Page 181 of The Sweetest Obsession

I’m a realist at heart with everything but Ethan.

Trouble is, shattering that little fantasy feels like the apocalypse. The end of everything.

Every hope that I could somehow fix things for the Sandersons, a family I care about as much as my own.

Every hope that somehow, some way, everything could still be all right.

Every hope that Ophelia might be so overwhelmed with joy that all her problems would disappear and she’d marry me tomorrow.

Shit, no.

I need to get the fuck out of here.

Head out to the crime scene and meet up with the Raleigh team. Check in with Ophelia and make sure she’s okay after all the scares yesterday.

I hope she’s shaken off a little of her angst.

With any luck, she’s back at home with Nell by now. She’ll probably keep giving me those guilty looks like she did something wrong, and I don’t know how the fuck to tell her she didn’t.

I don’t know how to tell her I’ll wait as long as she needs me to.

Goddammit, Grant.

Get out of your own head and go do something useful.

So I do.

After staring at Mason Law for a few more seconds, I heft myself up with a groan and stretch, rubbing at my ass. I’m sore from over an hour in that little plastic chair. The seats in this joint are fit to put someone in the hospital themselves.

I turn away, grinding my fingertips against the back of my aching neck—only to hear a low moan behind me.

I whirl on my heel.

Law’s eyes twitch, his lips parting on a disturbed groan.

Cautiously, I step closer.

His vitals aren’t changing—not that I really know how to read that shit, I ain’t Ophelia—but the beeping hasn’t changed, so I guess he’s okay, just waking up.

I should get the nurse.

I turn away again.

Only, this time I’m stopped by cold, bony fingers pinching the back of my arm.

I freeze.

Law clings to me with too much strength for a man in his state, the needlepoints of his emaciated fingers digging into my arm.

When I look back, his eyes are marbles crafted in pure fear.

Bloodshot, entirely mad, red-rimmed—he’s awake, and staring right through me with an accusatory gaze that says he sees me.

He’s aware.

“The... the letters,” he wheezes. His voice has the rawness you’d expect from someone whose throat was burned, first by a flesh-wilting poison and then by a breathing tube. “I... I buried them where theyb-buried the bones.” Law stares at me like he’s trying to grind something urgent into me. “T-tried... tried to w-warn her. Tried to stop her, you... you have tosaveher.”

“Save her? Save who?” Alertness spikes flashes of cold through me. Fuck. Was that what he was trying to do? Save Ophelia from something? From what? I step closer and lean over him. “What am I saving her from, Mr. Law?”

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