Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 117494 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 470(@250wpm)___ 392(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117494 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 470(@250wpm)___ 392(@300wpm)
The air was pulled out of me. I… I couldn't comprehend this. “Justin and Harper? They’re gone too?”
Wait.
I gasped, grabbing Shane’s arm. “You didn’t–no, no. Their bodies?” God. Pain seized my insides. I couldn’t finish that thought.
“No. They were taken like you guys, or that’s what we were thinking until you both showed up. Two sets of wheels left the back house’s driveway that’s attached to the other road. Security cameras picked up two vans leaving. One went south, yours. And one went north. We’re assuming that was theirs.”
The room became stifling. The air was thick, pressing down on me.
Justin and Harper. They were kidnapped.
“Babe.” Shane stepped in again, his voice gentle. He cupped the side of my face, tracing a thumb over my cheek in a tender touch. “We need to know who these guys were. What do you remember about them?”
Justin. Harper.
They couldn’t have them.
I grasped his wrist, holding it tight. “You have to get them back.”
His eyes widened, just a bit at my ferocity, then they softened again. “We will.”
“No. I mean it, Shane. We have to go now.”
His eyes narrowed, and his head leaned back an inch. He was reassessing me, not that different from how Rena had moments earlier. “We will, but we handle this in-house. You gotta know that about us, this life. We don’t deal with cops. We take care of everything ourselves.”
He’d get no argument from me there.
He was still watching me, studying. “You okay with that?”
I stood up, looking around for my clothes. Seeing a bag he’d brought in with him, that he put on the counter behind him, I pointed to it. “Those for me?”
“They are. Roadie went and bought you some. Figured you wouldn’t want to wear the others.”
I suppressed a shudder because he was right, but reached for them. “Give ’em to me.”
He passed them over, still eyeing me from my sudden change of attitude. “You okay, Kali?”
I took the bag and began to change clothes. “I’ll tell you everything I remember, but I don’t know much.” I told him what I did as I finished dressing. Once I put on my old shoes, I was ready to go.
“You’re supposed to take it easy.”
But the way he said that, he knew me. I gave Shane a look. “You expecting that of me?”
He flashed a smile. “I’m a bit worried about your head, but no. You’re forgetting I remember you from high school. I know just how much you love those friends of yours, and I’ve heard how fond you are of the boyfriend. I’d expect nothing else.”
Good.
Some of my own tension left me at hearing that. He wouldn’t fight me. He wouldn’t try to contain me. He wouldn’t tell me to stay home and be a good woman.
We left the room, and I put my head down to help with keeping out the extra stimulus. “They took our phones. Smashed them.”
Shane was right next to me. “We found ’em. I got a replacement for you. Waiting until you were ready for it.”
He handed over the phone just as we got to the hallway leading from the nurse’s desk to what looked like the waiting room. I saw Shane’s guys standing down there, waiting for us, but looked back over my shoulder.
Nurse Rena was standing, handing over a file to another nurse, but she was watching us right back.
Her eyes caught and held mine. She took me in, her gaze sliding to Shane, who had gone ahead, but was waiting for me now. He wasn’t touching me. He wasn’t coddling me, and Nurse Rena was noting all of that.
Her warning, Aly’s warnings all flared through me but when I gave them much thought I kept coming back to the key terms that they were based off of history. In the past. That was back then, and not now and I had to make a decision if I would care or not.
I chose not to, right then and there. I’d heard the warnings. I wouldn’t forget, but I wasn’t going to let them affect me any more than that. That was a history that didn’t pertain to me, so I was going to let it go.
That decision made, a whole renewed sense of desperation filled me up.
Justin and Harper. We needed to find them now.
I turned and I was the one who said to Shane, “Let’s go.”
37
SHANE
Everything stopped when we found Kali missing.
My world stopped.
But she was here. She was banged up a little bit, but she was here. Whoever did this to her, I was going to enjoy killing. I was also thinking I’d have to get in line because Kali might insist on doing it first.
She felt my gaze and looked my way. I was letting her see how I was feeling her, and unlike the past times when she’d shy away from me because I got it, a guy like me feeling how I felt and feeling how I felt it, it could be a lot. Made her uncomfortable at times with the bullshit her ex did to her, but not today. Not this time.