Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 68598 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68598 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
Of those three cases, one that’d been solved had even managed to find a young boy alive.
That boy was fourteen and had been living with his parents for years now. He only knew his “parents” to be his parents.
What he didn’t know was at the age of six months old, the boy had been taken from a convenience store parking lot while the mother filled her tires up with air. While she’d been down on the ground filling it up, the wife of the thief had come around the opposite side and taken the child.
Due to video surveillance not being as advanced thirteen years ago and the positioning of the car at the time, nobody was able to see a thing. Hell, the mother hadn’t even noticed her child missing until she’d gotten home to take him out of his car seat.
The no-lead thing had gone on for fourteen years until I’d gotten the file placed on my desk, with the mother telling me she was sent my way by a girl that was described as “beautiful” but “quirky.” A girl with long brown hair, brown eyes and answered to Folsom.
The worst part was solving this case and standing in front of a news crew, telling them about how I found the boy and how nobody had helped. That feeling, the telling of that lie, was like a boulder in my gut that felt like it got heavier and heavier every day. But I knew, deep down in my gut, that she’d wanted to keep her involvement quiet.
I’d always known she was running from something, but I still hadn’t figured out what.
The year had gone totally unplanned.
What I could tell you was I was pissed.
I was pissed about how she’d left.
Pissed about how I cared.
And pissed that I suddenly found myself with an attachment to someone that, a year ago, two years ago, had driven me fuckin’ batshit nuts.
Yet, she was the first thing that I could think about when I opened my eyes and the last thing when I closed them.
She and that kid had been in a constantly running loop in my brain.
Like, why was I fucking worried about what she was doing? Whether she was okay? Was JP okay? Had JP grown?
Hell, we even talked on my notes app through my phone.
I hadn’t realized that was something that I could do until one day I’d gone in to write a new note in my phone about ideas on where she could be when I got back only to see she’d edited those notes, line by line, and explained why she would never go there.
From there, we’d carried on a string of texts back and forth, and it’d definitely not been about anything work-related.
That was what I was doing right then.
Note: A circus? Really? Of all the places you could go, you went to a circus?
At first, our notes to each other had been quite confusing. Then she’d started writing in bold, and it’d helped tremendously for those of us not at the genius level.
I watched from across the room.
I was in a large atrium-type area with high silk tents, dark mood lighting, and a woman dancing with a boa constrictor in the middle of the stage.
Even the woman’s ethereal on-stage beauty couldn’t peel my eyes away from the blonde in the ball cap. She was wearing jeans, a white shirt that I was fairly sure had to be mine, that now that I thought about it, I hadn’t seen in well over a year, and black Chucks.
I watched and waited.
It didn’t take her long.
It was as if her whole system was set up with a way to alert her if I made any changes to anything. It never took her long. Not even in the middle of the night.
She read something, then her head jerked up as if she was searching the room.
Her eyes landed on JP first.
JP was in the corner with a black-haired woman with curly hair. She was doing something with a booth, setting it up, maybe, or taking it down.
Then she turned to survey the room, passing me by only to come to a screeching halt and drag her gaze back to me.
Her mouth parted, and I shit you not, her eyes welled with tears.
And I’d had enough.
No more staying away from her. No more running.
No more telling myself that it was because of her “genius” self that I couldn’t stand being around her.
I knew the truth now.
It’d been a year.
A whole fuckin’ year of wanting to see her again. Find her. Find out why she left. Ask her if I was the only one fucked up by her going.
There was something there between us, and though I wasn’t ready to admit it a year ago, I was ready to admit it now.
Not even the scary thought of her having a daughter, something that literally terrified the absolute hell out of me, could make me stay away this time.