“You got a kid?”
“Fucker,” Zane says without heat. “Try to keep up.”
But I tuned out of life for too long. “I will,” I vow and let them inside the house.
We don’t linger. I make some coffee, and we go back out on the porch to drink it, not to wake up the others.
Then Zane walks down to the cop standing by the police car and somehow gets the latest update and the address of the motel where Jeff Adams was staying until yesterday.
Well, I’ll be damned.
“Told you he’s a charmer,” Rafe mutters, lifting a brow at Zane who bares his teeth in a dangerous grin.
Who would’ve thought? He sure seems different, though, despite the perpetual aggressiveness and bad boy attitude.
He seems… happy. Still dangerous, but also content. Easier in his skin than I’ve ever seen him.
“What else did the cop tell you?” I glance at the police car. Now two cops are sitting inside, looking bored and tired. “Last thing they told me was that they were going through the motel room again.”
John told me that. I called him several times throughout the night, but he had no real news for me.
“Yeah, no clues there,” Zane says. “Guy is good at covering his tracks. How the hell did you get yourself into this mess, man?” He scowls at me. “You lost a baby you never knew you had, girlfriend dead and her brother suddenly coming after you?”
“Just lucky, I guess,” I mutter, my mind elsewhere. John said the same thing. Why now? And why here? “What changed?” I mutter.
“What are you talking about?” Zane demands.
“Why would her fucking brother come after me after all these years, here of all places?”
Rafe looks up from where he’s checking his phone. “You seriously hoping for a rational explanation?”
We stand on the porch as the sun comes up. There’s an ache in my chest, a gaping hole. I need her. I’m failing her.
I can’t take this any damn longer. “Have to find her,” I whisper, rubbing again at my chest. “Fuck waiting any longer.”
But where to look?
“Her mom’s house,” Rafe says. “We can start there.”
“The police checked it.”
“We check again,” he says. “We will find her.”
Unlike when John said it, the conviction in Rafe’s voice hits me like a shot of adrenaline straight to the heart.
“Yeah, let’s start there.” I start down the steps.
“Get in my truck,” Zane says, “and I’ll drive. I don’t trust you behind the wheel right now.”
Just as well. I don’t trust myself today, either.
I call John as we climb into Zane’s beaten-up pick-up truck. “Any news?” I ask the moment he answers, no preamble, no niceties.
“Hansen.” He sounds rough, as exhausted as I feel. “We found a receipt from another motel out of town in his things. We’re checking that and—”
“Just keep me posted.”
There’s a sense of urgency now that the guys are here. A sense we can find her, with or without the help of the police. It’s probably a false sense of hope from seeing familiar faces, having their support after all this time when I was trying to keep them away and survive this on my own.
I direct Zane to Octavia’s house, and as we round the corner and it appears, silent and still in the morning light, I slump back in the seat, my breath coming short and rattling.
Zane grips my shoulder hard. “Hold on in there, fucker.”
“She’s not here,” I whisper, not sure how I think I know that. “He wouldn’t bring her here. Too fucking easy. He doesn’t want it to be easy anymore.”
“You said he’s trying to scare you.” Rafe is frowning at the house. “Make you feel what he felt when his sister died. He doesn’t want it too easy. But he has been giving you clues.”
I barely hear him. “He’s gonna kill her.”
“Man, breathe, okay?” Zane shakes me. “And why the fuck are you saying that?”
“That’s what he said in his last message. He said, ‘You will lose what’s precious to you.’” I pull on my beard, then my hair. I barely feel any pain. “He made me think it would be the kids. Maybe that was his first idea, too. But then… he decided to take Octavia. He lost his sister. Motherfucker will take Octavia from me.”
“Matt, listen to me,” Zane says, and I try. “He’s not getting out of town. The police have roadblocks.”
“They do?” I blink at him stupidly.
“They are taking this seriously, man.”
Yeah. I guess I know that, but it didn’t occur to me they’d close off the town.
“We only have to think like he does. Where he’d go. And why.” Zane lets go of my shoulder. “Where did you last see him?”
“The garage. Jasper’s Garage, where I work. You think he’d hole up there with her?”
“With her or not, that makes no difference. He may have locked her up someplace. If we find the sick fuck, he will tell us where she is.”
Rafe is nodding, and hell, he’s right.
“Let’s go, then. What are we waiting for?”
The shop is still closed, so I call Evan to open for us. He answers after the seventh or eighth ring, sounding like a something out of a horror movie.
“Wha?” he rasps, voice hoarse and gritty. “Who’s that?”
“Evan, it’s me, Matt Hansen. Look, I need you to open the garage for me.”
“The hell? It’s… not even five in the morning, man. What’s wrong with you?”
Lots is wrong with me, and right now I’m not in the mood to explain. “I’ll owe you a big one, man. Okay? Please help me out.”
He grumbles something unintelligible and hangs up on me, but soon after we park outside the garage, he appears walking down the deserted street like a grumpy ghost.
He unlocks the shop and scowls at me. “You gonna tell me what this is about?”
“We’re looking for someone,” I mutter, shoving past him and entering.
“Who?”
“That Adam guy.”
“Octavia’s non-boyfriend? You serious right now?” He follows me as I go searching the place, Zane and Rafe splitting to check the back of the shop. I start opening doors, checking the store room, Jasper’s office, looking behind cars. “Is this for real?”
“Yep.” Where would you hide yourself in a fucking car workshop?
“Why are you looking for him?”
“He took Octavia.” Damn, I wasn’t gonna talk about it.
“You nuts? What are you…?” He grabs me and I jerk my arm free. His eyes widen. “You are serious.”
“Like a death note,” I grind out.
“And how would he have entered? Only I have the key, and Jasper and—”
“Ross, right? Fucking Ross.”
Evan shakes his head. “But Ross hates the guy’s guts. He disliked him from the first look, not like…”
I stop. “Not like what?”
“Jessica. Jessica Moore, who owns the ice cream shop down the street?”
“Ice cream. He and Octavia used to go for ice cream in the evenings. You told me that.”
He blinks. “Well, yeah.”
And the owner of the shop likes that fuckface Jeff Adams.