“Tiffany. The idea that she could be out there and I’m not working fast enough or making people care enough.” She balled his shirt in her fist. “It’s like this constant, sickening spinning you can’t stop.”
She absorbed it all, the guilt and the pressure. He understood her personality. He’d stomped out that part of him long ago.
“I’m more worried about you right now.” He skimmed his fingers over her hips and around to the small of her back. Held her there, close with their bodies barely touching.
“Meaning?”
“Someone came in here. Someone who didn’t break a window or trip your alarm.” He hated to bring that up now, but the facts would not leave his head. He needed her on guard and thinking about herself and not just about Tiffany, though he was pretty sure whatever happened tonight was related to her friend.
Emery bit her bottom lip. “The police think I left it off.”
Then the police didn’t understand her. “Did you?”
“No.”
“Because you never do.” He would bet on it.
“You think it’s silly.”
He thought it was damn smart. Repetitive actions drummed them into the head. “I didn’t say that.”
She smoothed out the wrinkles she put in his shirt. Brushed her palm over his stomach then did it again. “After it happened . . .”
She had so much going on that he wasn’t sure where the next comment would take them. “What are we talking about?”
“Do you have any idea how many nights I slept on the floor of the closet because I was sure whoever took Tiffany would come back for me?” The color drained from her face as she talked. “Everywhere I went people would whisper. Some insisted I saw the kidnapper and wasn’t talking.”
Jesus. “Emery.”
“That’s just the tip, and it’s the part that’s about me, but this touched everyone. Detective Cryer pushed and pushed until it almost cost him his job. Uncle Gavin was never the same. My aunt drank herself into a stupor until she finally disappeared. Teachers were shell-shocked. Our best friend, Tyler, was questioned over and over again because Tiffany had written about him in her diary.” She blew out a long breath. “Everything was different in the space of one night.”
“Your trust in adults, in people in general, changed.” He knew the drill. He had lived through a version of it.
“And life never bounced back. I still assume the worst. God, if I had met you a few years ago and you came on with the heavy-handed approach I would have tasered you and called the police.”
If she knew some of the thoughts bombarding his brain she might do it now. “But you’re calm.”
She looked around the room then focused on him again. Those big eyes stared at him, as if willing him to believe her. “You can’t really understand what it’s like to live through something like that.”
The truth sat there, the words damming up in his throat and begging to come out. Of all the things he did not share, this was the biggest. Garrett knew. People from his old life knew. No one else.
He settled for an abbreviated version that he hoped sounded like just another comment that made her huff at him for being strange. “Don’t assume.”
She blinked. “What?”
“There was a time . . .” The rest of the comment stayed jammed up inside him. He couldn’t do it. The buzz of his phone helped derail him. He’d never been so grateful for the damn thing, even though he hated the subject of the text. “Someone is coming.”
She pulled away from him and headed toward the window. “Your men?”
He grabbed her arm before she could make herself an open target. “Wait here.”
The doorbell chimed, which meant the unexpected guests either made it to the door or his men did. Either way, he would be the one to open it.
He walked over and, after a glance out the peephole, unlocked the door. His men had a guy, probably about Emery’s age, pinned against the wall. Sandy blond hair with an athletic build. His gaze flew to Emery and stopped there.
Wren hated the younger man on sight.
He heard a gasp behind him. Emery rushed past, straight for the doorway. He stopped her again, but this time she struggled and pulled away.
“What’s happening?” She reached out for the guard holding his arm against the young man’s neck. “Stop!”
The yelling and thudding against the wall brought a neighbor into the hall. Much more of this and the police would get a second call. Wren had enough drama for one night.
“You know him?” he asked Emery.
She’d calmed down but tension still radiated off her. “Yes.”
He nodded to his men and they immediately released the guest. When they still lingered, looking ready to grab him again, Wren dismissed them. “You can go. We’re fine.”
The guy made a big show of jerking out of the hold that no longer existed. “I’m sure as hell not fine.”
It appeared the drama was not over. To at least stem it a bit, Wren talked to his men again. “I’ve got this.”