Robert Merkel still cut an imposing figure, even seated in a wheelchair. Over six foot, barrel-chested with a full shock of white hair and matching bushy eyebrows, he glowered at the team as they filed in to take chairs lined up before him.

“If there’s damage to my house, I want to know who’s going to take care of it,” he thundered. “Someone’s going to pay for the damages, and it’s not going to be me.”

“We’ll cover the expenses,” Ethan told him. He’d run that by Campbell and follow-up to make sure it happened. “In the meantime, the entrances to your home are being repaired as we speak.” The doorways were being replaced with plywood sheets until new doors were purchased. He doubted that news would calm the man down much.

“I still don’t have an explanation for what happened.” The man thumped his cane on the floor for emphasis. “Whose genius idea was this? What’d you think, that a seventy-year-old man was running a meth lab in his basement?”

Ethan leaned forward in his chair. “Mr. Merkel, your name and address showed up on an ID bearing your name used by a dangerous criminal we’re tracking. When we checked out your identity and discovered you hadn’t been inhabiting the house for weeks, we had to entertain the possibility that someone else could be there in your absence. I understand that you spend your winters in Florida and are gone months at a time.”

“Yes, but even though my home is outside of town, I have my share of nosy neighbors,” the older man scoffed. Clearly, he hadn’t forgiven the intrusion into his house. “Can’t throw a stone without hitting one of them. Wouldn’t take long for someone to notice if a stranger was coming and going from my home.”

“Can you explain the clothes in a much smaller size in the blue bedroom? One of the T-shirts bore a New Brunswick logo.”

He looked puzzled for a moment. “That room used to belong to my son, Carl. He lived in New Brunswick for his first job. He was here a few weeks ago when I landed myself in the hospital with this bum hip. He must have left some things at the house. Haven’t been back there, so I can’t say.”

It was a shot in the dark, but Ethan asked, “Do you have a photo of your son?”

It took several moments for the man to shift position in the chair enough to dig into his back pocket for his wallet. He extracted a picture and held it out. Ethan got up to look at it. The image showed a couple posed with two children. The man looked nothing like the offender’s sketches or the photo on the fake license.

Ethan handed the picture back and then drew out a copy of the fake driver’s license photo from his pocket. Unfolding it, he showed it to the man. “Have you seen this man before?”

The older man stared at it intently before slowly shaking his head. “Don’t recognize him, but I don’t know everyone in town. Is he local?”

“Probably not.” Ethan decided to begin wrapping things up. “Have you been notified by any companies that your personal information has been breached? Perhaps at a merchant or hacked online?”

Merkel let out a hearty laugh. “Son, unless they break into the Old Age Security or Canada Pension Plan systems, I’m safe. I’ve never had a credit card in my life. If I can’t pay cash for something, I don’t buy it. That’s the problem with the country today. Too many people are buying things on credit, putting all their business out there for anyone to grab. I had something similar happen…oh, must have been twenty years ago or so. Someone used my ID to try to buy a car. Caught him red-handed, of course. Turned out to be one of the foster kids we had thirty years ago or so.” He shook his head sorrowfully. “You try to do God’s work, and that’s how you get repaid.”

“Mr. Merkel,” Alexa spoke for the first time, giving the older man a friendly smile. I’m Dr. Alexa Hayden, a consultant on this case. Can you tell us more about your foster children?”

“Which ones? We probably fostered forty, forty-five over the years. Mostly males, because I know how to talk to boys, having had a son. I’m a pastor, and I thought if I could bring God’s word to children desperately in need of it, I’d be doing the Lord’s work.” He shook his head sorrowfully. “I did what I could but these kids…just a stream of sad stories from miserable backgrounds. A few went back home, but most bounced around in foster homes until they aged out of the system.”

“I imagine you have quite a few stories from those days,” Alexa said encouragingly. Her manner would calm the most volatile of subjects. Ethan watched the fiery-tempered older man from a few minutes ago visibly relax under her questioning.

“More stories than I can remember. Claire, my wife, used tell me to write them down, but truthfully, they were more heartbreaking than joyful. We had such a revolving door of kids for so many years, I just couldn’t keep the names straight. I’d given them a name from the Bible that began with their first initial. Sort of as a memory device. But it was always the Biblical one I’d recall when I needed to. Claire was better at that kind of thing.”

“Did you ever have a foster child who was fascinated by insects?”

Merkel raised a hand. “Boys and bugs. They go together, don’t they? Why, I remember one time, we had a kid who asked for a jar to catch a Banded Garden Spider to bring inside for a pet. Then there was another boy who could spout the Latin name for any insect you could imagine. I put that knack of his to good use by having him memorizing his prayers in Latin.” He thumped his cane again. “A talent like that is a gift from the Lord and should be used to serve Him. He begged and pleaded one year for an ant farm for his birthday to keep in his room. I said absolutely not. He was already bringing all sorts of creatures into the house when we weren’t looking. But Claire…she had a soft heart. Found one at a garage sale and wrapped it up for him. Which turned out to be a mistake, just like I told her it would be. The dog got into the room and jumped up on the table, knocking the glass case off. Ants all over the house. Finally had to call an exterminator.”

A buzz of interest started in Ethan’s veins. “Do you recall that boy’s name?”

The question brought the man up short. His eyelids drooped, and his lips moved silently as if running through an ancient list decades old. Which he likely was. Finally, he said, “I sure don’t. Not even the Biblical name I gave him. It’s been too long ago.”

And they’d have almost zero luck getting those records opened by Nova Scotia’s Child Protection Services to jog his memory, Ethan knew. He sent a surreptitious glance at the clock on the wall beyond the older man. “Well, thank you for your cooperation…”

But Alexa wasn’t done. “What about your son?” she asked the man. “Would he remember the boy?”

“Carl would have been out of the house by then. I could call him if you like, but he wouldn’t have known any of these kids.”

“Would you, please?”

Ethan slid a glance at Alexa. She was spinning her wheels on what was very likely a dead end, but another few minutes here wouldn’t hurt. A nursing home assistant brought Merkel’s cell to him, and he placed the call. On his other side, Jonah Bannon pulled out his phone and started researching mail forwarding addresses. Which was likely another long shot. Ethan felt a bolt of frustration twist through him. They were inching closer to the offender, but he remained tantalizingly out of reach. Even with the safeguards they had in place, Ethan was well aware of the dangers the UNSUB still presented. His gaze went involuntarily to the woman beside him. Danger to Alexa included.

“That’s it!” Ethan’s attention jerked to Merkel. He wore a broad grin as he listened some more before saying, “I can’t believe you recall all that.” There was another moment of silence. Then the man chuckled. “You’ve got your mother’s memory, son. Thank the Lord for that.” Ethan’s impatience reared while the man chatted for another minute before disconnecting and smiling triumphantly at Alexa.

“Carl remembers the whole ant story. He’d graduated from the university before the kid was there, but it happened in his old bedroom, so he took an interest.” He laughed again, pleased that he’d finally placed the memory with his son’s help. “Adam Ant, Carl called him. Guess he has his own memory devices. Neither of us recalls his real name, but that should be easy enough to discover. Carl reminded me that there was a big write-up in the papers when the kid went back home to live with his birth father. The man used to lock the boy in the cellar. Then he went and had himself a heart attack, and no one found him or the boy for days.” He shook his head sorrowfully. “Like I said earlier, not many happy stories to remember from those times.”

* * *

“While his father lay dead in the room above him, Amos Tillman, age eleven, survived for over a week, drinking only the water that dripped from overhead leaky pipes in the cellar.” Alexa scrolled down on her cell to read the next paragraph of the article. “The boy was canny enough to throw a scrap of wood through the lone window high in the wall, breaking it out so he could call for help. Unfortunately…” she scrolled again. “…no one heard his pitiful cries. But a small rabbit fell through the broken glass on day three, and a bird flew in later in the week. The animals would become meals for the starving boy.”

Ethan slanted a look at her. “So now you’re going to tell me that the trauma he underwent in childhood would explain him growing up to kill fifteen people?”

Alexa clicked on the next article her search had brought up. “I’m perfectly aware that we haven’t definitively linked Amos Tillman to this offender. But it’s a name that bears checking out, and yes, his childhood is significant. Profiles are most valuable when they focus on the individual offender’s behavior and motivation, rather than relying on generalizations. But it’s also true that the FBI has found a correlation of childhood abuse among serial killers.”

She checked the side mirror. They’d taken two cars to Bridgewater, and the other three officers followed in the vehicle behind them. “Of course, far more people who underwent similar traumas didn’t grow up to become murderers. It’s all about the individual’s perception of what happened to him.”

Her tone grew teasing. “And by the way, don’t think I missed your reaction when Mr. Merkel spoke about the spider one of the foster children wanted to bring into the house.”

“What? I did not react. Spiders don’t bother me.” He slowed as a red sports car zipped into their lane.

“Really?” Skepticism dripped from her words. “Have you developed a new-found affinity for them? Because I remember once you wouldn’t get in your car until I caught the daddy long legs that was…”

“Okay, okay.” He reached over to put his hand over her face and gave a gentle push. “We agreed a long time ago you’d take care of spiders and I was the designated bat killer. Bats are bigger than spiders. Much more heroic.”

“So you promised,” she breathed under her breath, “but it’s not like we ever put it to the test.”

When Ethan shot her a grin, she saw twin reflections of herself in his mirrored sunglasses. “You’ll just have to take my word for it.”

Her heart squeezed in her chest. His smile lightened a face that was far more somber than she remembered. Gave it a carefree look that was so reminiscent of the seventeen-year-old boy she’d fallen in love with that it took her breath. It’d be easy to believe that, as an isolated, emotionally damaged teen, she’d been susceptible to the first boy who showed interest. But there had been plenty of males who’d approached her. Ethan was the only one, however, who’d sneaked past her wary guard.

He was the only one who’d stolen her heart.

She stared blindly at the article open on her cell. It’d been easy to convince herself for the last couple of decades that their story was a combination of teenage chemistry and lack of experience. But it was far harder to reconcile that explanation with the feelings he could still awake in her now. And those feelings had alarms shrilling in her mind.

“If…and it’s a major if,” Ethan said, “Tillman does turn out to be The Tailor, what significance does his past play in the homicides?”

Grateful for the interruption to her thoughts, Alexa looked up. “An interesting question. His stay with Merkel could have established his foundation in religion. One that evolved and mutated over the years to fit his growing need to strike out at others.”

“You’ve suspected the offender was using God to justify his actions since his first communication.”

Alexa nodded. “Of course, there have been plenty of killers who claim God or Satan told them to kill. They’re referred to as visionary killers. Most of them have suffered a psychotic break. I wouldn’t place the UNSUB in that category, however.”

“But you just said…”

“He uses God as a justification. But in reality, this is a control-driven killer. And yes, if the offender turns out to be Tillman, his past does explain where his need for control originated. He had none throughout his childhood. A father who abused him and nearly killed him. A revolving door of foster homes and group homes, if these articles are to be believed. Then add Fornier’s observations about the man he knew as Anis Tera. Weak. Insignificant.” She turned in her seat to more fully face Ethan. “By acquiring technological expertise with computers and the Internet, the offender learned to control others. Think of the secrets that are buried online. All the evidence that exists of alleged misdeeds. First he made his victims pay for his silence. He can rationalize that by looking at his actions as an offer of penance or redemption. But it no more than extortion.”

“And killing them for continuing their misdeeds was murder,” Ethan said grimly.

“Which he’ll again justify. But despite shrouding his acts in faith, make no mistake, his actions are about him. His wants. His needs.” She stopped, struck by a sudden thought.

“What?”

“You said you had been following the premise that the killer was someone who traveled widely. A sensible theory given the seeming randomness of the attacks, and the vast territory covered.” She stopped a moment to collect her thoughts before going on. “Most serial killers don’t kill out of state. Or, in Canada’s case, outside their home province or territory. Most stay within their comfort zones. They like the familiar.”

“So this UNSUB is atypical.”

“In this particular instance, yes. They may gain confidence later on and venture farther away from home—” She broke off that thought as another occurred. “The first victim was from Ashville, Manitoba, right? The body was found near the Assiniboine River.”

“You could give Merkel memory lessons,” Ethan noted.

“When you get back to the Halifax RCMP headquarters you’ll be running Tillman’s name through the national crime database.”

His mouth quirked up. “Will I?”

She waved a hand. “Just the quick check I did online shows fewer than ten people in the country with that name. The Tillman that stayed with Merkel shouldn’t be that hard to trace. And I’d look for one who lived in Manitoba within easy driving distance of that river at the date of the first homicide or some time earlier.”

“Because when he was first learning, he’d go to a place he knew?”

She nodded. “Someplace close to him. Subconsciously, he may have chosen his first victim based on his comfort zone. That’s why it makes so much sense to me that he used the van as his—for lack of a better phrase—kill space. By using it, he’s bringing a measure of that comfort zone with him, even when he’s far from home.” He’d still have to arrange the scene where he snatched his victims. Select the area for the dump sites. But he cut his risk by not leaving a primary crime scene. Alexa wondered if that was solely designed for his own ease or to avoid detection.

“So if he started near his own residence, what was his purpose for returning to one of his childhood homes? Why take a risk by choosing Merkel’s name for an ID?”

She shook her head impatiently. “Don’t you see? He’s returning to another anchor point. He spent his formative years in Nova Scotia. The UNSUB knew he couldn’t chance taking Simard in the man’s home city. He had to lure him far away from Fornier, or other hired muscle. By including Lawler in the ruse, he got two of his victims to the same location using the same pretense. It was the likely the biggest challenge he’s undertaken. It makes sense that he’d stack the deck in his favor by getting both of them out of their familiar surroundings while returning to a place known to him. He’d have weighed the safety of making a return. He probably knew Claire Merkel was dead. Maybe he’s kept tabs on the couple. He had to have known there was little chance Pastor Merkel would remember him.”

The man couldn’t even be bothered to learn the names of the foster children under his care. It hadn’t escaped Alexa that the pastor’s habit of bestowing Biblical names on the boys was not unlike Reisman insisting on calling her by her middle name. She wondered if it had ever occurred to Merkel that he was robbing the kids of a piece of their identity.

“But he didn’t count on Merkel’s son. It sounds like you’ve already decided Tillman is our guy.” Ethan reached up a finger to settle his sunglasses more securely.

“We’ll know more in the next few hours.” Because Alexa didn’t doubt that once back at the RCMP in Halifax, they’d be learning everything there was to know about the Adam Tillman who’d lived with Pastor Merkel.

The pieces fit. They didn’t know yet if the facts did. But one way or another, they were soon going to learn if they finally had the identity of the killer called The Tailor.

* * *

“Meat lovers and taco pizzas. The dinner of champions.”

Alexa raised a weary gaze to view Ian coming through the door to the conference room bearing two pizza boxes and a sack. “What is it with you guys and carbs?”

“We’ve also got protein covered,” the officer said virtuously. “You could use more protein. And carbs. They both build muscle.”

“Carbs also build fat.”

“You know what lettuce builds? Nothing.” He reached into the sack and brought out a clear plastic container and waved it at her. “But I got you a salad anyway.”

Touched, she said, “Thank you.” She half rose from her seat to snag it and the plastic silverware he handed her.

Ian gave her a concerned look as she opened the container. “Seriously. How are you planning to keep your strength up?”

“I am planning,” Alexa said, as she stabbed her first bite of salad, “to eat all of this. And then grab a slice of pizza.”

“That a girl,” he said approvingly, before turning around and waving an arm to fight off Nyle and Jonah. “Let me set it down first. Geez, you’re like a pack of dogs.”

“I don’t think two counts as a pack, but the description is still oddly fitting.” Ethan walked into the room, looked amused.

“Just looking to help,” Nyle said as he stole one of the boxes away from the other officer and strode quickly to the table at the front of the room. “His age slows him down.”

“I can still run a six-minute mile, so unless you can beat that, no cracks about my age.”

“Only if there’s a beer waiting at the end of the run,” Jonah joked.

As the men bickered good-naturedly, Ethan ambled over to where Alexa sat. He’d shed his suit jacket at some point, along with his tie. His jaw was stubbled, giving him a slightly rakish look.

Firmly corralling her observations, Alexa asked, “You spoke to Captain Campbell?”

He nodded. “Once we have the list of Tillmans narrowed down, we’ll reach out to local law enforcement for a closer look. I also checked in with Steve Friedrich. He visited the gas stations where the UNSUB used the credit card. The camera images were a bust. Both places record over old images every week or two, just as we figured.”

Alexa spoke in between bites. “We’ve found eight Amos Tillmans in the country. One, a man in his eighties, recently died. Two others are late sixties to early seventies. I think we can eliminate them, as well. Another is a teenager. So, we have four prospects.”

“I’ve got a DMV request for each of those Tillmans.” Jonah turned from the table, three huge slices of pizza piled on a paper plate that was crumpling under the weight. “Just waiting to get copies of the licenses back.”

“This time of night, we might be waiting a while,” Ian said around the pizza he was chewing.

“Better get up here and eat before these guys inhale both pies,” Nyle advised Ethan.

Apparently viewing it as a real threat, Ethan moved toward the food.

Alexa continued to eat her salad methodically. It was nearly eight p.m. She wasn’t sure how much longer the officers planned to work, but she was hoping they’d call it a day soon. She thought she had a fair amount of stamina, but the late hours they’d spent in recent days were starting to take a toll.

It was a sign of her exhaustion that she didn’t immediately react when the tablet next to her pinged. A moment later, the significance hit her, and she froze, her fork halfway to her mouth.

Dropping the silverware, Alexa hurriedly logged into her professional email account. Her stomach twisted when she saw the familiar combination of numbers and symbols where the sender’s name should be.

She opened the message and clicked on the image gif in the body. Then gasped quietly as the picture took shape. A single black and white photo of a flat headstone already showing the wear of years. An angel was etched around the date, with the text below it:

* * *

Alexa was aware of the sidelong glances Ethan was sending her way as he drove, but with Nyle in the back seat, he retained his silence. She channeled all her concentration toward locking down the emotion that was churning inside her until she was alone. Compartmentalizing her feelings. Her grief. Sealing them off so they couldn’t rise up to swallow her whole.

She’d become an expert on all of that twenty years ago.

Nyle kept up a running commentary all the way back to the hotel. It helped to focus on his words. Consider them with a fierce intensity that didn’t allow other thoughts to intrude. Certainly not dead babies. Not daughters who were fiercely loved even in the womb. Ones who never got to draw a breath outside it.

She drew in a strangled breath. Released it shakily.

“You okay?” Ethan murmured.

She nodded, beyond words. Like an injured animal, she needed solitude to tend to her wounds, to gather her defenses and mend them layer by layer.

When Ethan pulled into the hotel parking lot, she gathered her briefcase which held her notes, laptop and tablet. “See you in the morning.” She had her door opened and was exiting before Ethan had the vehicle in park.

“Well, she’s sure in…” She didn’t hear the rest of Nyle’s statement. With single-minded focus, she headed for her room. For privacy.

And once inside it, once she’d locked the door with a shaky hand and set her briefcase on the floor, she leaned heavily against the door. Then slid down it when her knees would no longer hold her upright.

That bastard.

The tears that she’d been willing back sprang forth in a helpless, involuntary flood. She was usually stronger, but the image had blindsided her. The UNSUB was looking for a reaction. She knew that. He was expecting to catch her off-guard, vulnerable. God help her, at the moment, she was both.

Minutes ticked by before she was able to stem the tears through sheer force of will. The grief couldn’t be controlled as easily. Her inner fortitude had been constructed brick by brick over the last two decades. It shielded her from reliving the paralyzing hurt. The brutal sense of loss that could still throb anew in moments when she least expected it.

It was the callousness of the message that had her steeling her spine. I know you. That’s what the offender was telling her. You have no secrets from me. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and struggled to her feet. He was wrong, of course. He could learn a bit about her past, but she knew far more about him than he did her.

And she was going to use what she knew to bring him down.

She jerked when there was a quiet knock on her door. Knew who it would be.

“Alexa.” Ethan’s voice was quiet. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” And she would be. She just needed another minute or two alone. When she channeled the regrets from a lifetime ago into anger, she’d be stronger. Invulnerable.

“Open the door.”

“Ethan.” She breathed his name out in frustration. In defeat. She couldn’t keep this latest communication from him even if she wanted to. It was part of the case. An intricately sticky piece of their past that now was entwined in the investigation. One that laid bare their shared regret that had lasted a lifetime.

She undid the latch and opened the door. Ethan’s gaze swept her once, then returned to her face. His expression softened. “What’s wrong?”

Alexa turned away from his concern. It would weaken her, return her to the quaking mass she’d been moments ago. She needed to maintain control, and that was tougher do facing the one man who’d know if she was dissembling.

“There’s been another communication.” She crouched to retrieve her briefcase and carried it to the desk, using the precious moments to summon the resilience she’d briefly surrendered.

“What? When? At the headquarters,” he answered his own question. “Before we called it a night. I knew you were too quiet in the car.”

“Yes. Well.” She bent over the tablet and brought up the email again. Discovered she didn’t yet have the fortitude to look at the image again. “He wanted a reaction. He’s becoming more personal. Trying to show me that he’s in control. That I have no secrets from him.” And because she didn’t want Ethan to be caught unaware as she’d been, she turned and laid her hand on his arm. “He knows about Olivia.”

The muscles beneath her fingers bunched as he stared at the photo on the screen for long moments. Then he swore, a long ugly string of obscenities. “Fuck this guy.”

He shrugged off her hand and shoved away from the table, turning to stride to the window. The curtains were still open. Lights glowed in the distance below, the city adorned in gaudy sparkles. “He doesn’t know shit. How could he?”

She hadn’t gotten that far yet but considered the question now. There was no way the offender could have accessed her long-ago medical records. He wouldn’t know about her hospital stay or the condition that had caused the stillbirth. And since she hadn’t spoken to her family since she’d left Truro, Reisman couldn’t have revealed any details either.

A chill skated through her veins. Reisman may not have known facts, but that wouldn’t have stopped him from gleefully filling in the gaps of his knowledge with the ugliest speculation imaginable.

“You’re right. He had no way to learn the specifics.” She remembered what Raiker had told her on their phone call. You’re a square peg, yes. But he’s going to try to work you into the familiar round hole he has for his victims. If the UNSUB believed he’d discovered a significant transgression in her past, the next step would be blackmail.

But she suspected it’d be emotional rather monetary extortion.

“What’s he trying to do with this? Where would he even have gotten that image? There’s no way he traveled to Ottawa.” Ethan hadn’t turned away from the window. His tone was lethal. And Alexa was reminded, with a sudden searing dart of regret, that her pain was Ethan’s pain. Her grief was his grief.

Her throat filled. It took a minute before she was able to answer. “The offender seeks weakness to exploit. I suspect he scrutinizes the news releases, so there’s no way he’s unfamiliar with your name. So, he’s put two and two together, understands that we have a past.” Reisman hadn’t, she recalled. He’d never shown a shred of recognition at Ethan’s name. At her urging, she and Ethan had gone to his father first, all those years ago. And although Ethan had wanted to do the right thing and go with her to tell her mother, Alexa had done it alone because she’d thought she’d known how bad it would be.

She’d grossly underestimated the ugliness of the scene. Her mother’s cold condemnation. The invective Reisman had hurled at her. The eruption of violence when he’d lunged for her, hands at her throat.

The memory never lost the ability to wound.

Ethan’s father had overridden his son’s objections and gone to the house alone for her things. She’d thought her world had changed that day. But fate had far more in store for them a few months later.

“As for the image…” It took a moment to steady her voice. “Many cemeteries have a search function to facilitate remote access of gravesites.”

“He isn’t going to be in a position to ‘exploit’ anything.” He faced her then, his expression implacable. But she recognized the temper he was suppressing. Like a bomb, waiting to detonate.

“He’ll try. His focus is me, and I assume that won’t change. He shook me up a little.” She managed a small smile. “I’m all right now. We’re close. I can feel it. And he doesn’t know how much we’ve learned about him. The advantage is ours.”

It took long minutes for him to respond. “I know I can’t let this get to me. And it won’t be allowed to affect the investigation.” Fury seeped into his next words. “But I hate him using her like this. It defiles her memory.”

She nodded. “I know.” Her voice was soft. “It’s as if he’s stealing a piece of Olivia away, just by thinking of her.” The next words were torn from her, accompanied by a familiar pang of loss. “I never even got to hold her.”

He was in front of her in two quick steps. Had her wrapped in an embrace in the flash of an instant. “Neither did I. I wasn’t even there. Not in time. I’ve never forgiven myself for that.”

She shook her head against his chest. “You couldn’t help that. Neither of us could.” They’d been two scared kids trying to do their best to navigate their new responsibilities. Muddling through their quickie marriage, moving to married housing on the university campus where Ethan would play hockey. But for all their fears and ignorance of the enormity ahead of them, there had been aching sweetness, too. Out of self-preservation, Alexa rarely allowed herself to recall it. The lust that had still burned between them, hot and reckless. The first time they’d watched their baby on the ultrasound. The awed look on Ethan’s face when he’d first heard the heartbeat. The way he’d kissed her, slow and achingly tender when he’d first felt the baby move.

“I always thought I did something wrong,” she whispered. It was a shameful secret she’d never fully put aside. “Like I wasn’t careful enough. Not knowledgeable enough.”

“You read every book in the library on pregnancy. You set the alarm so you’d remember to take your prenatal vitamins.” His arms tightened around her. “But I know what you mean. I felt the same way. Like I should have been able to prevent what happened. But it wasn’t us, Lexie. There was nothing we could have done differently. Sometimes life just sucks.”

“I was no help afterward. All of the arrangements fell to you.” He’d been an eighteen-year-old grappling with the sudden stillbirth of his daughter and a critically ill wife. She hadn’t been aware of much of anything for days. There had been no chance to attend the funeral or the burial. No chance for a goodbye she wasn’t ready to say.

“It was mostly a blur.” She felt him rub his face in her hair. “Dad was there. He walked me through everything. But when I was at the funeral home I felt like I needed to be at the hospital with you. When I was with you, I was afraid…” Ethan paused for a moment. When he continued, his voice was thick. “I thought for a while that I was going to lose you, too.”

Her breath hitched once. Because although she’d gradually gotten better, he had lost her months later. And every time regrets had reared over that decision, she’d beaten them back with the knowledge that she’d done the right thing.

But that certainty was becoming infused with doubt. He’d accused her once of playing God with his life. And hadn’t she, in a way? Because they couldn’t agree on the best way to move forward, she’d made a decision and forced him to live with it. And there was no way to know, even given the distance of time, whether the sacrifice had been necessary.