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I nod against his shoulder.
I’ll get that proof. I’m going to confront Ross, my bully, and make him confess. If his problem is with me, then this is the only way.
Chapter Thirty-One
Matt
Octavia is a mass of nerves, and my own thoughts are too much of a fucking tangle to reassure her everything will be okay.
It has to, right? If Ross is doing this, the police are on it. And what the hell will he do? Kill more cats? Write on the windows?
Fucking boo.
I’ll take that fucker down, if the police refuse to touch him. Scaring us, scaring my kids and my girl isn’t fucking acceptable.
My girl.
Fuck.
If not for the unease in my gut telling me this isn’t over, that things will get worse, I’d have gone off to punch something.
Because if this crazy psycho has it in for me and my kids, then he has it in for her, too—and if she got one threatening message already, then I’m scared goddamn shitless it won’t be the last.
I was weightless last night. Free. Not pinned down. With her in my arms, I was flying on top of the nightmares, never sucked in.
Now it feels as though the weight of the world has crashed back down on me.
Leaving Octavia with the kids, I call John Elba and tell him what happened, more to keep him up-to-date than expecting
anything to be done.
As predicted, he says the words were probably already in the book when I moved here, or were written by some kid when I was leaving Cole with Dolly.
“I’m sorry to say it, Hansen,” he says. “But if this isn’t a prank like I think and you’re right that this is some psycho, then the key is you. It all points to you. You are the link.”
“Is that so?” I growl, just because I know no other way of letting my frustration out.
“That is so. Octavia got a message, and she is connected to you. She says her boyfriend got a message, and he is connected through her to y—”
“He’s not her goddamn boyfriend.”
There’s a silence at the other end of the line.
It allows me to think about what I’ve said, and how I said it.
Jesus.
But John goes on, “And then the messages you got point to your kids and your past. Nobody is talking about Octavia’s past. Only about her connection to you.”
About me fucking her.
I don’t know what’s going on, but somehow I dragged her into my shit, into the bullying I want to save her from, and maybe into real danger, too.
“John…” I hesitate. I’ve closed myself off for so long it’s hard opening up to people, but hell, I’m trying. If anything, what I feel around Octavia made me realize I have to start relying on people more. “I have a bad hunch about this.”
There, I’ve said it. It’s off my fucking chest.
Or it should be, but it’s still there, dammit—weighing a ton, crushing my lungs.
