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I frown, but I go to my computer and search the name. Sure enough,Icome up. There are only a few photos, but my heart immediately thumps with a weird, new heaviness. This is some other woman’s life, not mine.
Jacob
You still there?
Just trying to make sense of it all…
Thank you. Really.
See you tomorrow.
Tomorrow can’t come soon enough.
My head aches, blurring my vision. I bookmark the social media page and close the old laptop. I double-check my door is locked, and the window, too, then go to sleep. And I pray that when I wake up, everything is more normal than tonight.
Except it’s not.
I wake up naked.
I don’t know what happened. There’s no suspicious liquids on me, no extra hickeys or bruises to catalog, but tears immediately fill my eyes. Someone was in here, I know it in my bones. Not that it’s hard to pick that type of lock, I’d bet. He stripped me. God knows what else he did while I was unconscious.
I pack more clothes—all of them, really. I just shove everything into a bag and wait until Thomas and Natalie have left, and then I leave, too. I practically run right out the door and stop dead.
Jacob’s truck is idling at the curb. Waiting for me.
All those emotions I’ve been trying to suppress come roaring to the surface.
And I burst into tears.
12
JACOB
Melody climbs into my truck, tossing her bag in the back, and practically throws herself into my arms. I catch her, hugging her tightly to me.
I can guess why she’s upset.
The urge to drag her across the center seat and into my lap is burning through me, but I manage to resist. I stop myself from pressing my lips to her cheek, too. From any physical contact.
“I need to get out of that house,” she says, her lips moving against my throat.
My fucking traitorous cock stiffens, like I didn’t just jerk off over her sleeping form a few hours ago. And fuck her hours before that.
“Please. Can you help me?”
“What do you need?”
She hesitates and draws back. Her lashes are darkened by mascara behind her glasses, but other than that she’s not wearing a lick of makeup. It doesn’t matter if she wears makeup—her skin is flawless, her hazel eyes more green than brown today. My gaze drops to the scar on her throat.
I set Bill on finding out more about her hospital stay. I want a list of her injuries, what the doctors think it could’ve come from, if the police were involved. Questions I don’t want to ask Melody, because I don’t know if she’ll remember it accurately. I need an outside source.
She avoids my eyes. Pink colors her cheeks. “Somewhere to stay. Maybe you know someone who’s renting a room, or—”
“I have an extra room. You’re welcome to it until you get on your feet.”
Her breath hitches. “Jacob, I don’t think—”
“Don’t think, just do.” I smile at her, trying to be reassuring. But honestly, this is the most precarious part of my plot. She could try to say no. She could try to disappear again.
