A soft light from the kitchen draws me down the hallway. No voices.
Hattie looks up from the kitchen table when I enter, a piece of paper in her hand, her face flushed and wet with tears. The phone with the black floral case sits in front of her.
I disconnected our call shortly after I told Hattie I was on my way. I couldn’t stand hearing and not understanding her at the same time. Knowing she was on Beth’s phone, and that Beth was now without one.
I move further into the room, ready to ask for an address.
“I was hoping she was at your house. That she changed her mind,” Hattie whispers, her eyes drifting to the paper. “We got home late from the bar last night. Her car was gone, but we figured she was still with you, so we went to bed. I didn’t find her note telling us goodbye until this morning.” Our eyes lock. She pushes away from the table, standing. “Reed, we can’t let her go back to that man. I don’t know what happened between you two, or if this is just because of the stuff with her dad, which I feel so horrible about, but she can’t go back there. Not there. He was awful to her.” Her face falls apart in tears. A hand covers her mouth, muffling her sobs.
He was awful to her? HE.
I stare at Hattie as every muscle in my body locks up at once. As the conversations with Beth about her life in Kentucky flood my mind with snapshots of information.
Her mom dying. Beth homeless, living in her car. Until . . .
I was so absorbed in her absence, in the address I needed to pry from Hattie, I didn’t consider who Beth was going back to.
The guy she was with before me. The stranger who took her in. The one she didn’t seem keen on discussing.
“Nobody. Just this guy I met. It doesn’t matter.”
She couldn’t satisfy me with an answer quick enough on the phone. Then a day later, in my arms, she was vague again.
“Relationships change. There’s really nothing more to it.”
Fuck. FUCK. What didn’t she tell me? I understood her reserve as a sad moment in her life she didn’t want to dwell on. I could tell she was uncomfortable discussing it. I didn’t want to pry. I didn’t want to sound desperate to know her.
This is all my fault.
And God, I was desperate, to anything involving her. I was sated and starved at the same time.
My nostrils flare in time with the heavy expansion of my chest. I begin to pace. “What did he do to her? Who is this guy? Fuck!” My hands tug my hair. “Fuck, Hattie! Did he hurt Beth? My Beth? Who the fuck is he?”
She lifts her hand. “Shh. Reed, please. You’ll wake Danny. I don’t want him to know about this yet. He’ll drive up there and kill that man. I won’t be able to talk him down.”
I grip the back of a chair, leaning over it. My teeth clench. “What did he do to her?”
She stares at me for a long second, her eyes misting. “I think he was just very mean,” she explains quickly, wiping her fingers across her cheek to catch the fresh tears. “She said he never touched her, nothing like that, but I could tell, Reed. She said she never would’ve stayed with him if she had anywhere else to go. Why would she have said that if he was a good guy?”
I take in several slow, deep breaths, relaxing my grip on the chair before I split the wood.
Beth.
“A name,” I growl, pulling Hattie’s eyes back up to mine. “I need a name, and an address. Please tell me you know where this shit-head lives.”
Her shoulders drop. “I don’t have an address. His name is Rocco. That’s all I know. I don’t know his last name either. I’m sorry.” She pinches her lips into a thin line when the bottom one begins to tremble.
I tug the phone out of my pocket.
“Who are you calling?”
Sliding the chair out, I slump down, leaning forward onto my elbows. I hold the phone in one hand while the other cradles my head. My throat constricts. I feel dizzy, sick with blame, with a number of other emotions I’ve rarely ever felt. Some entirely foreign to me.
Rage.
Fear.
Loss.
Love.
I press the phone to my ear as a chair moves along the floor behind me. Hattie’s taken her seat. The call connects after the second ring.
“What’s up?”
“I need you to find someone for me. I need an address, and it can’t fucking wait, okay? Can you help me?”
“Hol-Hold on. Hey, turn that down a minute,” Ben says away from the phone. The police scanner quiets. “What the hell is going on?”
“Who is that?” I recognize Luke’s quick to annoy tone.
“It’s Beth. She’s gone. She went back to Louisville, to this guy. I need to go get her. I need to bring her back. She can’t be with him. I need . . .”
“Whoa, slow down,” Ben interrupts. “What about Beth?”
Swallowing, I cringe when I taste bile. I take in a shaky breath, blinking the room into focus.
“She left. It’s my fault.”
I try to speak slowly, to let the words settle in the air, but the longer they linger on my tongue, the sicker I feel.
I want them out. I want Beth back. I need to tell her so many things.