“Dad!” I shouted through my empty house.

When I got no response, I pushed out of my chair in the den and stalked into the living room toward the front door. “Pop!”

Expecting to see my father, I stopped dead between my living room and my front door when I spotted the silhouette shivering against the dull light of the streetlamps.

She was the last person I expected. But there was no mistaking Valentina. She stood outside my door, her arms wrapped tight around her chest, shaking like she’d been in the middle of a snowstorm. She appeared so small.

I cautiously approached her, as if trying not to scare a wounded animal, because she looked ready to bolt any second.

When I reached the door, I lifted a hand over the top of the frame and leaned into it. “What are you doing here, Valentina?” I asked as calmly as I could.

There was just enough light that when she looked at me, the streaks running down her face were like an anvil crushing my chest. When she cried, I wanted to break shit, because she wasn’t a crier by nature. If she was crying, intense shit was coming from somewhere deep.

On a long inhale, she lifted her head to meet my gaze. “May—may I speak with you for a minute?”

The formal language she used as a shield when she got nervous was in full force. Everything inside me wanted to yank her into my arms, but I had to see where her head was at. I moved aside and offered her my hand, which she took. “Someone better tell me what the fuck’s going on, baby.”

She nodded and stared up at me with those big eyes. The insecurity and fear behind them were like a fist squeezing my heart.

I guided her through the front of the house and down into the family room, taking a seat in my chair.

Instead of sitting on the couch, she looked down at the coffee table directly in front of me and then back. “May I?”

“Yeah, sit.” I leaned back studying her. She’d lost weight and looked paler than usual.

Settling on the top of the table, her knees between my legs, she looked down at her interlocked hands, as if digging for the courage to say what she needed to get out.

When the shaking in her shoulders traveled down to her chest and then into her arms, I leaned over and pulled a blanket off the top of the couch and fanned it around her, clutching the sides together in front of her. I gave her a small squeeze and leaned closer. “Easy, Valentina. I’m listening. Talk.”

When she finally lifted her bloodshot eyes to mine, there was fear behind them, but also an ironclad resolve to tell me whatever she’d decided I needed to know. The determination was crystal fucking clear.

I let a small grin slide across my mouth. She was one tough woman to come face me like this after the way she’d bailed last time. I’d hear her out.

With a deep breath, she settled and scooted forward on the table. “A long time ago, I met your father, sort of.”

I kept my expression stoic, not wanting to react one way or another and have her stop talking. “How’s that?”

“Randall Blancherd.” Her eyes stayed glued to my face. Waiting.

Blancherd. Blancherd . . . The fuck?!

“The serial killer my dad shot?” My gut turned and my adrenaline spiked.

With a small tilt of her head, she nodded. “I grew up in Bellingham, Washington.”

Fuck me. She’d lived a town away?

“As I mentioned that night at dinner with your family, I moved to California when I was fifteen. I just didn’t mention where I’d grown up.” Her voice was soft, but steady. “I started swimming when I was five. I was good at it.” A thin, sad smile crossed her full mouth. “January 1992, I’d just turned fourteen, and three from our team were training for Olympic trials to qualify for Barcelona later that summer.”

I shook my head and leaned closer to her. “I remember hearing the hype that we had hopefuls just a town over. You were one of them?”

She nodded. “I was. On Saturdays, we’d run the back trails in the woods before we got in the water. I sprained my ankle and didn’t want the others to get in trouble, so I sent them ahead. I took a shortcut to a small road we regularly ran. It was maybe half a mile from the pool. When I crossed the road, I heard a sound, an ear-piercing cry . . . a dog.” Tilting her head, she raised a hand to her ear and closed her eyes. “Sometimes, at night, I can still hear her cry. It was so . . . eerie and pained. I couldn’t just stand there . . . ”

Tears tracked down her blanched face.

I wiped them away with my thumb, unable to get rid of the knife-like piercing sensation going on in my chest or the arctic chill running down my spine. “Of course you’d do that.” She was more comfortable around animals than people.

A faraway look glazed over her eyes. “She was in so much pain,” she whispered. “I finally got her into my arms. I tried to soothe her. I hobbled away from the truck. She yelped with every step. I was trying to be so careful.”

Her voice cracked. She met my eyes and my fucking heart convulsed. “He—he grabbed me from behind. Jerked an arm around my neck, so hard, so fast. He yanked me backwards off my feet and I lost my grip on her. I dropped the dog on the ground.” Her chest jumped with the pain racking her body. “He covered my mouth and nose with a cloth and I blacked out.”

The red haze that had become my vision got brighter with every word out of her mouth. My hands grew numb gripping the arms of the chair. I had a sick feeling I was about to get one of the worst gut checks of my life. I couldn’t stop this. I couldn’t fix this. I knew what was coming would be inconceivable, and all I could think of was that I’d thrown her out of my fucking house.

I moved in tight, wrapping my hands under her knees and pulling her closer to me. I did it partly to comfort her, to keep her talking, and mostly to stop myself from smashing every fucking object within my reach out of guilt, out of how much life fucked with the innocent, and because I couldn’t take away her pain.

I nodded for her to continue, because at this point, I didn’t trust my voice.