Page 18 of Love At Peace

The first line to a text from an unknown number read: I’ll be at the apartment later tonight.

The next read: No. I’ll come over and pick you up.

“That accounts for why his truck would be here,” I said.

“But that means he’s been gone since last night?” Heather guessed.

“There are only so many apartments around here, though,” Marty said. “That’s a start.” With a glance at Heather, he asked, “Want to ride with me?”

Once more, she looked at me. If I had to borrow hope and let it get high, I would’ve thought she wanted to go with me. To be near me. She was staying strong but I saw the slight signs of sign cracking her.

“Yeah. Let’s hurry, please,” she replied, tearing her gaze away from me.

I sighed, following Gavin to his truck to go along with them.

She might not want me to butt into her life. She said she wanted me to give up on anything happening between us.

But I saw the longing and worry in her eyes.

She could tell me to fuck off, but I saw the evidence of how much she wanted me near, too.

You can be mad at me all you want, gorgeous, but I’ve never been a quitter.

And I’m not about to give up on you. On us.

Chapter 7

Heather

Ididn’t need to ride with Marty into town, but I did. It made no sense to take two cars. I was sure he could take me back to the ranch so I could pick up my car. I also tried not to mind riding alongside him for the sake of not feeling alone and out of control.

It was on the tip of my tongue to ask Roarke to be with me. I wanted to blurt out a question if I could ride with him and Gavin. That would’ve been backtracking on what I’d demanded of him. I couldn’t tell him that we were done and that I wanted him to leave me alone, then in the next moment, ask if he could give me some support.

I refused to send mixed signals like that. I wouldn’t. Yet, I hated this panicky feeling that something was wrong with Eric.

Why would he not have his phone with him?

My cousin wasn’t a man of many words, but everyone kept their phones on them. The first thing that came to mind was that he’d struggled with someone and dropped it in the thick grass.

Why would he want to go to an apartment?

Because he was a man of few words and consistently socially awkward, it seemed plausible that he didn’t have many friends. Sure, he went to the bar with his coworkers from the Grand River, but he didn’t seem to have a big circle of acquaintances—he hadn’t when I was younger and I didn’t suspect he did now.

Who would’ve picked him up?

That pressured me to think more on if he had a close friend or some kind of an arrangement with someone in town, but I doubted it. He just wasn’t that social. Perhaps keeping to oneself and lying low was just a James family trait as far as our generation was concerned.

As the questions bombarded me, I paid attention to Marty driving into town and speaking on his radio piece. It seemed that an accident had happened near the expressway, but other units were closer to the site. Once he’d settled that correspondence, he turned to me.

“I’m going to check out that place near the bowling alley first,” he told me.

I nodded, familiar with the tall building. In fact, that was the one that stay-at-home mom lived at.

The one where she saw Nevaeh and David together...

I swallowed hard and tried to find my voice. Dread snaked through me again, and I hated how easily I could be rendered an emotional mess because of that damn man.

No. Come on. Stop this. Be rational and think.