The Watcher Girl(59)

Perhaps this was part of the plan all along.

“Give me the gun, Campbell.” He keeps his voice low. “And take Gigi in the bedroom. Don’t come out until I call for you.”

She peers at him through squinted eyes, almost as if to challenge his instructions. Maybe she wanted to see him shoot me. Maybe she wants a front-row seat to my demise, the satisfying end to her marital discontent.

“You’re going to do this,” she says to him, and she isn’t asking.

His lips flatten. He nods.

The heaviness of this moment sinks me into the mattress.

I try to make eye contact with him, but he refuses.

“Campbell, go.” His voice booms through the small room. The number of times I’ve witnessed this man yell in my life, I can count on one hand.

“Gigi’s fine. She’s in the playpen. I want to—”

He lifts a hand . . . not to hurt her, but to silence her. “She’s my problem. Not yours.”

Her brows knit as she attempts to read his face.

“I want a word with her first. Alone,” he says. “A few things I need to say before we do this.”

She starts to say something, but he quiets her with a tender kiss, his hand cradling her tensing jaw, fingertips slipping into her messy hair. When they’re finished, Sutton whispers into her ear, words not meant for me to hear.

They lock gazes.

She hands him the gun.

Disappears into the hallway.

He’s made his choice. He chose his family over doing the right thing. Though I suppose in his mind, choosing family is doing the right thing.

Sutton closes the door.

This is it.





CHAPTER 36

“Did she drug you last night, too? Or were you in on this all along?” I ask. I don’t suppose it matters. I don’t suppose anything really matters when you’re standing this close to the end.

He paces, his attention occasionally landing on my ankle or wrist, his grip firm and secure on the gun. His free hand tugs a fistful of hair.

I know him . . . he’s unraveling.

“You can’t live with this on your conscience,” I tell him. I’ll spend every last breath I have coaxing him to the reasonable side of this. “This isn’t you. You’re a good person.”

He stops patrolling and turns to me, moored at the foot of the bed. “Let me do the talking.”

I’m prepared to say whatever it takes to stay alive, even if it’s nothing.

“When you ended things the way you did, completely out of nowhere, not a warning, not a sign it was coming . . . it was devastating for me,” he says. “I loved you more than life, Grace. I didn’t know how I was going to go on.” His jaw sets. “I met a side of me I never knew existed. An ugly side. A dark side. For years, I thought about you. I missed you. I told myself you’d come back eventually. Yet at the same time, I forced myself to move on . . . even if I was going through the motions.” He turns toward the window, staring into the distance. “Every milestone, every achievement, every memory these past eight years has been plagued by . . . you. Thoughts of you. Because even if you weren’t there, I found myself wishing you were. Wondering what it’d be like if you were. Fantasizing about how different that moment would feel if it were you standing there and not Campbell.”

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“She’s a good woman,” he says. “She loved me and stood by me when she didn’t have to. She dealt with my demons, my obsessions, with the patience of a saint. And she’s an incredible mother to my child. She’s better to me than I deserve. And I almost lost her because of . . . this. Because of you.”

He tucks the gun into the back of his pants and reaches for my left ankle. I flinch at his touch.

He’s untying me.

“Don’t move,” he says when he works the other restraint.

I stay still. I don’t speak. I hardly breathe. Tension in my jaw pulses with every heartbeat when he works on my right wrist, then my left.

When he’s finished, the air stings my skin, but I’m free.

For now.

“For so long I wished I never met you,” he says, reaching for the handgun. “And honestly, Grace, there were times I wished you’d died, because it would’ve been easier losing you to a car accident or cancer than to accept the fact that I wasn’t good enough for you, that I couldn’t make you happy, and you were never coming back.”

He has it all wrong.

“You were good enough for me,” I speak, even if it’s a dangerous decision. “You were too good for me.”

Didn’t he listen to a word I said when I left him that day?

I explained it all.

At the end of the day, we can say everything we need to say to someone, but we can’t control how they receive it.

“Get up.” He points the gun from me to the floor.

With tight muscles and a bladder about to burst, I slide my legs off the bed, feel for the warm wood of the floor, and push myself upright. The room spins for a moment. I tilt. He steadies me, his hand on my arm, but only for a moment. The minuscule wince on his face tells me he doesn’t enjoy touching me.

“We’re going for a little walk.” He motions toward the window, though I know he means the woods. “I know you’re good at running, Grace, but now’s not the time for that. Don’t try to be brave. Just do exactly what I say, and it’ll all be over soon.”