Page 108 of Night Watch
He scooped Kennedy into his arms, and she snuggled against him. Her body quivered with the cold. He shook out the aluminum emergency blanket and draped it around her body, then hugged her tight, the fabric crinkling under his arms.
Thank You, thank You, thank You.
“You were very brave and ingenious.” He kissed the top of her soaked head. “But please don’t do anything that dangerous again.”
“I hope I never have to.” She shuddered under the blanket.
He wanted to say he would never let her out of his sight again. His heart shattered with the thought of her leaving him, but he wasn’t going to say anything to her without thinking about it first.
“Yo,” Drake called out. “I’m going for Edwards.”
Erik nodded.
“He’s responsible for my mom’s death,” Kennedy said.
“Her denture. I know.”
“How?”
“Your mom put a flash drive on Oreo explaining the denture trial and why she needed the money. Johnson gave the spare plate to Maya for examination, and she found the meds.”
“He wanted me to help him get that plate back for him.” She shook her head. “I refused. He was bringing me out here to convince me to help him. I don’t know what he thought I could do, but maybe it was just a madman’s last-ditch attempt.”
She shuddered again, and Erik pulled her even closer. She was an amazingly strong woman, and she’d taken it upon herself to perform her own rescue.
“He’s connected to Jeremy Miller,” Erik said, “but I don’t know how.”
“Edwards’s sister fostered him when he was a kid. Edwards thinks of him as a sort of nephew.”
Foster records were sealed, so there was no surprise to Erik that he couldn’t find the link. “Hess is connected to Miller too. Aiden’s looking into him. Unless Edwards mentioned that too.”
“No.”
“Then we’ll be sure to keep digging. After we persuade Johnson to bring him in for questioning.” Erik saw Drake stop his boat and reach over to haul Edwards onboard. The guy was limp and unmoving.
“We need to get him somewhere warm,” Drake said.
Erik looked down at Kennedy, the rainwater rolling from her shiny blanket. “You able to transfer to the other boat? It has a bigger motor and can get us back faster.”
“Yes.”
“You’ll have to sit with Edwards,” he added.
Her shoulders rose under the blanket. “Great. I’ll have a chance to glare at him and get rid of some of the anger burning in my gut.”
Kennedy had done exactly what she’d said she would do. Glare at Edwards right up until the moment she reached her mom’s place. Wasn’t hard. The man killed her mother. Sure, it was an accident, but he shouldn’t have been doing a drug trial in secret. She’d left Erik and Drake to deal with the creep while she took a hot shower and dressed warmly. By the time she got downstairs, the police had taken Edwards away, and Erik waited alone for her by the roaring fireplace.
“You feeling better?” he asked.
She nodded.
“Your hand feeling okay?”
She looked at the fresh bandage. “Seems like the cold water acted like an ice pack and let me use it more. Now it’s throbbing.”
“Johnson called and cleared up the mystery of Hess’s involvement,” Erik said. “He and Miller are buddies. Miller couldn’t buy guns legally due to his felony conviction for drugs, so Hess was supplying Miller with weapons.”
“So he’ll go away for being an accessory to Gordon’s murder.”
