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Even though I knew, in the back of my head, in the heart of my heart, that wasn’t the full truth.
“How do you know Dan’s not right?” She didn’t remove her gaze from mine, and I kept my eyes locked on hers, if for no other reason than to prove to her he was wrong. “How do you know she’s not just rebelling against her parents?”
“She’s not.” Wasn’t more than a whisper, those words. I cleared my throat, tried to speak up. “Before… She’s always been close to her parents. After what happened…”
For a moment, what happened flashed before my eyes. I shook my head, only to find Carina’s hand covering mine.
“She was traumatized.” I nodded agreement with her words but couldn’t bring myself to raise my gaze back to hers. “You said she’s a danger to herself. Has she self-harmed?”
My hand under Carina’s balled into a fist. Didn’t want to answer that. Didn’t want to think about the bandages on her arm the last time I’d seen her in her hospital bed. About the words she’d said, telling me she was better off dead.
But blessedly, Carina didn’t make me answer.
“I’m not sure I’ve seen her. But I’ll keep an eye out. If you send me her picture, I can ask some friends. The more eyes, the better, right?”
Tapping the corner of my phone against my leg, I dragged my gaze back to meet hers. She removed her hand from my fist, though not far. Not more than a hand-length away. I pulled my phone up and shot off the photo to Carina’s cell.
It was the least I could do.
“You and this girl,” she asked when I set my phone down, “you together?”
My lips pursed and I glanced toward the bar, where Dan was finishing up for the night. “No.”
“But you want to be.” Wasn’t a question, and I didn’t like the direction her mind had moved.
“No.” I took a long drink from my glass, letting the ice cubes click against my teeth before I spit them back into the water. “What I want is to bring her home safe.”
And keep her there.
Safe.
Keep her away from the kind of shit I’d walked in on when I rescued her. The kind of shit she’d gotten herself into the last time she ran away.
A shudder rushed through me. I hated myself for not getting there sooner. For not forcing Van to fly us out the minute we found out where they were. If I had only been there a few minutes earlier…
Carina’s hand was back on mine, smoother this time. Warmer, too. “When this is over,” she started, fingers edging up my wrist, “when she’s home, safe, and you’re not looking for her anymore, you should call me. It’s been a while, and you look like you could use a break from it all.”
Could see where this was going, long before she finished her spiel. Same place it always went with Carina. “I’ll call you.”
“Promise?” The smile on her face screamed I won. All triumph and elation and a hefty dose of that lust she wore so well.
The smile that I gave her in return was tired and full of defeat. “Promise.” I took one last sip of my water, then pushed myself out of the booth. “Let me know if you see her. Now, or ever.”
“Sure thing, sugar.”
Did she smile again? Wink, like she usually did? I couldn’t be sure. Because I was dead on my feet. Too tired to think. Too exhausted to care.
Six hours traipsing around Chicago, looking for a single woman, was not my idea of fun. The bars were closed, there was nowhere left to try. Not right now. Not in my present state of mind.
My car was still warm from when I drove up. I hopped in and turned the engine over, then drove through the city to a place that had once been home. My old safe house that I hadn’t stepped foot in since I closed it up after she went away last year. It was my last shot. The last place I could hope to find her tonight.
Because I could barely keep my eyes open long enough to pull my Jeep into the garage.
Inside, with my boots on the rug by the door and my coat hung on the crooked hook in the back room, I clomped up the stairs to the bedroom Kelly had stayed in when she was here. She wasn’t here now, of course. Only thing there was the smell of the ocean and a host of my own memories of her.
Memories of her smooth skin, her wild, wild hair. Her beautiful smile and her outrageous sense of humor. Of her midnight cries, of the trust she’d begun to show me.
Of the way her lips, cracked and bleeding, had felt against mine.
