Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 128307 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 642(@200wpm)___ 513(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128307 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 642(@200wpm)___ 513(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
Is she cautioning me that Grayson won’t believe me over her, or acknowledging it as a fact? If her smug expression is anything to go by, I think it is the latter.
As I stand, my resolve hardens. “I’m going to tell him. He deserves to know the truth.”
After snatching up my sketchbook, I leave her apartment with my heart heavy with worry. I know what I must do, but I’m terrified of what it will do to Grayson.
And perhaps what it will do to us.
28
GRAYSON
“She left the underground parking lot around an hour ago and headed east.”
I inch closer to my desk to ensure Brandon can hear me. I’ve been pacing for the last ten minutes, peeved as fuck it took me almost thirty to realize Macy wasn’t sleeping in. She slipped the net, and I’ve been panicking ever since.
“Can you follow her?”
Brandon doesn’t answer me. He’s too busy pulling up traffic cameras and city feeds that will hopefully track her movements. As I return to pacing, my muscles taut, I replay the last few days. Macy’s exhaustion and frustration, and the way she looked at me last night, feature the most.
She knew I was holding back, but she’d never confront me. That’s not Macy. She never forces the narrative. Why do you think it took me so long to tell her about Cameron?
I shift my focus back to the monitor when Brandon says, “She stopped at HQ. Was there for around ten minutes, then headed south.”
As dread pools in my stomach, I pull over a statewide map and scan locations south of HQ. It only takes a minute for a suburb to stick out like a sore thumb.
“Check the feeds from Cameron’s apartment.”
The whoosh of Brandon’s agreement trickles through the speakers of my laptop, along with the thumps of his fingers flying over his keyboard. “Give me a minute.” In half the time requested, he finds a lead. “She entered Cameron’s building forty-five minutes ago.”
I grab my keys and head for the door, too hot to bother with a jacket. I’ve just wrenched the door open when Macy’s tiny frame fills it from the other side.
Relief crashes over me so fiercely that it is painful.
“Macy.” I’m torn between strangling her and hugging her to death. The thoughts that swirled in my head weren’t good, and every one of them involved me scratching out Cameron’s name from the top of my case file list and replacing it with Macy’s.
Instead of responding physically, I remind her that she’s meant to be on bed rest. “Doctor’s orders, Mace.”
She rolls her eyes, steps past me, then smiles a halfhearted greeting to Brandon, who is eyeballing our exchange from the makeshift command center we set up only two days ago.
How the fuck was that only two days ago?
It feels like a lifetime.
I don’t know what Brandon sees behind the murky cloud in Macy’s eyes, but he makes an excuse to leave before he cuts our feed.
Macy waits for the monitor to go black before she shifts on her feet to meet my gaze. Her cheeks are stain-free, though I’m not confident in declaring that she hasn’t been crying. Red rings circle her eyes, and she cracked her bottom lip by dragging her teeth over it too often. Both signs that she’s been upset.
“We need to talk.”
Robotically, I nod.
I guide her to the couch and sit opposite in an armchair, elbows on my knees, fingers pressed against my mouth to mask my frown. She’s here, with me, but I keep thinking she’s still lost.
What the fuck is wrong with me? My girlfriend, who had been missing for seventeen years, was just found safe and alive. I’m meant to be happy, not a miserable sack.
I shouldn’t be so hard on myself. How could anyone be happy when someone they care about is clearly hurting, and you’re to blame for their pain?
“If this is about last night—”
“It’s not,” Macy interrupts, smiling softly. She takes a big breath before ripping the Band-Aid off in true Macy style. She does it in one fell swoop. “Cameron wasn’t abducted.”
Dread prickles my spine. Out of all the people in the world, I never thought Macy would be the one to discount my recollection of the event that has kept me awake for well over a decade. Cameron was kidnapped under my watch. I can’t mistake that.
I grunt through Macy’s imaginative jab when she murmurs, “It was a ploy.” She speaks faster, thwarting my attempt to interrupt. “You were meant to believe she was dead. That’s why they started the fire in the motor. They wanted the evidence of her supposed”—she air quotes her last word—“death to still be visible when the authorities arrived.”
“That’s not true.” My headshake fills the room with the scent of Macy’s shampoo. “She was kidnapped.” Before she can deny the truth I’ve clung to for seventeen years, I pull up the sleeves of my shirt to show her the area Cameron clung to when she fought to get away from her kidnappers. “She grabbed me here.” I slap the skin, reddening it more than the faint nail marks only I can see. “Right fucking here.”