Nick held up his phone to look at the picture.“It could be a relative.Son, nephew.I’ll run this through the system and see what comes up.”
“Yeah.It could.”
Nick waited for me to recover, his arms folded, his eyes fixed on the end of the alley.
I straightened up, brushed imaginary dirt from my jeans, and squared my shoulders.“I can do this,” I said, mostly to myself.
Nick looked at me, searching my face for any sign of another freakout.“We can go back to the hotel and return tomorrow, if you need a break.”
“No.We need to find that house,” I answered, determined.
A drink would’ve been nice right about now, though.It was probably a bad idea, considering we were on a motorcycle, but if there was ever a time I needed to drown out the past, it was now.
Nick gave a short nod, then held out his hand.I hesitated before taking it.His grip was warm and dry, anchoring me in the present.Maybe with him holding me, I could face that blue door and not lose it completely.
We walked back out into the now empty street, as if that man had never been there at all, as if he was just a ghost.
But he had been here, even if he wasn’t really one of those men.
I looked up at Nick, his jaw set with quiet fury—but he wasn’t angry at me.I could tell from the way he angled his body to protect me, the way he held my hand, that he simply hated what had happened to me all those years ago, hated that I was back in this cursed town where I might run into someone I never wanted to face again.
But with him here, I felt safe despite it all.This feeling wouldn’t last, but for now it was enough.
We moved on, through street after street, looking at every door, until finally, after what felt like an eternity, I saw it.
The house at the end of the street, smaller than I remembered, hunched under a drooping porch.The door was a shade lighter and some of the paint peeled off, but it was the same house.
I felt my stomach drop into my shoes.“That’s it,” I said, barely above a whisper.
Nick followed me to the edge of the property, eyes alert, cataloguing every window and door.“Do you recognize any cars?”he asked.
I scanned the driveway, but the two cars parked there didn’t look familiar.
“There used to be a big, green Oldsmobile.”I shrugged at my own description.“Sorry, I was never into cars.”
Nick grunted, then pointed at the house.“You want to get closer?”
“No,” I said, too fast.I couldn’t.Not with my heart in my throat and my skin prickling.
“Alright.I’ll just write down the address and see what I can find when we get back to the hotel.”Nick pulled out the phone and wrote down the information, then steered me back to the motorcycle.
Finally, this awful trip was over, and I could return to the hotel to get plastered.
