,” Grae said in a falsely casual tone.
Heat hit my cheeks. “We’re together a lot.”
Aspen grinned into her mug of tea. “He watches you whenever you’re in the same room.”
My heart picked up its pace. “He was worried about me today.”
“Not just today,” Aspen argued. “At dinner the other night. Even the day he first introduced us.”
I worried the inside of my cheek, unsure what to say. Just hearing Aspen’s words had that fickle hope flaring to life in my chest again.
Grae sighed as she turned to face me. “Do you like him?”
“Of course.”
Her gaze narrowed on me. “I mean want-to-rip-his-clothes-off like him.” She made a gagging noise. “That is so sick to say about my brother.”
My face burned now. “Grae…”
“Good, I’m taking that as a yes. Then you have to make the first move.”
