Page 127 of Stalkers Anonymous

“You’re looking at me like I’m dying,” she says.

“I’m looking at you like he didn’t finish what he started, and I’m doing the math.”

“Cole.”

“Sorry.” I drag a hand down my face. “Sorry. I’m here. I’m okay. I’m here.”

“You don’t look okay.”

“I’m not. He put you in the hospital.”

Her hand moves on top of the blanket. Not toward me. Just out from her body, palm up, an offering. I watch it for a second.

I reach for her, and she immediately weaves her fingers between mine.

I raise halfway out of the chair to lean forward and kiss the top of her hand, resting my cheek on it before sitting down again. Her sad eyes break my heart. “Tell me what you need.”

“Sleep, mostly.” She’s already drifting. The good drugs are catching up to her now that she’s done the hardest part. Survived. “Tomorrow we’ll talk. About the plan. About the rules.”

“Tomorrow,” I confirm, gently squeezing her hand.

“Don’t do anything before we talk. I just needed to see you.”

“I won’t, I promise.”

She watches me through her one good eye for a few seconds until her grip on my hand goes a little looser.

“Stay,” she says. “Just till I’m asleep.”

“I’ll stay as long as you’ll let me.”

“Thank you,” she whispers as she snuggles her head into the pillow, letting her heavy eyelids close at last.

I sit with my hand under hers for hours, and I don’t move. I hardly breathe out of fear of waking her when she needs sleep the most.

Across the hall, another monitor beeps, alternating with the one in Hailey’s room. Down the corridor, staff members laugh together. And outside her window, the sky starts to go the bruised purple color it gets right before the sun comes up.

What the fuck am I going to tell Tyler? And Tracey? The entire fucking group will lose their shit if they find out.

When I finally leave, dawn has broken on the horizon and the hospital is coming back to life after another long night. Hailey is still sleeping, but I have work to do.

She told me not to do anything before we talk, but she didn’t tell me I couldn’t think about all the things I’m going to do to that vile piece of shit when we catch him.

Because we will catch him.

Or my name isn’t Cole Matthews.

Chapter Thirty-One: Cole

Three days since Hailey called me from her hospital bed, and my apartment doesn’t quite look like my apartment anymore. It looks like the rooms they show in true-crime documentaries right after someone calls the cops on the guy who lives there.

The phone call with Hailey discussing our initial steps only took a few minutes, but I’ve replayed it a thousand times since. Her voice was still so raw and broken, in a way I’d never heard before. The way she said his name and claimed him as her monster…

She hates him. She fucking hates him.

She’s spent the last three days in the hospital, so I’ve been at it for seventy-two hours straight, give or take passing out on the couch for an hour or two at a time. The blinds are drawn, and I haven’t shaved. There are coffee cups stacked on every surface that isn’t covered in printouts—and most of the surfaces are covered in printouts.

The first thing I did was hack the parking garage’s security system. It was insultingly easy—outdated firmware, default admin credentials no one had bothered to change in three years. Took me eleven minutes from start to footage. Finding the right timestamp took longer because my hands wouldn’t stop shaking.