Page 62
Whatever she saw back there was bad.
She jumps when I open the door, relaxing only marginally when I close us in again. Her eyes stay glued to the side mirror as if the only way to ensure that we’re safe, that there are no creatures following us, is to keep the retreating house in her sights.
Wipers swipe away the rain, refreshing the view again and again as we drive away. When the bungalow is no longer visible, she asks, “Where are we going?”
“The estate, for now.” I hesitate to add to her burden, to fill her in on all the things she missed while I had her on hold. Jesus, I fucking put her on hold while she stared down her literal nightmare come to life.
“Why?” She asks it twice, her voice breaking on the first attempt.
I heave out a sigh and divulge the secret that affects us both. “Amie’s dead, and Evie’s missing.”
Chapter 25
Missing
JESS
Probably the only thing that could shake me out of my detox of adrenaline is another rapid dump.
“What do you mean missing?” I push myself up, sitting straighter in the seat, alert and on edge but for an entirely different reason. My hand shakes violently as I reach for the seat warmer and turn it on as high as it can go.
Eddie glances at me, does a double-take, and then focuses on the wet pavement in front of us. “Are you okay?”
“No, Eddie. I’m not fucking okay. I just saw my goddamn life pass before my eyes, filled my boot with puke, ruined my favorite set of knives—they were crazy expensive and custom balanced for me—and now I have to burn my house to the fucking ground. And you just casually toss out there that part of my heart is missing? No. Just fucking—oh shit.” I pull my other boot off just in time to catch the contents of my stomach. “Dear God, I don’t know how there’s even any bile left to heave.”
He offers up his water bottle, and I gladly do a rinse-and-spit before taking a tentative sip. My esophagus burns from the abuse it’s suffered, and I don’t want to piss my stomach off again anytime soon. “How are you this calm?”
His brows rise as he tips his head to the side and sighs. “I don’t fucking know. I think it helps to know that you’re safe, to have you here with me.” He glances at me gauging how his words land, maybe. Okay with whatever he thinks he sees, he continues, “You were never just a convenience, you know that, right?”
I open my mouth to respond, but his phone rings through Bluetooth and Teague’s name flashes across the screen in the console.
Eddie hits accept and without any preamble says, “What have you found?”
“You have Jess?” comes through the speakers, his brogue thicker than usual.
“Right here,” I say. “Where’s Evie?”
“Christ, it’s good to hear you sounding better. You’re all right, then?”
Eddie patiently waits for me to reply, but his knuckles are blanched with how hard he grips the steering wheel. “I’m fine, T. Where’s Evie? She’s the one we need to worry about right now, not me.”
Eddie reaches for my hand, and I have to shuffle my water bottle with the boot of bile so he can give it a squeeze. Of thanks… reassurance. A bid for strength…
“Right, well. I’ll be needing you to reroute yourselves to Hibou’s house. Do you know where that is?”
Eddie pulls his hand back from mine and asks for the address, inputting it into his navigation system. His jaw works the entire time, the muscles bunching and flexing.
“What? No, why?” is all I can manage.
“Erm, well. I had a great conversation with the nanny when I got to Amie’s place. The good doctor has been your baby-mama’s most recent ride. And while we all knew he was a bit odd and accepted it because he was always available when something went down, there was more to him than all that.”
I mumble, “No shit.”
Eddie’s entire body stiffens. “He’s been around my daughter? She let that… that…”
“Careful, man,” Teague interrupts. “He’s a bad person. The bad apple… Okay, the rotten apple in a bushel of questionable produce. But do not lump the family who has your back into the same basket as that slimy bastard.”
Eddie expels the air from his lungs, but the anger there is barely contained. “I’m not. One of the conditions of shared custody was that I had to be made aware of who she brought around Evie. I didn’t trust Amie to make sound choices. She fucking used me, fucked with my condoms, and got pregnant as a misguided way into the inner circle.”
