“Tell me what you remembered that made you tuck and roll into moving traffic last night,” I say over breakfast.
After my slipup, I decided it’d be best to wait before asking questions.
I stayed awake long after Hailey fell asleep in my arms, agonizing over the lies I’m feeding her. It’s for her own good. The truth will only make her leave, and she’s not safe away from me.
I’m not entirely sure if she’s forgiven me for breaching her privacy or if she’s only pretending we’re okay, but she stayed the night, and she’s still here. That’s a good sign.
She clears the last crumbs off her plate, starting to keep a healthy food intake level.
“Here?” she asks, glancing around the cafeteria.
Students come and go, their chatter grating my ears. I’ve been here for weeks, but I still struggle with noise in the morning. My days here are flipped. Back in Chicago, mornings are quiet, evenings are loud.
It’s the other way around at Lakeside.
Plates clatter, spoons clink against bowls, and the occasional laugh crescendos above the constant hum of voices. The only good thing about this setting is the bittersweet aroma of coffee in the air.
“No one’s listening,” I say, resting both elbows on the table. “What did you see that scared you so much?”
“A gun,” she whispers, taking a sip of her coffee.
“Keep going.”
She rolls her eyes, then quickly makes an apologetic face, remembering how fucking hard that gets me.
I was on her in a heartbeat last time she did that. I dragged her into my room, pushed her face into the pillow and fucked her until she came three times. I’m rock hard right now, but we’ll deal with that later.
“I saw someone shooting,” she says.
“Who?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t see the face. Just a gun firing and a bullet leaving the barrel. It felt like I was right there…” She sets her cup aside, the words coming faster, her eyes bigger, brighter, and scared. “As if it was happening right then. Like I was ripped away from your car and dropped… I don’t really know where.”
I grab her hand, tracing my thumb across her knuckles because she looks like she’s falling back into that memory.
“The noise…” She shudders softly. “So loud. Like the gun went off right by my ear. I’ve never felt fear quite like it.”
“Were you indoors?”
She shakes her head. “I’m not sure. Maybe. I saw the gun and—” She frowns, her gaze unfocused. “Everything else was blurry. I think there was a wall, maybe a window, a light somewhere…”
I squander the urge to sit her on my lap and wrap her in my arms. This is important. The first memory that might hold an actual clue, maybe the key. Darkness, a gun, a wall, maybe a window… not much.
“Dead on impact but Babyface put a few bullets in his head just in case.” Rhett’s words bounce around my head.
He shot Alex in the car. There’s no way he dragged him out because the police report said they found Alex behind the wheel.
Is that what Hailey remembers? Babyface shooting Alex?
It’s plausible.
A wall and a window could be the car’s interior, but if she was conscious, Babyface would’ve shot her too. He’d have shot her first if Alex was out already.
My veins fill with ice at the thought and my eyes immediately find her pretty face to reassure myself she’s here.
Alive.
Well.
Mine.
I’m in so fucking deep with her already.
It’s beyond irrational. I came here filled with a burning, poisonous hatred for her. But now the mere thought of Hailey getting hurt drives a seven-inch blade right through my chest. Seeing her bruises last night was agonizing.
I’ve tortured many men. I’ve seen things… done things that would give the average Joe nightmares for the rest of eternity. Still, I brushed it all off as if it were nothing. I’ve brushed off my own wounds but one bruise, one tiny scratch, on Hailey sends my mind into overdrive.
It’s not normal. Nothing I feel for her is fucking normal, welcome, or desired.
“So the gun went off. What happened next? You were out of it for three minutes. What else did you see?”
Her face scrunches up, deep in concentration. “I remember running… fast. Like I was being chased. The ground was uneven, my shoes were wet, and I tripped over something, landing in the mud.”
“You’re sure it was the same night?”
“Yes.”
The cogs in my brain start grinding against each other again.
The police report said Hailey was speared into the seat. She wouldn’t have been able to move. Even if she somehow managed to get out of the car, there’s no way she’d have had the strength to crawl five feet let alone run.
“There were streetlamps,” she says quietly. “In the distance. Blurred and far away.”
Before I respond, a familiar voice interrupts, startling Hailey.
“Hey, mind if I join you?” Chloe’s beside our table, tray in hand, her red, puffy eyes jumping between us.
Rumor has it the cops have stopped looking for Jensen; Chloe’s not taking it well.
“No one else is up yet,” she adds.
“Well, we’re just—” Hailey starts but I cut her off, sensing an easy way out.
“Sit, Chloe.” I point to the chair on my left.
“We’re done?” Hailey asks, one eyebrow raised.
“You need a break, pretty girl. We’ll finish later.”
“Oh, okay.”
“Um, if you need a break from… whatever, I could use your help for about an hour, maybe two,” Chloe says. “It’s Levi’s final film project. He’s late getting his shit together so Rachel and I have agreed to play the leads. We’re shooting a few scenes tonight and I can’t find Rachel, so… could you run lines with me?”
Hailey steals a glance at me as she answers. “Sure, I mean we don’t have any plans, do we?”
“No, we don’t.”
“Great. Can we do it now?” Chloe pulls a chunky script from her bag.
I round the table, leaning over my girl for a kiss. “Come find me when you’re done. I need to make a few calls.”
The small frown between her brows tells me she’s confused, maybe a little suspicious. I’ll deal with that later. Now, I need answers. Or at least to set the wheels in motion to get them.
I fish a half-empty packet from my inside pocket as soon as I exit the building. I’ve not had a cigarette since the night I battered Jensen and the headrush hits hard when I fill my lungs with smoke, dialing Ryder’s number on one of the burner phones. This conversation is not meant for my father’s ears.
I’ve been sending Rhett—or rather his men—on wild goose chases all week, feeding him bullshit intel about places Alex supposedly met with Aalyiah.
“Send your people there. Have them turn the place upside down, break the fucking walls, rip the floors.”
The longer I can keep him running around in circles—thinking he’s getting nearer to Alex’s stash—the longer I have to figure out what the fuck happened on the night of the accident and where the evidence actually is.
Ryder answers after two rings, his voice gruff. “To what do I owe this doubtful pleasure?”
It’s barely past eight am in Chicago. I bet he didn’t crawl into his bed until at least four in the morning.
“Get up, run a cold shower over your head and call me back. I need you focused.”
“I am focused.” The bed creaks in the background, then I hear his footsteps echoing through his apartment. “Go on, talk.” The distinct click of Zippo followed by a sharp inhale tells me Ryder’s dragged himself out onto the balcony, probably in nothing more than his boxers. “Is your girl there?”
“No, she’s not.”
“Good. A little heads-up next time would be appreciated. I almost slipped up.”
No, he didn’t.
Ryder never slips up, he’s grumpy and looking for a reason to give me some shit after I dragged him out of bed at this ungodly hour.
“So? Why am I up at eight in the morning?”
Surrounding myself with smoke, I outline what happened last night and what Hailey saw.
“She sure keeps your life entertaining,” Ryder muses, the clink of glasses piercing my ears. “What do you need from me? I’m good, but I can’t hack her brain, Boss.”
Him and his stupid jokes.
“I need to find out more, cross things off the list for certain. Can you pull Hailey’s hospital admission records? I need the details—what she was wearing, where she was hurt, who brought her in, who admitted her. Everything we don’t have.”
“I don’t think there’s anything more there. You said there’s no way she remembers Babyface shooting Alex so why do you need all that?”
“I’ve been here for weeks, Ryder, and I still don’t know shit. I’d rather triple-check every detail and prove myself right three times than miss something that proves me wrong.”
A chuckle rings in my ear. “Sounds like you’re homesick. Missing the fun? I thought you’d quenched your thirst with that Jason guy.”
“Jensen,” I seethe. “Where are you on Alex’s second phone? There’s nothing useful in his texts with Aalyiah, but if—”
I pause, a light bulb bursting in my head. Fuck. Hailey.
An adrenaline rush fills my veins, but the endorphins from my brilliant idea swiftly fade into hesitation. I wouldn’t have hesitated a couple of weeks ago but now… I don’t take breaching Hailey’s privacy lightly.
It’s bad enough that I read her diary. It’s bad enough that I’m lying to her while she gives me everything I never knew I wanted.
Needed.
I’m betraying her in the worst fucking way and I’m about to up my game even further.
Reading through her texts with Alex, her father, any friends she might’ve had, and, learning about the last two years of her life while her mind’s still only piecing together the fragments… that’s a brand-new level of cruel.
“Carter? You there?” Ryder mumbles, chewing loudly. “What’s going on?”
A battle rages inside my head. It’s won quickly by the need to protect her, even if protecting her means betraying her trust. The sooner I find the evidence, the sooner this ends—the sooner Hailey’s safe.
I can’t brush this idea under the table. It’s a chance to dissect this mess, and a chance is all I fucking need.
“I need the call and text records from Hailey’s old phone.”
“Her dad’s a cop. Don’t you think he would’ve wiped them?”
I butt out the cigarette, immediately lighting another. “We’re not dismissing ideas based on don’t you think. Do it. Dig deep. I need a breakthrough, Ryder.”
“Alright, but don’t get your hopes up. Vaughn doesn’t strike me as someone who makes rookie mistakes.”
“I know. Just… find what you can. And check out Officer Matthews while you’re at it.”
“Matthews…” he echoes, probably jotting the information down. “Got it. Am I looking for anything specific on him?”
“He’s supposedly Vaughn’s most trusted friend. I need to know if he can really be trusted or if he’s taking bribes like the rest of them.”
Running a check on the guy was on my way long to-do list, but the shit with Jensen, the trip to Boston, Hailey getting lost in the woods, her flashbacks, and Rhett bugging my phone, took center stage, sending Matthews into the background.
Hailey’s turning my brain to fucking mush.
