Fatal Cure: A Standalone Suspenseful Romance (Secrets and the City Book 2) by Kathy Lockheart

Author:Kathy Lockheart [Lockheart, Kathy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781955017046
Publisher: Rosewood Literary Press LLC
Published: 2022-03-31T04:00:00+00:00

21

“Do you think they’ll find Marks alive?” I asked.

Shane’s lips turned down. “I think the FBI is doing everything they can.”

The critical forty-eight-hour window had passed already, and even though I knew what that likely meant, hope was a lot harder to extinguish than I thought.

“Has Burch said anything else about that fire?” Shane asked.

I shook my head. He’d relayed the angle that Dillon was in the elevator to Fisher, but nothing had come of it. Burch echoed Dillon’s thoughts; if they wanted to execute one of their own, he’d be dead. And there’d be no reason to set an entire skyscraper on fire to try and pull it off.

Shane’s chest rose in frustration. “It’s been weeks.”

My cell phone’s buzz interrupted with a text.

Dillon: Fallon, I’m so sorry about your father. If there’s anything I can do…

And then a second later.

Dillon: I don’t blame you for never wanting to talk to me again. Please know I’ll always be here for you, Fallon. Always. Don’t hesitate to reach out to me if there’s anything you ever need.

“That from your boyfriend?” Shane asked, turning off the interstate.

Boyfriend. I had never used that term to describe Dillon to Shane, but I guess he could tell that was what it had developed into.

Had.

“We’re not dating anymore,” I said, tucking the phone into my pocket.

“What happened?”

I laughed over my tears. “That’s a long conversation.”

“Did he hurt you?” Shane growled.

“Does my heart count?”

Shane gripped the steering wheel tighter. “Tell me what happened.”

How did one explain that they’d been cut in half and left to bleed to death in disbelief? Even to themselves? Maybe I shouldn’t have expected a happy ending. I mean, even though the circumstances were extreme, did I honestly think that my first relationship wouldn’t end in heartbreak after all those years of hiding behind my impenetrable shield?

“Proctor was right; I do shut people out.” I looked out the window at all the homes that were probably filled with happy families. “At first, I thought the reason I was afraid to get too close to people was that I was afraid of getting hurt. But it’s more complicated than that.”

Shane waited patiently for me to choke this out.

“When I was a kid, in many ways, I felt abandoned by my parents.” My throat clenched at the memories of their loving arms going from reaching toward me for a hug to reaching for the baggie of drugs while my arms remained open, aching for my parents’ embrace. “Opening myself up to people makes me vulnerable because it means I have to trust them to never abandon me like they did.”

And that abandonment wound, I discovered, was a deep abyss of suffering, so intense, I’d sink to the Mariana Trench to avoid it. That was why confessing my feelings to Dillon had wrapped my body in icy tendrils of fear. All those drugs my parents had taken poisoned my belief that anyone could ever fully love me.

“And he abandoned you?”

I bit my lip. “No. It just…didn’t work out.

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