Total pages in book: 56
Estimated words: 52476 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 262(@200wpm)___ 210(@250wpm)___ 175(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 52476 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 262(@200wpm)___ 210(@250wpm)___ 175(@300wpm)
There’s not a thing in this world I’ve held more conviction toward than that simple fact.
I played with her life and for that, she may already be dead.
With the bitter wind battering my back, I stare up at the row of doors to these run-down hotel rooms. Delilah’s sister pulls the coat tighter around herself and offers me a polite nod, as strangers often do. In my jeans and navy cotton sweater, with a phone held up to my ear, I’m sure she doesn’t think anything of me standing outside the building, leaning against the fence. I’m just a man on a phone call going about my business.
Cadence doesn’t know I was waiting for her to leave.
It’s easy to return it as she smiles tightly and goes about her way to where she parked her car. I’m certain she feels the sting of the conversation she’s just had with my brother as she picks up her pace. It’s obvious she’s been crying with her red-rimmed eyes and dark circles beneath them. She’s a wreck not knowing where Delilah is and what’s happened to her. Aren’t we all.
There’s a pain that resonates through me when I watch her wipe under her eyes with a steadying intake. One I haven’t felt in so long. A pain that mixed with the smell of dampened straw as I lay freezing cold praying for either death or for the boy’s scream to go away. I thought that pain had all but vanished, but the wound’s reopened, rawer and more ragged than I remember.
Listening to the click of her heels fading in the distance as she goes, I recall Cadence’s conversation with Cody. Not a damn bit of it was useful. It’s unusual that the calls and meetings I listen to deliver next to nothing for me. Hours and hours I’ve listened to men debate and make decisions they have no right to establish.
This is the first time though I sat with bated breath, listening through the small camera embedded in Cody’s briefcase, praying for some detail I’ve missed to unveil itself. Some bread crumb that would lead me back to Delilah. My throat is tight as the car door to her sister’s vehicle opens and closes with a thud in the distance.
The only thing I’ve learned is that Cody sees people differently than I do. I once thought we saw the world the same way. A piece of me had come to the conclusion that we had a common understanding and mutual feelings about the world around us. For the longest time, that shared understanding offered me peace. A small bit of it, but knowing Cody and I felt the same way … it kept me from breaking. He was like me. I was the constant internal screaming others fear at night, and he was the distraction and morals they feel comfortable focusing on in the day. We needed each other. It all made so much sense to me. It was perfection.
When it comes to Delilah, it’s apparent we don’t feel the same.
Cadence doesn’t remind me at all of her sister. He’s wrong about that, and the simple fact he commented that Cadence reminds him of Delilah is enraging.
There’s nothing similar between them. Every nuance and detail, from their outward appearance to their character and their motivations, is strikingly different. The contrast couldn’t be clearer. Perhaps they both heal others with acts of service, but one offers justice and the other a shoulder to cry on. Two very different things. I’m not interested in pacifying one’s fears and past. That is the only thing I find similar is a slight accent that’s worn off on our Delilah, but it was present years ago. She doesn’t have it any longer; it fell from her lips long ago and never returned.
With a heavy inhale, the piercing cold fills my lungs and I take the steps two at a time. With every move forward, I go over the information I have regarding Delilah’s abduction.
There was an organized team—quick, so more than likely experienced. The van was nondescript. The men who stole her from us were highly motivated. Which means the abduction wasn’t solely for money. They weren’t simply paid off; it’s personal. Each and every one of them refused to spill a detail, sacrificing themselves rather than providing me with information. I offered mercy, but not a single one took up the offer.
All I needed was a name. Only one question needed to be answered: Who has Delilah Jones? A cold sweat spreads across the back of my neck as the reality taunts me once again. I’ve failed her.
Knock, knock, knock. Each pound of my fist is deliberate. In the past I’ve left a note behind for Walsh. I’ve never stayed. There isn’t anything that could have come from us seeing eye to eye like this. It was only ever a message I wanted to deliver to my brother.