Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 148220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 741(@200wpm)___ 593(@250wpm)___ 494(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 148220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 741(@200wpm)___ 593(@250wpm)___ 494(@300wpm)
Her brow furrows. “You think I’d still be in danger? Even after he’s been put away?”
“Especially if he’s put away.” Just another reason to do this my way. “Rich fucker like that will keep appealing and trying to overturn any verdicts against him. Which means he’ll never stop wanting to get rid of you or any other witnesses. So this step you’re taking now is forever.”
Maybe I shouldn’t have told her. Because she looks so torn, eyes swimming as she looks toward the room where she’d be heading.
But a part of me knows exactly what I’m doing. Hoping she won’t go through that door. Hoping she’ll choose me.
Tears slip over her cheeks. “I have to take that step. And I have a really good reason. I wish I could tell you now what the reason is, but I can’t yet.”
Christ. This big fucking hole in my chest. “You don’t owe me an explanation.”
“Maybe not. But I’d like to give you one. When I can.” She wipes her cheeks on her sleeve and reaches into her pocket. Pulls out a little metal tag—Daisy’s tag that she used to break out, and then went scrounging around behind a cabin to find before we left. A good luck charm, she said then. But now she tells me, “Maybe one day a stranger will call you up and say that she found your dog. And maybe you’ll take that call, even if Daisy isn’t really missing.”
That hole in me fills up with so much sweetness. Not all the way full. But I’ll take partial. “Don’t lose that tag, angel.”
And I won’t ever change that number.
“I won’t.” She slides it into her pocket again, draws a deep and shuddering breath. “Will you go in with me? Just until I’m settled.”
“Never planned to do anything else.” I take her hand, lacing my fingers through hers. “Any reason you don’t feel safe or you want to bail, you say the word and we’re out of there. I don’t leave until you’re certain.”
And fuck—after that, maybe just keep following her. Until I’m certain she’s safe.
Her fingers squeeze mine so tight as we walk up to the door. Wearing only jeans and a T-shirt, in his bare feet like he was catching some sleep while waiting for us, Creek opens it up. He eyes her quickly before narrowing a look at me. “You decide to talk a little more, too? Or you’re a package deal?”
Going into protection with her? That shouldn’t sound so tempting.
Not the protection part. Just the part where I’m with her.
But it’s also real stupid. “You couldn’t ever hide this face good enough,” I say, shouldering my way past the door and scoping out the room before leading her in. “Just you in here?”
“Just me.” Creek holsters the gun he’d been holding behind his back. “And we could make those scars go away.”
Nothing will ever make these scars go away. Still holding her hand, I head across the room. Two queen beds, still made up but one showing signs that a single person was lying on it for a while. Folders stacked up on the nightstands and table, a box of takeout and one empty water bottle in the trash. No one in the bathroom except maybe a cockroach or two, just a single hand towel used.
“All right,” I tell him. “I know Blowback told you I was bringing her, and the deal was that we share information. So while you’ve got me in here, why don’t you ask me what you want to ask. And while we’re talking, that’ll let her get a feel for the man she’ll be trusting with her life.”
“That’ll work. Have a seat, then.” He gestures to the table, then looks her over again. “You’re the one they call Cherry?”
Fingers tightening on mine, she nods.
“And your real name?”
She swallows hard. “Maybe a little later?”
“Fair enough.” He grabs a few bottles of water out of the mini fridge, sets them in front of us and sits, notebook in hand. Looking over at me, he says, “How you want to play this?”
“Anonymous tip. And real dumb. I figure that I overheard two guys talking while I was trying to nap at a rest area. Didn’t see who it was, don’t know nothing else. It’s just some shit your anonymous tipper overheard.”
“So this girl will stick her neck out but you won’t?”
My neck will be out there. But not for this fucker. “You think I don’t know how that’ll work? All at once, you’ll be trading for everything. You say you’ll ignore what happened in the Cage in exchange for my testimony in that witness stand. Because you know I’d get off if it came down to a trial, but also know the whole process would fuck up my life real good, and I’d do just about anything to avoid that. So you’ll hold everything I say over my head, use it to jerk me around and make me do what you want me to do. Which is a whole lot like what Papa did. So all of this? It’s just something I heard.”