Turning her head, she found Jenna still asleep beside her. They’d talked and cried into the middle of the night, until Crystal’s throat was raw, and they were both damn near dehydrated from the outpouring of their grief.
Crystal told Jenna everything. She hadn’t held anything back. What would be the point? Jenna had seen the scars. She’d seen the evidence of Bruno’s abuse. And now she knew the reasons Crystal had put up with it.
At some point, they’d fallen asleep. Neither of them wanting to be apart from the other.
And though Crystal’s heart was warmed by the end of the loneliness that sharing had brought about, another part of her hated that it had come at the cost of Jenna’s innocence, at the weight of her having to shoulder some of this burden.
Jenna’s bright blue eyes blinked open. “Hey,” she said, her voice scratchy.
“Hey,” Crystal said. “You sound like I feel.”
With a hoarse chuckle, Jenna nodded, then her expression turned serious. “How are you?”
“Okay. You remember what I said, right?” Crystal asked, needing to hear Jenna say it again.
“Yeah.” Her eyes went glassy.
Crystal turned on her side, bringing them closer. “None of this was your fault, either. You are never, ever to blame yourself for any of this, do you understand?”
Her lips trembling, Jenna nodded. “I know. But I still feel bad. If it wasn’t for me—”
“No,” Crystal said, her belly twisting into knots. As much as she’d always worried that Jenna might think less of her if she knew all the things Crystal had done, this was the thing she’d most feared—Jenna’s feeling somehow responsible because of her illness and the cost of her treatment. “Dad’s debts trapped us here. Not your epilepsy. Please, please believe me.”
“Okay,” she said, pushing herself into a sitting position. “Okay.” She tucked long strands of red hair behind her ears and met Crystal’s gaze. “So what’s our plan?”
Crystal forced herself into an upright position, too. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, what’s our plan? We have to get the hell out of here.” Jenna turned toward her and sat cross-legged amid the messy covers.
“Sshh,” Crystal whispered, then reached over to the iPod dock and queued up some music to cover their conversation. Just in case. “Keep your voice down.”
Jenna acquiesced just as she had the night before when Crystal had insisted they take a similar precaution. It was more likely that Bruno had known about Shane because he’d had a guy watching her apartment. He’d done stuff like that before. But at this point, Crystal came down on the side of full-blown paranoia and decided she couldn’t be too careful.
Crystal grasped Jenna’s hand. “We can’t leave yet. I told you, we wait until you graduate and I have more money saved up, then we go.”
“That’s crazy, Sara,” Jenna whispered. “Bruno’s too unstable. It’s not safe for you.”
“You have a full scholarship at a great school. If we go now, you won’t graduate. And to get a job with benefits, with good health insurance, you need a degree. We can wait.”
Jenna shook her head. “I can finish anywhere, anytime. It’s only the rest of this semester, the summer, and next semester.”
“Exactly. Which is why we should stay. You’re getting a free education. We won’t have that anywhere else. Besides, if we go now, you’d lose all the time you put in this semester.” Crystal believed to the depths of her soul that their getaway plan needed to be methodically and carefully planned. She was the one who really knew Bruno, Church, and the danger they faced if they misstepped along the way. But convincing Jenna that Crystal was right was like getting a teenager to believe their parents had any wisdom.
God, she really was like a 104-year-old, wasn’t she?
Jenna blew out a long breath. “Okay, I have a compromise solution.”
Crystal looked at her, willing to hear it but doubting she’d be convinced. She waved a hand, indicating Jenna should share.
“I’ve got two more weeks of classes left, then finals. We go right after that. Then it’s just the summer classes I planned to take and one last full semester, and it’s mostly electives at that. I could do those anywhere.”
That was four weeks. “I don’t know if I can get us ready that fast,” Crystal said, considering Jenna’s proposal more seriously than she thought she ever would. Though she’d always imagined them running to New York City, she didn’t have a job or an apartment lined up for when they got there, and she’d hoped to have more money saved. Most importantly, she hadn’t found a way to get them fake IDs and new paperwork. Everyone she thought might be capable of such a thing was too damn loyal to the Church gang to risk asking. But damn, four weeks sounded like heaven.
But it also means you’ll be leaving Shane that much sooner.
True. And that hurt. Bad. But no matter what, she wouldn’t get to have him for long. And Jenna’s safety was worth the sacrifice. Besides, if by some miracle Shane wasn’t disgusted by her back, and Crystal did get to spend more time with him, she’d just fall harder for the sexy ex-soldier. And then losing him would hurt that much worse.
“You’re considering it,” Jenna said with a smile in her voice.
Crystal rolled her eyes. “Maybe.”
“Hey, I know. Why don’t you ask Edward and his bossy friend for help,” she said. “They helped us before.”
For a moment, Crystal heard Shane’s voice coming through her cell phone that night. “I told you I’d help you and Jenna. That offer didn’t come with an expiration date or office hours.” And she recalled the sadness and frustration in his voice when he’d said he didn’t know how to help her. So maybe Jenna was right.
“They did. That’s true.”
“I really think they were good guys, Sar. Don’t you? And they definitely seemed like they could kick some ass.” Jenna’s blue eyes were almost pleading.
Yeah. She thought so, too. Crystal nodded, her stomach flip-flopping at the idea of seeing Shane again. Especially after the way she’d run away from him the other night. “Okay, I’ll talk to Shane and see what he thinks.”
Jenna grinned. “Shane, huh?” Somehow, those two little words managed to draw heat to Crystal’s cheeks. Her sister’s eyes flew wide. “Oh, my God!”
“Sshh,” Crystal said again.
Laughing, Jenna leaned closer. “You like him?”
Her sister’s perceptiveness threw Crystal off-balance. “I . . . I . . .”
“You do!”
Crystal grabbed Jenna’s hands. “Okay, okay. Whatever,” she said, playing it off. No point encouraging girl talk about a guy Crystal could never have. “The most important thing in all of this is acting like nothing’s changed, Jenna. You have to promise me. Go to your classes. Hang out with your friends. Go shopping. And whatever you do, make nice with Bruno if you see him again.”
Jenna sat back and nodded. “Okay, I will.”
“Promise me?”
“I promise,” Jenna said. “As long as you promise we’re not waiting eight months.”
Crystal blew out a long breath and met her sister’s determined gaze. She wasn’t a little kid anymore, was she? In just a few weeks, she wouldn’t even be a teenager anymore. She was a brave, smart, strong woman, and Crystal admired her. And in this moment, Jenna was right. “I promise. You got a deal.”
“We’re gonna be all right, Sis. Don’t worry.” Jenna smiled.
“Yeah, we are,” Crystal said. And for the first time in a long time, she came pretty close to believing it.
Chapter 17
When the knock finally sounded against Shane’s bedroom door, he’d expected it. After they’d returned to Hard Ink the previous night, the only talking Shane had been up to was to share what Garza had said about another delivery happening Friday night. Then Shane had handed off his camera and called it quits on the day. The other guys had stayed up to debrief the op, but Shane’s mood had been for shit, his emotions were too v
olatile, and his brain was so scrambled, he wouldn’t have been of any analytical use to anyone anyway.
Late, late in the night, he’d finally managed to calm the storm raging in his head long enough to fall asleep for a few hours, but his dreams had been a relentless, horrifying, and heartbreaking search for Molly that always had him showing up moments too late or running into a dead end.
He woke up more tired and strung out than when he’d gone to bed, so he’d lain in the early-morning gloom spilling in from the high window and tried to get his head screwed on straight.
No luck yet.
The knock came again.
Shane sighed and sat up against the headboard. It was then that he realized Molly’s butterfly necklace was still wrapped around his fingers from the night before. He’d been turning the chain round and round, looking for a little peace or wisdom or insight. He was still looking. “Come in,” he called.
The door eased open, revealing Nick, so recently out of the shower his hair was still wet, and damp spots showed through his black T-shirt where he hadn’t bothered to dry off. “What’s up?” he asked.
Shane just shook his head. “Need me for something?”
“No, man.” He came all the way in and closed the door behind him, then he leaned against it and crossed his arms. “That scene last night—”
“Don’t,” Shane bit out, more harshly than he’d intended, but he really couldn’t help himself. The memory of the women’s bodies being delivered into those boats made him feel a whole lot like a giant exposed nerve. And everything—his clothes, the covers, even the very air—rubbed it raw and made it hurt.
Nick pushed off the wall, crossed the room, and sat heavily on the edge of the bed. “I’m going there, Shane. And you need me to.”
Shane drew up his sweats-covered knees and rested his arms on them, the necklace dangling from the fingers of his right hand. “Damnit, Rix. I said, don’t—”
“There was nothing we could do. There was nothing you could do,” Nick said, turning toward him.
“I know,” Shane said. And he did. His rational self knew Nick was right. But that didn’t keep his heart from splintering inside his chest.
“Shane?”
He dragged his gaze up from the little silver chain and met Nick’s intense stare. “Yeah?”
For possessing such an unusually pale color, Nick’s eyes could be warm with sympathy when he wanted them to be. And now was one of those times. Shane should’ve realized what was coming. “Would you finally tell me what happened the day Molly disappeared?” Nick asked.
The question sucker punched him hard in the gut, stealing his breath and beckoning a rolling wave of nausea. The team knew Shane’s little sister had disappeared when Shane was a teenager and that he felt responsible, but not the details. In fact, the last person he’d told the details to had been an Army shrink during his SF in-processing.
“Why?” Shane whispered. All he could manage.
Nick raked his hand through his damp hair, once, twice. “Because what happened to her is eating you up like a cancer, and the harder you try to beat it back, the more aggressive it becomes. This situation is strumming that string so hard, I can’t help but think it’s gotta snap.” He shook his head. “I missed the thing with Merritt because I didn’t trust my gut. And right now, my gut’s saying you’re in trouble. I thought so before last night, but now, just looking at you, I know it’s true.”
Thoughts whirling, heart beating almost painfully in his chest, Shane braced his elbows on his knees and held up the necklace. Shane couldn’t remember when Molly had gotten it, but she’d loved it because it wasn’t a little girl’s piece of jewelry. It was a grown-up necklace, which meant the pendant had hung low on her chest. But she hadn’t minded. In fact, she’d thought she looked fancy. Her word.
Taking the butterfly into his fingers, he smoothed his thumb over the heart-shaped wings made of purple and white rhinestones.
“I found this—” Shane began, his voice catching. “I found it down the street from my house, lying on the curb.” He turned the butterfly over and over in his fingers. “She would never . . . never have dropped it on purpose.”
Wondering how it had come off? That was the stuff of which nightmares were made.
For a moment, Shane got sucked back into time, to that hot summer day. Late July. Him and Henry Waller and Kevin Ryan, his two best friends from his baseball team, were up in his room playing video games. His father had a round of golf that morning, and his mother was down the street at a bridal shower. Just for a few hours. And, besides, at thirteen, they occasionally left him to babysit Molly.
The first time Molly had knocked on his door, she’d wanted permission to get a snack. So Shane had okayed the Goldfish and juice box and sent her on her way.
The second time she’d knocked, she’d asked if she could play with them. Or, if not play, watch. But what teenage guy wanted his eight-year-old sister hanging out in his room with his friends? So he’d told her no and sent her on her way.
The third time she’d knocked, he’d been so annoyed at the constant interruptions that he’d wrenched open the door and told her to leave them alone. And, then, to drive home the point, he’d told her to go away.
The better part of an hour later, another knock sounded at his door. It was his mother, home from the shower and looking for Molly. As he’d searched and searched, he’d been so sure she was hiding to get him in trouble as payback for not letting her play that he’d been mad. But as the hours passed, the search widened, and his parents’ eyes filled with fear and panic, and he’d realized that Molly wasn’t playing a game.
Shane had found the necklace late that afternoon, and he’d had to turn it over to the police to test for fingerprints it didn’t have. They’d returned it to the family a few weeks later, and Shane had kept it on him ever since.
“Jesus,” Nick said.
Only then did Shane realize he’d recounted the story out loud. And that something wet had rolled down his cheeks. He scrubbed the errant moisture away and pinched his fingers against his eyelids, catching a bit more wetness against his fingertips. The last time he’d shed tears over Molly had been the night of what would’ve been her thirteenth birthday. Because it was the age he’d been when he’d lost her, when he’d sent her away, and she’d gone. Never to be heard from again.
“You were a kid, Shane. You didn’t want anything bad to happen to her. You didn’t cause it. You couldn’t have predicted it. It wasn’t your fault.”
Words he’d heard from a shrink. From his parents. They’d just never sank in. “But I—”
“No. The only one to blame was the sociopath who took her.” Nick scooted closer. “Look at me, man. If you had a son, and the same thing happened to him. What would you tell him?” Shane shook his head, and Nick pressed. “What would you tell him? Would you look that little boy in the eyes and blame him?”
“It’s different,” he said, voice strained, mind reeling.
“How?” Nick said.
“It just is.”
“Look that little boy in the eyes, Shane, and tell him who’s responsible.” With both hands on the sides of Shane’s face, Nick forced their gazes to meet. “Tell him,” he said, voice gentler.
“I don’t know,” Shane said, his breath coming in a shudder. “Not . . . him. Not him. Not him.”
“Not him,” Nick said, dropping his hands. “Not you.” He lowered his gaze to the floor, as if he knew Shane felt too exposed, too vulnerable, too embarrassed at the emotional display, at the weakness of his tears.
Shane gulped in a breath and turned his face toward the wall, where he made quick work of removing all traces of the wetness that had somehow appeared there again.
“And you weren’t responsible for the loss of those women last night, either. None of us was. But you know who was?” Nick gave him a sideways glance.
That one was a no-brainer. Shane nailed him with a cold, hard stare. “Church.”
N
ick nodded. “Church.” He didn’t need to say anything more. Because Shane knew. If they were going to hurt Church and right the wrongs done against them and their dead teammates, he had to get off his ass and get out of his head. “Marz wants to confab as soon as we’re all up and moving,” Nick said, pushing off the bed.
Shane forced himself up, too. “Wait. I owe you some words,” he said, rubbing a hand over the winged-heart tattoo he’d gotten in Molly’s memory. This Shane could make right here and now, and he wasn’t waiting another second to get his best friend back once and for all.
Frowning, Nick shook his head. “I don’t—”
“The whole last year, I blamed you for falling off the radar. I blamed you for dropping out of my life when we got back in country. I saw your silence as just one more betrayal—”
“I know, and I’m so—”
“No. I was wrong, Nick. Because I was the one who failed you. I should’ve known the Nick Rixey I’d known all these years wouldn’t fall off the grid without a damn good reason. And instead of going the extra mile and finding out what was really going on, I made assumptions that weren’t true. You deserved better than that. You deserved me being a better friend to you than that.”
Nick rubbed the back of his neck and nodded. “Okay.” His gaze cut to Shane’s. “Thanks.”
“We’re okay?” Shane asked, extending a hand.
“Yeah. More than.” He returned the shake, pressed his lips into a tight line, and narrowed his gaze. “We’re also kinda fucked up.”
Shane barked out a laugh and scrubbed his hands over his face. “We are all kinds of fucked up, bro.”
Nick moved toward the door and checked his watch. “Getcha ass moving. We have work to do.” He let himself out of the room without looking back.
Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, Shane let his head hang forward. He felt drained, exhausted, and a little hollow. But his head was quiet, and his heart a little lighter.