69
Dani paced in the ICU waiting room. For two days, it’d been touch and go with Rick since the surgery to remove the bullet. He wasn’t out of the woods yet, but he’d asked to see Dani, and she was waiting for the nurse to come get her.
“You don’t have to do this,” Mark said. He’d brought her to the hospital after Rick’s request.
“But I do. I still don’t know why he killed Keith.” She stopped and faced him. “He didn’t give you any reason?”
Mark shook his head. “I only had a limited amount of time with him, so I only touched on the details of the crimes here in Russell County. I hope for another opportunity to interview him again.”
Dani sat in the chair beside him. Piecing together the details that Mark had shared was like putting together a jigsaw puzzle without all the pieces. As best she could tell, Kyle Peterson had nothing to do with the crimes in the past. He’d spent his life blaming Dani’s father for losing his job and the way his life turned out. He’d let it eat away at him until his bitter anger affected his mind.
“You said Toby Mitchell was the one who shot at me that first night. How did he even know I was in Pearl Springs?”
“He didn’t,” Mark said. “Toby always believed Bobby had given Mae the diamonds and that she hid them.”
“Nonny would never have done that.”
“I know, but that’s what Toby believed. With Mae in the hospital, he thought it’d be safe to look around the pottery shop again—it wasn’t his first time over the years to search her place. Then you came up, and he was afraid you could identify him.”
Dani glanced at the ICU doors, wishing the nurse would come get her. “Did you ask Rick why he killed Toby?”
“Yeah,” Mark said. “The night of the murders, Toby went to Bobby’s house, looking for his share of the diamonds, but before he got to the door, he heard the gunshots. Then he saw Rick leave.”
“Why didn’t Toby tell? He could’ve traded that information for a get-out-of-jail-free card.”
Mark rubbed his jaw. “You’d have to know Toby. He would’ve cut off an arm before turning in a friend, and he considered Rick a friend. But the truth had been gnawing on Toby for a while when Morgan approached him. Whatever she said to him that day in the store was the match in the powder keg.”
“Why were they at my parents’ house, though?”
“Rick lured Toby there. He saw him talking to Morgan and—”
“And Rick couldn’t take a chance of Toby spilling his guts to Morgan,” Dani said. “Was Toby the one who broke into Nonny’s house the day that she had the stroke?”
“No, that was Rick. He’d heard Mae had found you, and he thought there might be information on Keith’s whereabouts in her office.”
Dani nodded. “Rick thought my dad and Keith had double-crossed him. He wanted his share of the diamonds.”
The doors to the ICU opened and Rick’s nurse stepped into the waiting room. “Ms. Collins, you can see him now.”
Dani stood and Mark said, “Would you like me to come with you?”
She shook her head. “I want to go by myself.”
Dani followed the nurse to Rick’s door and pushed it open. He turned toward her. Oxygen flowed through a nasal cannula, but his lips were blue. That couldn’t be a good sign. “They told me you wanted to see me.”
He nodded. “They tell me I might not make it.”
Dani didn’t know what to say, so she said nothing.
“I’ve lived a lie for so long. Pretending to be something I’m not. Preaching forgiveness . . .”
She stiffened but couldn’t turn away from his piercing dark eyes.
“I don’t deserve it, but I don’t want to die without asking for your forgiveness.” He closed his eyes. “Don’t say no yet.”
“Why did you kill Keith?”
He shifted his gaze to a spot over her head. “I didn’t mean to. Saw that picture of the Badlands on your website.” He took a deep breath and coughed. “It didn’t take long to find your business along with the address on the Montana Secretary of State website . . .”
He closed his eyes, and she waited. “When I got there and saw Keith’s fancy house . . . I lost it. He . . . cheated me out of my share of the diamonds. We argued. I shot him.” Rick coughed again. “You probably don’t believe me . . . but I truly am sorry.”
He was right. She didn’t believe him. Dani balled her hands into fists. And she wasn’t forgiving him. He’d taken her family and twenty-five years of her life from her. She turned to go.
“Wait . . . I’m not asking for me. See . . . I know what happens when you don’t forgive. It eats away at you like a cancer.”
Dani faced him again. “Who was it you didn’t forgive?”
“My father. It was always about what he wanted. Instead of forgiving him and moving on, I hated him.” Rick held out his hand. “Don’t let that be you.”
Forgiveness wasn’t something she could just turn on. “I’ll think about it.”
“That’s all I can ask.”
She turned to leave and stopped. “Your father. Did you ever forgive him?”
He nodded. “Today.”
She was halfway to the ICU doors when an alarm went off. Nurses ran past her toward Rick’s room. She kept walking and pressed the button. When the doors opened, Mark stood waiting for her.
Dani stared out the window of the plane, trying to see if she could recognize Pearl Springs from the air as the plane flew toward Chattanooga.
Two weeks ago, she’d flown to Montana to say her goodbyes and to bring Keith’s ashes home. She’d been working on the forgiveness thing. She’d forgiven Keith for keeping the truth from her. She was still working on forgiving Rick. He’d taken so much from her.
The tires touched down on the runway, and she breathed a prayer of thanks. She was so anxious to see everyone. The Stones, Nonny . . . and Mark. Especially Mark.
They’d talked every day she was in Montana, sometimes twice a day. Without a murderer dogging their trail at every turn, it was like getting to know him all over again. He’d feared once the danger was past, she might find him boring. Never in a hundred years.
Fifteen minutes later, she rode the escalator down to the baggage claim, her heart jumping at the sight of Mark as he leaned against a pillar with his arms folded.
A slow grin spread over his face when he saw her, and two seconds later he wrapped her in his arms.
“I thought you’d never get here.”
“Me either.” She laid her head on his chest, liking the way his heart pounded. “I thought Alex was picking me up.”
“Nope. You got me.” He tilted her face up. “You know, we’ve never had a real date . . . or an understanding.”
“Understanding?”
“Yep. Like maybe you’ll go out on a few dates with me?”
Joy flowed through her body. She grinned. “I think that can be arranged.”