Now or Never (18 page)

Chapter Thirty-three

Jay

Goddamn it, he’d meant to keep a handle on the situation. To find time to go to the library and use their computers to keep an eye on
him
. To know where that sick bastard was at all times. But shit had gotten in the way. Shit always got in the damn way. And now Em was headed back there and he had no way of knowing what she was driving into. No way to reach her. No way to stop her.

Where was her uncle now? In a jail cell, or had he been released on bail? Was
he
just sitting there, waiting for Em to show up? Did
he
expect her to?

Jay glanced at the clock on the dash and felt his heart kick into high gear. She could be there, right now. With
him
. The needle on his speedometer spiked, making Jay aware of the fact that he was driving stupidly fast.

For the first time since he was a small child and his mother had taught him to fold his hands and kneel beside his bed, Jay raised his thoughts to God in more than just anger. He pleaded with anyone who might be listening as he wove through traffic to keep her safe, to protect her until he could get there, and to help him do so without causing a fiery wreck.

The miles sped by as minutes, and then hours, ticked off the clock. A cold sort of numbness settled over Jay as he focused on one thing, and one thing only. To get to her. Before it was too late. He’d never thought it possible to hate someone more than his father, but he’d found
him.
His father had been a violent asshole to his mother and him for years, but
he
had violated an innocent little girl in the most heinous and unforgivable way imaginable. Jay knew what that bastard had done to Em, but, truthfully, he did everything in his power to think about it as little as possible. The thought of her . . . He couldn’t bear it. He could hardly survive the mere thought of it, and Em had had to experience it. Live it. Live
with
it, every day of her life. It was an impossible burden for anyone to carry. If anything happened to add to it, she’d be crushed.

He’d never meant for this to happen. Jay had never meant to leave her alone. Feeling like this was something she needed to face on her own. She was brave, he’d always known that, but she was still putting the pieces back together. He knew how easy it would be for her uncle to destroy all of that hard work. Too easy.

Jay navigated the small town by memory alone, and when he turned onto the street where
he
lived it felt like he took a breath for the first time in nearly four hours. Ashlyn’s car was nowhere in sight. Thank God.

The trembling started in his hands, making it difficult to steer. By the time he’d pulled over across from her old house, Jay’s entire body was shaking. Everything he’d held in
side all morning was forcing its way to the surface. The sludgy whites and grays that made up the wintery world around him blurred together in a monotone kaleidoscope. Hands locked firmly around the steering wheel, Jay dropped his head onto his arms. His entire body ached from the sheer strain of the past four hours. His chest felt tender from the abusive blows his heart was rendering it. His throat was sore from holding back the tears that stung his eyes. Relief set them free, and for a moment, Jay surrendered to them.

“She’s not here. She’s not here.” Harsh breaths sawed in and out of his lungs as Jay struggled to regain control, reminding himself again and again that his worst fears hadn’t come to pass. But he needed to be absolutely sure.

The entire block was so quiet that the sound of his fist pounding on that front door echoed off the surrounding houses. Jay remembered the last time he’d stood in that exact spot. He’d been just as terrified then that he was too late. And he almost had been.

“Em!” He tried the door handle, finding it locked, and pounded harder.

“Excuse me?” Jay spun around, prepared for a fight, and found an older woman standing timidly on the walkway behind him. “Can I help you?”

He took a deep breath to calm himself. The last thing he needed was to give this woman a heart attack. “I’m looking for someone.”

“No one’s been here for a month. They took that poor man down to the police station and won’t let him go. All of these nonsense allegations flying around. He was a perfectly nice man. If you ask me, it’s just some teenager looking for attention. That girl ruined his life for her fifteen minutes,” the woman clucked.

Jay had to grit his teeth to avoid opening his mouth. God only knew what would come out if he did, and it wasn’t his place.

“Thank you.” If nothing else, he could be grateful for the information that that monster was exactly where he deserved to be. Behind bars.

“You know, his niece was the same. Ran away from home on some whim and just about gave that poor man a stroke. Never seen nobody so upset. Teenagers, they’re all such lying, conniving, cruel—”

Jay had heard enough. “His niece is the kindest, most honest person I’ve ever met, so don’t go around talking about things you don’t understand.”

He didn’t have time for this bullshit. There was somewhere he needed to be. Leaving the old
woman gaping after him, he climbed back into his truck, slamming the door hard enough that the entire thing shook. No wonder Em was so afraid to say anything for so long. He couldn’t understand how anyone could believe someone would make something like that up, but the proof was right in front of him. The thought of Em facing that alone twisted his heart. When would she stop feeling like she needed to prove herself?

The police station wasn’t hard to find, situated right on Main Street. Jay made several passes and couldn’t decide if he was worried or relieved when Harrison was nowhere in sight. Had she been there already? Had she done it without him? Had she been frightened? Confused? Upset? Had she wished he was there with her?

Oh, Em
.
Where the hell are you?

He was running out of places to look. Payphones were few and far between these days, so when he spotted one on the corner, Jay was stunned to find it actually worked. Dialing Ashlyn’s number, he tapped his fingers against the glass as it rang.

“Hello?” The background noise immediately told him she was still at work.

“Hey, Ash. It’s Jay. Is Em there?”

“No. Where are you? Bart’s livid.”

“I don’t care about Bart. Is she at your place?”

“No. Mason swung by after his shift ended to check. He called right before you did and said the car still isn’t back. He even checked your house. Do you know where she is? Is she okay?”

“
I don’t know. I don’t know. But I’m going to find her.”

“Jay?”

“Yeah?”

“ . . . Take care of her.”

Jay sighed. “I’m trying to.”

Climbing back into the driver’s seat, he rested his aching head against the seat back. If she didn’t go back to Ash’s, and she didn’t go home, and she wasn’t here, where else would she go? The hard truth was he didn’t know that town—or her—well enough to guess. Em rarely
spoke about her past, not that he could fault her. His was never a point of conversation, either. But that meant what he knew about Em really only went back less than six months. And that left only one other place he could think of. It was a last ditch effort, but he was willing to take the chance.

***

She’d run from that place once before, and he knew exactly where she’d ended up then. It was his best hope. He hadn’t been back since the police had run them off, but instinct led him through turn after turn on those crowded city streets, into painfully familiar territory. As he bumped down the rutted street, he could only hope instinct had led her there, as well.

Sure enough, a few blocks down, sat Ashlyn’s Pontiac POC. Jay pulled in behind it and cu
t the engine. Em wasn’t in the car, but she wasn’t hard to find. She was the only person sitting out on the sidewalk, staring at a vacant lot like it held the answers to life in the fading sunlight.

“Em?”

She gave no indication she’d heard him, that she was aware of his presence at all, her gaze remaining locked on the debris strewn yard.

Jay didn’t know what was running through that busy head of hers, but he knew enough to proceed with caution. Leaving the option to talk up to her, he
settled in silently beside her to wait.

A
n eternity passed before she uttered a word. “You found me.”

“I’ll always find you, Em.
” He shifted to face her, but found her attention still riveted across the street. “But you can’t go disappearing like that.”

“I know.”

“You scared the crap out of me.”

“I’m sorry.”

Jay watched her profile as she took a breath and held it. The only part of her moving at all were her fingers, twisting together painfully tight between her thighs. He’d never wanted to touch her more than right then, but he restrained himself, not sure of how any touch would be received. Normally she was an open book to him, but Jay was having a difficult time getting a read on her. Whether it was his roiling emotions getting in the way, or hers, he had no idea. All he knew for sure was that words were safer than actions at the moment.

“What are you doing
here
?”
He glanced back over the lot and could almost see the ghost of the dilapidated wreck they’d once called home. The city must have finally gotten around to tearing the old thing down. Or maybe one too many storms had come through and done the job for them.

“I wanted to remember.”

“How much worse it could be?”

“Worse . . . And better.”

“Better?”

Em shrugged. “Simpler.”

“Simpler? Were you living in the same reality as me?”

A small smile graced her lips and she huffed a tired laugh. Jay remembered when he would have considered that
alone a major victory and suddenly her words made a sort of sense.

“Maybe simpler isn’t the right word, either. But things were . . . clearer. I knew exactly where we stood. It was you and me against the world, Jay. And despite those horribly bad odds, we kept coming out on top. Together. We accomplished so much together.”

He couldn’t have this conversation with her again. Not now. Not when he was so exhausted and raw. It would be all too easy for her to get him to give in. Get him to go crawling back to her, begging for forgiveness he didn’t deserve, but she would grant, regardless.

“I remember the first time I saw you.” Em glanced over at him
, aware of the change of direction, but interested nonetheless. “At the train station.”

A
nother small smile. “You let that guy steal all of my stuff.”

“I saved your ass,” Jay corrected with a smile of his own.

“For the first time.”

They both remembered the second, and the third, and so on, but there was no need to go there.

“I knew you were special even then. Not just because you were beautiful, but you were . . . different.”

“Naïve?”

“No. Well, yeah, maybe a little, but that wasn’t it. I looked at you and I . . . I swear I saw a piece of myself. A piece I’d been missing. I can’t explain it any better than that. But you know when I knew for sure that I was a goner? That I’d never look at you the same?” Em quirked her head and he shifted his gaze back to the vacant lot. “It was the fourth or fifth day you were staying with me. I came back from doing who the hell knows what, and I looked up at the squat, and there you were, sitting in the window like you were just waiting for me to come home. I’d never had someone waiting for me to come home before. Not ever. That’s when I realized that is what you’d made this place. You’d taken this dank, dilapidated hole in the wall unfit for human occupancy and turned it into a home.
My
home. Simply because you were there.”

Em’s smile turned sad and she closed her eyes. “I was waiting for you. I was always waiting for you. The only time I ever felt safe was when you were near. That hasn’t changed. Any of it. I’ll always wait for you, Jay.”

Jay’s hand folded gently over hers and squeezed. “And I’ll always come home. When I know you’re safe.”

His attention was drawn to her lips as she nibbled on it nervously, but he decided to let whatever was going through that head of hers go . . . for now.
They lapsed into silence as the sun kissed the horizon. A muted rainbow lit up the sky in pinks and oranges, in stark contrast to the muddy, slushy earth below. A strange combination of ugly and beautiful unfolding before them.

Em obviously wasn’t going to be the one to bring it up, but something had happened today—something that had brought her there—and she needed to get it off her chest. If he let her keep it bottled up inside it wou
ld only erupt with time. He had to get her to—

The
deep-throated roar of an engine broke through the silence, diverting his attention. All of the instincts that had become so deeply ingrained in him over the past few years went on high alert. His entire life had been a hands-on lesson in sensing danger, but his time on the streets had fine-tuned those skills.