Achingly so.
Until my hands slide around his neck.
He pulls me to him so that I’m drawn to my knees, his arm wrapped around my waist, our bodies pressed together as he lowers us onto the bed, and I’m so euphorically grateful for this freedom. This gift. This tantalizing distraction. Kissing Jude Vandenberg pushes the investigation, the missing girls, and Callie Reese far, far away.
I don’t want to stop.
Not ever.
But in one smooth maneuver, Jude flips us over so I’m on top of him, his arm bent casually behind his head as he rests back against the pillow, looking in complete control, and ever-so-slightly amused. Like he knows exactly what he’s doing.
I narrow my eyes playfully.
He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear.
I rest my head against his chest, relishing the sound of his heartbeat when a knock sounds at the door.
Jude groans, but he gets up and answers it anyway. Isabel stands on the other side. She never came to the hospital. Not like the Calloways. Not like my dad.
I try to make out their voices, but they’re low and muffled in the hallway. When he returns, heshuts the door with a soft click and drags a hand down his face.
“The police called,” he says. “They want us to come to the station to give a statement.”
My stomach churns.
I picture Ms. Winslow, racing to the front desk. I picture Griffin Tate, thrusting his phone in the officer’s face. What is more cruel? Telling the truth? Or letting them hold on to hope?
I worry my bottom lip. “Are we going to tell them what happened?”
“They’d never believe us if we did.”
He’s right, of course.
Despite all the evidence, even the craziness that occurred at the ball, they’d think we were joking. Or maybe insane. Just like the Abners thought of my mother. She wanted, more than anything, to help Simon Vandenberg and his family. But the adults in her life wouldn’t listen to a truth so preposterous. She doubled down and ended up in a psych ward where she was probably forced onto antipsychotics.
Was that what led to her addiction? If she’d just stayed quiet, would she have been okay? Or was it the silence that killed her?
Jude pulls me up from his bed.
“So what are we going to tell them, then?” I ask.
“A palatable version of the truth,” he suggests. “We were near the mausoleum when something shifted beneath the ground. We don’t knowexactly what happened. We’re just glad we made it out.”
“So glad,” I whisper.
He wraps me in a hug.
“The officer at the hospital made it sound like they think it could’ve been a prank.” Knots twist in my stomach. My fingerprints and Twig’s fingerprints are all over that part of the cemetery. “Do you think there’s a chance Twig and I could be implicated?”
“No,” he says.
I lean back and study his face. “That’s a confident answer.”
He flashes a crooked grin. “What’s the benefit of money and connections if you can’t use them in your favor?”
“Does this mean you’ll be around to use them?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
