Each time he said it, it felt like he was stabbing me one more time, letting me bleed out and suffer a slow, agonizing death. When I couldn't take anymore, when I needed the torture to be over, I stopped walking and turned to face him. I steadied my gaze and looked him right in the eye.
In that moment, it wasn’t red that I saw. It was blue. Radiant blue, like the color of his eyes. I don’t remember the look on his face. I just remember the beautiful color blue clouding my vision.
Before I could say anything, he jumped in. “You were my only reason to come back here.”
“Well, ain’t nothing holding you here now.”
I turned and started to run. I had no destination in mind. I just needed to get away from the hurt. But, it traveled with me.
I ran faster.
There were no sound of boots on the gravel behind me, no smell of leather or of sweaty man. No beautiful blue eyes to make it all stop. It was just me, left alone again with all the pain I just couldn’t seem to get rid of.
It would have hurt less if he’d just shot me instead.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
OUR TOWN MAY HAVE LOOKED like the Mayberry of tourist destinations, but if you were to come inside and stay a while, it wouldn't take you long to learn that filth, decay and darkness were the glue holding it all together.
It was time for me to get the fuck out. Every reason I’d ever had to stay put in that town had left.
I shoved the few things I owned into my backpack. I needed to get out of there, and I needed to do it as soon as possible. Even though I had nowhere to go, I was still in a rush to leave. It’s not like Jake would be barging through the door at any moment—I knew that much. I’d heard his thunderous bike fading into the distance over the bridge minutes before.
I knew it would be the last time that comforting sound ever touched my ears.
I left my keys on the rack and swung the door open to leave. I wanted to turn around, to take one last look at the rooms where we’d shared so much happiness in so short a time, but I couldn’t let myself bring that to the surface. The air in the apartment was sticking to me, suffocating me.
I had to get out.
I grabbed my hoodie and stuffed it into my bag before gunning for the door.
I was in such a hurry to leave I ran right into the doughy chest of Sheriff Fletcher. He was standing on the porch, his fist raised in the air, about to knock. He didn’t react to me slamming into him or ask me what was wrong when he saw my tear-stained face. In his suspicious, coal-colored eyes, I saw a flash of knowledge, of recognition, and I knew that he knew everything.
Owen. Jake. Everything. He knew what his monster of a nephew had done.
The sheriff handed me a thick yellow envelope and walked away without uttering a word.
I closed the door and sat back down on the couch, losing my will to flee. I dropped my backpack onto the floor beside my feet and examined the envelope in my hands. It was too thick and heavy to be a letter. My name was written in feminine handwriting, in large black marker across the top flap. I opened the seal and poured the contents out onto the coffee table.
What little there was left of my heart nearly stopped.
It was money—stacks that had bands around them, labeling how much was in each. I had never seen so much money in my entire life. I prodded around inside the envelope. There was no note—just a business card. It read Bethany Annabelle Fletcher, ESQ, Attorney at Law. Owen’s mother. And on the other side, in the same handwriting as my name on the envelope it read:
To ease your troubles…
The Fletchers were trying to clean up Owen’s little mess. This made them as sick and twisted as Owen. At least I knew then where he got it from. The money— ten-thousand dollars from what I estimated—was hush money, meant to keep me quiet. The Fletchers obviously didn’t want people to know that their golden boy was really a sadistic rapist. The thought made me gag.
I wondered how many times he’d done this before, how many times this worked for them in the past.
It sure as shit wasn’t going to work with me.
Bethany Fletcher was trying to give me money to ease my troubles. Like money would undo the damage Owen had done to me, over and over again. There truly was only one thing that could ease my troubles completely. Since Jake was gone now, it was no longer an option.
But if Jake were here…
He wasn’t, though, and he would never be again. I would never experience his reassuring touch. I would never again see his stone face turn soft when he looked at me. This kind of pain, coming from a heart that I thought I had successfully closed off to the outside world years ago, was worse than any physical pain anyone could cause me. It was worse than what I’d experienced the morning after Owen attacked me.
I would go through what Owen put me through a thousand times over to have Jake be the person I thought he was.
Jake would put Owen to ground if he knew, and I would want him to. Frankly, I didn’t care if that thought made me a bad person. Bad, good. Right, wrong. The lines were so blurry lately. I was in love with a killer, and I wanted Owen dead.