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Chapter Twenty-Nine
Maverick
Something is wrong.
I felt it in my blood before the hour passed and students began to trickle out of the buildings and into the quad. I stood up from where I sat around the fountain, searching overheads for Josie but she didn’t show.
Sweat began to build on my hairline from the Louisiana sun, drenching my t-shirt and hindering my breath. Five minutes passed before I walked toward the writing center to find India sitting at her desk.
“Where is Josie?” I asked.
She snatched an earbud from her ear. “She left about fifteen minutes ago.”
I dug my phone out of my pocket and called her. It went straight to voicemail. “She isn’t answering.”
India gave me a strange look. “She probably went to the cafeteria or ran into someone—,”
“No,” I barked. “She was supposed to meet me at the fountain.”
India stood up. “She did say she was meeting you toexchange notes. I’ll try campus security, but it’s only been like twenty minutes and she’s an adult—,”
I barreled from the room, knowing India was right. I raced out into the sun, leaving her calling after me from the doorway. Josie would have called. She would have let me know somehow. Panic tightened its fingers around my airway.This is my fault.
I checked every on-campus restaurant, the library, the apartment, and parking lots before I went to the campus police. Just as I imagined they said it hadn’t been twenty-four hours yet.
“You don’t understand,” I spat. “We don’t have that long. She’ll be gone before then.”
The man behind the desk eyed me up and down. “How do you know? What’s your little friend gotten into?”
Sighing, I swiped my palm down my face. I couldn’t incriminate Derek without them checking it out or notifying the police. Who knew what he would do to her just because of me? She’d be dead before the police even began to take this seriously. “Nothing.”
I left the campus police station and fumbled with my keys, the sun began to sink behind the buildings, leaving an early evening glow over the road. I didn’t know where to go or what to do. I needed to go to the police but I didn't think they would believe me.
To them, I looked like a crazy boyfriend who couldn’t get in contact with his girlfriend.
Closing my eyes, I pressed my fist against my forehead and tried to steady my breathing. The only option I had was to stalk Derek and follow him, but he wasn’t a fool, and he would know. I knew the stores downtown didn’t have basements because of Artie’s, so he couldn’t keep the girls there.
Maybe at his house?Which helped me none because I didn’t know where he lived.Maybe a warehouse?
The metallic taste of blood soaked the inside of my mouth from the gnashing of my teeth.How am I going to find her?I raced toward my truck and started toward Zachary. I knew someone that would know something.
I texted Jordan to make sure Frankie made it home and he had something to eat. I didn’t want to risk him hearing the panic in my voice from a call. I rolled into my childhood home’s driveway twenty minutes later, my nerves racing through me like lightning.
If anyone knew anything about Derek, it would be my mother. Whether she had enough brain cells left to remember, or if she’d tell me was the question.
The putrid smell of filth mixed with the smell of whatever drug she was currently using attacked the air like an airborne disease. The empty house forced my blood to boil.Where is she?I hadn’t heard from her since Frankie moved in with me, which didn’t surprise me at all.
She’d taken that five hundred dollars and disappeared.
The only option I had was to check the police station or one of the rehabs downtown. The police officer who caught Josie and me at the field said she’d been prostituting. There was a place downtown where known prostitutes worked the corner. It was worth a shot.
I tried Josie’s phone again. Straight to voicemail.
“Please God,” I whispered to myself as I crossed the railroad tracks. “Let Josie be okay.”
I knew it was a long shot praying, after how I treated her in high school, but God was about forgiveness, right? The dark alleyway's air seemed harder to breathe through as I slowed my truck to a crawl in front of one of the bars.
Two women stood on the corner. One approached my window with long orange hair and a dress that left little to the imagination. “Hey Handsome,” she whispered, leaning into my truck.
