Reborn to Ruin Him novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: The Lake

I had called the police before breakfast, and they were already standing at the cathedral's side door.

Two uniformed officers came up the center aisle at my nod.

"Mr. Hightower," the older one said. "We'd like you to come with us."

"On what charge?"

"Administering a drug to another person without consent. Conspiracy. And we'd like to ask about a woman named Ellery."

Trenton looked at me over the officer's shoulder. I walked down the altar steps until I was an arm's length from him.

"You told her nobody would count," I said.

He said nothing.

"I did," I said. "Every week."

The officers took his wrists. The click of the cuffs rang off the stone, and the whole cathedral heard it.

Two hundred people stood up to watch him go.

I did not stay to see the doors close behind him.

"Gabriel!" I was already running. "The car!"

He was a step ahead of me. He took the cathedral steps three at a time and was behind the wheel before I had my door shut.

The estate road came up under us in a gray blur.

"What did he mean, alone?" Gabriel said. His knuckles shone on the wheel.

"I don't know."

"If she's in that water."

"Drive," I said.

He drove.

We reached the lake road before the sirens did, and left the car crooked on the gravel.

We ran down the slope together in our church clothes, the same wet clay as before.

The boathouse dock came into sight.

Rosalind was at the far end of it in a thin hospital gown with her hands tied in front of her.

A man stood behind her. He was sandy-haired, in a gray suit, and he had one hand fisted in her hair.

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