Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 76717 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76717 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
He kisses me on the cheek. “I have to go. I’ll call you.”
Then he leaves.
I follow him. Lock the door behind him. Grab Tillie and snuggle her close.
He’s gone. No explanation—just the ghost of his presence and the lingering scent of him on my skin.
I trust him.
But trust doesn’t feel like this—like an open wound.
Like the sound of a door closing and no promise that it will open again.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Jason
I don’t go home.
I get into my car, plug in the address that Tom gave me, and drive.
The clock reads eleven fifty-two p.m. Almost tomorrow.
What do I expect to do?
It’s too late to knock, too late to make excuses, too late to pretend this is anything other than what it is—a mistake waiting to happen.
But I drive on until I reach the apartment complex.
Number thirty-four.
I park, walk to the door, stare at it.
What comes next?
Maybe I’ll wait, just long enough to convince myself I never should have come. Maybe I’ll leave a message, something cryptic, something only he would understand. Or maybe—maybe I’ll do nothing at all, just linger in the shadows, haunted by the weight of the person who lives here.
A man who may have stolen Lindsay’s life.
I stare at the numbers etched into the door—three and four. They seem to blur together, a meaningless jumble that only intensifies the knot in my stomach.
I reach for the door…but then stop.
I turn away, ready to retreat into the safety of my car, but something stops me—a flicker of light from inside. I squint, but I don’t see it again.
My imagination. My mind playing tricks on me.
I lift my hand toward the door. This time, I don’t stop. Instead, I press the doorbell. Rude at this hour, but I don’t care.
Silence follows.
Seconds tick by.
Then minutes.
And…nothing.
No one’s home.
Or he’s sleeping so soundly he doesn’t hear me. Could be either. Clearly he doesn’t have a dog, or he’d be barking, alerting Ronny Burgundy to my presence.
I scoff. What the hell was I thinking? It’s after midnight in the middle of the week.
Besides, this address could be a fake anyway. What are the chances that Ronny Burgundy, who disappeared years ago, is now living in my own city of Boulder?
I turn away from the door, walk back to my car—
Then I see it.
A car that wasn’t there before, parked a few yards behind me. Black, nondescript. No lights. In the darkness, I can’t see through the windows of the car. They’re probably tinted anyway.
I stare at it, holding my breath. Was it there all along and I just didn’t notice? Or did it just appear out of the blue while I was lost in my thoughts?
My heart pounds. This whole scenario has the makings of a cheap thriller.
No.
No, no, no.
I’m not going to start doubting myself. Trauma does strange things to people, but I got through it. Just because I’m reliving it now, with the questions surrounding Lindsay’s death and the hope of the surgery that might save my career, doesn’t mean I’m losing my grip on reality.
That’s something I’ve always had. Sometimes it seemed like a curse, especially when I was longing to escape the grief of losing Julia after the accident, and then Lindsay.
But right now it feels like a lifeline. My grip on reality.
And Angie.
I’m going to go back to her place. I hate to wake her at this hour, but I need her.
I need her warmth, her steady presence, the way she looks at me like I’m not broken, like I’m still whole, even when I don’t feel it. I need her touch to remind me that I exist outside my own mind, outside the past clawing its way back into my present.
The questions about Lindsay’s death press in, whispering doubts I refuse to entertain. The weight of the surgery—of the hope it represents, the fear that it could all be for nothing—sits heavy on my chest. It’s too much to carry alone.
I shouldn’t need Angie like this. Shouldn’t crave the way she anchors me, the way she steadies the storm.
But I do.
And right now, that need is stronger than my pride.
So I’m going back to her. Even if it means waking her in the dead of night.
Even if it means admitting, for the first time, that I don’t want to be alone.
I get back into my car, my hands shaking as I turn the keys in the ignition.
The drive is short, but it feels like a lifetime. Finally, I reach our neighborhood, press my remote to open the cast-iron gate, and drive through.
Her house is dark except for the faint glow of a lamp in the front window.
I kill the engine and sit there for a moment, gripping the wheel, my pulse hammering. I could leave. I could go home, drown in my own thoughts like I always do, pretend I don’t need her.