RISK(78)

By the time I caught him and dragged him to the ground, his jeans were closed but his belt hung open, the buckle clanging as he ran.

I heave a sigh of relief. I wanted to call the hospital back then to ask how she was, but I was too scared that they'd somehow trace the inquiry back to me and I'd be brought in by the police.

"Please know that I only did what I did for her, Ellie." I turn so I'm looking right into her eyes. "I don’t regret it. I would do the same thing again."

"What did you do?"

I want her to put the pieces of this together herself. I scanned the newspaper the next day and the day after that when there was finally a small story about a jogger finding a man's body on a trail in Central Park. His name was never released. No one reported on his cause of death. I took it as a sign that I'd done the right thing and I took off. I went to Miami for a week with Crew after I burned my clothes and shoes in the fireplace of my parents' summer home on Long Island.

I held my breath for months after that hoping that no one would ever know that I'd taken a man's life.

I don't waver at all. I keep her gaze as I say the words aloud for the first time. "I killed that man, Ellie. I beat him until he was dead."

She moves back on the couch, her hand falling from mine. Her head shakes, a quick jerk before he eyes fall to her lap. "No."

"Yes." I don't want this hanging over me anymore. My anger fueled my movements that night but it wasn't just the sight of Kip laying there that spurred me on. It was the realization that the man I'd punched until he stopped fighting back and I couldn't lift my arms, had been watching Kip for weeks. He'd approached her more than one time. He'd walked past as I talked to her, gawking at her thin frame hidden beneath her jacket.

"Nolan." She drops her head into her hands, her palms pressing into her eyes sockets. "You didn't. You didn't kill him."

I expected this. I anticipated it when I realized that she knew I was Rigs. I knew that she'd have to deny it before she accepted it. Hiding it from her will only tarnish what we have. Sooner or later I'll have to confess. I can't hide a secret this size from the only woman I've ever loved.

"Ellie." I reach for her leg. "I know it's a lot to take in."

"No." She covers my hand with her own. Her gentle touch a sign. She doesn't hate me. She hasn't judged what I've done. "You didn't kill him. He didn't die that night. He died in a jail cell last year."

"What?" My vision blurs as the guilt lifts. I've never regretted what I'd done but there were moments where I wondered about his family. I had flashes of shame when I imagined him coming out of that night alive and turning his life around. I brushed off those fleeting thoughts quickly whenever I thought about Kip and the way she looked the last time I saw her.

I wanted to go back to help her. I ran in that direction, with my gloves covered in the bastard's blood as sirens wailed their imminent arrival. When I reached the edge of the alcove where she was, I saw two people. Both of them were on their knees, tending to her. I ran then. I tucked the gloves in my jacket, dropped my head and I ran home. I threw everything in a trash bag and waited until the next day when I went to Long Island and destroyed my link to that night.

"Annie helped the police." She searches my face. "She used to notice everything about every person she was around. That helped them tremendously. He was arrested a few months later after he attacked another woman in Connecticut. Annie identified him and he was prosecuted."

"A man died in the park that night, Ellie. I read about it in the paper."

Her lips thin as she closes her eyes. "My dad died in the park that night. He drank himself to death because he'd finally given up."

***

My own fear has kept me captive for more than a decade. I was so scared of being prosecuted for killing that man that I hid behind an emotional wall of my own making. The only person I let in was May until Ellie fell into my lap.

I take the empty glass of water from her hands and place it on the coffee table. After she had explained that her dad died from acute alcohol poisoning, I held her while she cried. She and her sister had no one at that point. Her best friend's family stepped up to the plate. They took the two girls in and gave them a safe place to heal and thrive.

Annie took the time to get to know one of the EMTs who had been there to care for her that night. They fell in love. They married and had three beautiful daughters. A brain aneurysm took her life the day May was born.

Ellie was rushed into surgery while her sister's husband, Clinton, rushed into the ER with his wife on a stretcher. Their daughters had been over at a neighbor's home that day for a playdate and when Annie didn't go to pick up her children, the neighbor went there and used the key they had given her to check on her friend. Annie was unresponsive and when her husband arrived with his uniform on, he tried everything he could to save her life. There was nothing. She'd suffered a major stroke and died in her bed.

"Can I see it now?" Ellie takes my hand and kisses my fingertips. "I want to see it."

"Twenty seconds." I kiss her hand. "I'll be back in twenty seconds."

I sprint down the hallway and unlock the cabinet in the office. I push a bunch of loose photographs aside as I dig in the top drawer for a plastic bag. I find it. I yank it out before I take double strides to get back to where Ellie is.