Chapter Twenty-Five
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
GEMMA
I’ve been holding in my vomit since leaving Bonnie last night.
I can feel my anxiety creeping into my throat every time I think about that phone call.
Tell your stalker I’m coming for her, too.
Fuck.
Kade is already on it, though he’s having a hard time tracking it as the phone was an unregistered burner. All he could pull was the location where the call had been placed—which is better than nothing. However, it also meant I had to go dumpster diving at five in the morning.
My morning run is usually about starting the day anew, breathing in the sunrise, and remembering that every day is a chance for things to go well or to hell.
I don’t usually drag the previous night’s bullshit with it.
However, I’ll drag myself through hell at any time of the night if it means she’s safe after.
The breeze from the ocean hits my cheeks when I look up, still holding that burner phone in my palm, my own phone in the other. There are only three suspects on the list of those who know about the night she wore those fairy wings all those years ago.
And as my goddamn luck would have it, we can’t find the location on any of them.
The most recent apartment location is the one I’m standing in front of—just a mile from where the burner was dropped. I pivot to face the run-down building and stuff my hands in the pockets of my hoodie, squinted eyes dragging over the facade.
Just as I start to walk in, my phone buzzes, and I pause when I see Bonnie’s name and a text across the screen.
BONNIE
I need to clear my head.
Is it okay if I go on a hike?
My heart feels like someone is repeatedly stabbing it. I can only imagine how rattled she is. I should have stayed with her last night, helped her calm down and work through the feelings that phone call brought up.
Yet, I’d run out of there with only her safety on my mind instead of helping her when she needed it most.
You’re a good person , I can hear her saying.
I’m not a good person. I’m a selfish person. A low-life, wannabe vigilante who never learned to control her blackouts or regulate her rage. I’m tempted to set this building on fire when I leave so that there’s no memory of those bastards inside of it. I need people to forget they exist so I can delete them entirely, without cause of an investigation after.
Why does the death of someone so evil become a witch hunt, anyway?
I peer down at my phone again and sigh at Bonnie’s messages.
Yeah. I’ll pick you up around ten.
Okay.
Damn, this hurts.
My phone rings before I can put it away, and I huff.
“Yeah, Kade,” I answer.
“Don’t do this,” he says.
My teeth immediately clench. “I’m just going to ask if anyone knows where—”
“Gemma, it’s too fresh,” he argues. “Lance and Trevor’s lease expired two years ago. I will find where they are. I will find Rad. Just don’t… Please don’t do this.”
I balk slightly. “What exactly do you think I’m going to do? I don’t have any weapons on me.”
“You and I both know you don’t need weapons to take care of anything.”
I chew on my tongue for a beat, watching as someone exits the building.
“I’m just going to talk to the front desk.”
“ Gemma —”
I end the call, stuff the phone in my pocket, then rush to make the door before it shuts, muttering a quick, “Thanks!” to the guy who saw me coming and waited back.
I have to blink so that my eyes adjust to the dark lobby as the door shuts behind me. The blinds on the windows are closed, refusing the sunlight trying to come in.
And it smells like incense and salt in here.
A woman sits behind an old welcome desk, cubbies behind her that appear to be mail lockers.
“You waiting on a friend or running from one?” she asks without looking up from her cell phone.
“Ah… Actually, looking for one,” I answer, stepping up to the desk. “A couple of old friends. They used to rent a place here. Lance Deblem and Trevor… Shit, what was Trevor’s last name…”
Her eyes finally drag up to look at me, and I watch as her lips purse in an annoyed way. “Gordon?” the woman says, her voice hoarse. She sets the joint she’s smoking into the tray nearby and shifts in her seat. “Trevor Gordon?”
“Yes,” I say. “Yes, Trevor Gordon. You… you wouldn’t happen to know where they’re living now, do you?”
Her dark gaze wanders over me for a beat, and I’m not stupid enough to think the green contacts or blue wig is throwing her off, not to mention the half-mask I’m wearing.
“What’s with the mask?” she asks.
“Germs. The world is disgusting lately.”
She grabs a ruler by her desk and taps the camera in the corner over her head. “You see this?” she asks.
I nod.
“Doesn’t work,” she tells me. “There. There’s your measure of good faith. I give you something, you give me something. Now, take your mask down.”
I tilt my head. “Is that a policy somewhere that I missed?” I ask.
“Sweetie, the only people looking for Lance and Trevor are the ones who they owe money to,” she says. “So what do they owe you for?”
Gamblers.
Maybe that’s a lead we can follow.
I consider her a moment, the fake niceness I’d walked in there with slowly waning. “Merchandise,” I say plainly.
She scoffs. “Take your mask down, and I’ll tell you what I know.”
I don’t like it.
I don’t want to.
I could easily just hop over the counter and grab her by the throat to make her talk, but something inside has me hesitating to hurt her, to force her to talk.
Still, the scars on her hands and face tell me maybe she’s been through enough.
And if I find out she’s one of their snitches, well…
That’s for future Gemma to deal with.
I glance up at the camera again, seeing the wires cut around it and covered in cobwebs, then peer back to the lanyard around her neck.
Claudia .
I’ve played this game enough times to know when someone is lying to me.
I memorize the name as I meet her gaze again, and this time, I slowly pull my mask down.
Claudia blinks, straightening slightly. “Wow. I did not expect… You’re very pretty to be someone’s henchman,” she says, gaze wandering over me.
“A girl’s got to make a living,” I say before sliding my mask back up, eager to hide behind it. “Do you know where they are?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t. They didn’t pay the last three months rent, then tried to break the lease and not pay the fine. Every month they’d promise the money was coming, and then it never did. I was in the process of getting a court-order eviction, and the day I went to post it on their door, I found the lock cracked, and the entire apartment was in disarray. It looked like they’d packed up in the middle of the night. Only essentials.”
“What did you do with the things they left?” I ask, hopeful that she has it stashed for some reason.
“Paid a couple of guys from a homeless shelter to clean it out, told them they could sell or keep whatever they wanted.”
Shit .
Fucking dead end.
She takes another drag on her joint, and the blood flowing through me seems to slow at the way she’s watching me.
“You’re quick to talk about them,” I choose to say.
“I don’t owe those boys anything after the state they left their place in, or the girls and friends they used to bring home at all hours of the night. You think you’re the first person who’s come in here looking for them?” She shakes her head and shuffles a couple of papers around. “Not hardly.”
Girls… Friends…
I swear to fuck if they used to bring girls here for Damien—
“Can I see the apartment?” I ask.
She chuckles. “You think you’ll find something after three years? You think you’re a detective or something?”
“I represent interested parties,” I lie.
Except the only interested party is me, and this little exchange is starting to get on my nerves.
“Sorry. The current tenant pays his rent on time and stays out of trouble. I don’t really want someone going in and spooking him,” she replies.
I glance toward the end of the hall where the elevator is. Only five floors, four apartments on each one. A place like this would never be without the insurance of video footage, especially if she’s accustomed to people coming in searching for her tenants.
She’s lying about her cameras not working. Even if the one she pointed to is out, I’ve clocked two others—one hidden in the plant over the mail cubbies, the other pointed down the hall over the elevator. Something tells me there are more, and I don’t like that she’s making a point to lie to me.
I glance around the space one more time, leaning my palms on the lip of the desk. “Thanks for the info, Claudia,” I say, pushing off. “Hopefully I won’t see you again.”
“Hope not,” she says.
I’m definitely seeing her again.
I make my way out of the apartment building then, pulling my phone from my pocket when I do. I need to punch something, need to work this restless energy out of my bones before it becomes toxic. Yet, I don’t have time to go to the gym.
A little extra recklessness on the bike today will have to do.
“Great, you’re alive,” Kade says when he answers my phone call.
“I need you at my apartment in thirty,” I tell him.
I hang up without waiting for an answer and begin my jog back to my bike parked in a garage a few blocks away.
I have to figure this out.
I can’t let her down.
Not again.
I’m drying off from a five-minute shower when Kade comes through my door later. My mind won’t stop running. Every possible scenario for where Lance and Trevor have disappeared to is spinning me around and around. I can’t get a grip on my own reality, and it takes Kade knocking on the wall for me to even notice that he’s come inside.
He’s in joggers and a t-shirt, a baseball cap backward on his head, and he’s wearing a very tired expression on his flushed face.
“You could have gone running with me this morning,” I say, assuming the reason for his pink cheeks. “Saved us both the added stress.”
Kade pushes off his shoes and slaps a paper bag on the counter. “I was up at four. I don’t sleep as well when Liam is gone.”
“Everything good with that?” I ask, pulling on a t-shirt.
He nods. “All good. Reed was up about the same time as me, playing around in the studio. When I left the gym, he was passed out on the couch with the dog, though.” His gaze snags on the burner phone on the counter. “This it?”
“Yeah. Thank fuck I got there before the garbage truck,” I say as I grab sweatpants from the dresser.
Kade leans over the kitchen island and begins to go through the phone.
My own phone buzzes the moment I step into the kitchen, and my stomach drops at Bonnie’s name on the screen.
BONNIE
After our hike, Darcy is going to meet us.
If that’s okay with you.
I stare at the screen. Two days in a row. Fuck .
I shouldn’t have left her last night.
“Hey.”
Kade’s voice makes me look up from the spot I was just staring at. A sadness pierces his eyes that makes me shift.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
I blink as I contemplate the question, as I go through my motions the last twenty-four hours, feeling dissociated for most of it.
I’ll make sure you remember it this time.
I’ll make sure we finish.
Tell your stalker we’re coming for her, too.
“No,” I breathe. “No, I’m not…”
I can’t cry right now. I don’t cry. I wasn’t the one who was attacked. I wasn’t the one drugged on the bathroom floor. I wasn’t the one who had their safety ripped from them—
I’m just the person who failed her.
“ They’re. After. Her. ”
The words blurt in breathless hisses, the thickness in my throat making it nearly impossible to get them out.
A muscle feathers in Kade’s jaw, his eyes fluttering as if he’s trying to hold in his own emotion.
“I know,” he breathes. “I know. We’re going to take care of it.”
I chew on my bottom lip for a beat as I try to slow my throbbing heart, and I know Kade can already guess what I’m about to say.
“Where is Rad?” I ask.
Because I want this done.
And maybe if I find him, I’ll find the other two.
I want all three of her attackers.
“I don’t know,” Kade admits, his voice breathless. “I don’t fucking know. I haven’t been able to nail him down since I got out. His trail disappears around the same time as Lance and Trevor’s.”
“What about the number he used to text Reed?”
“It wasn’t a number. It was on one of their socials,” he replies.
My teeth clench, emotion burning behind my nose. Still, I try to blow out a breath in the hopes that I won’t break down right here.
“Did you find where he was during the stream the other night?” I manage.
“Cafe downtown,” Kade answers. “Something is off… I don’t feel like this guy is smart enough to cover his tracks the way he’s covering them.”
“Do you think he has another person telling him what to do?”
“I think he has someone helping him be this strategic,” he says. “And, for all I know, that could very well be Lance or Trevor—especially with what’s coming to light about their track record. Being friends with Damien and any of his crew, outstanding gambling debts—”
“Have you found any?” I ask. “That’s what the woman at the front desk mentioned. She said the only people who ever came by looking for them wanted money.”
“I’m looking,” he says. “That’s what I was going to look into today. That and scour for any news on our friend.”
“Which one?”
“The one you shot,” he says plainly.
“I will not be accepting any slander about that decision,” I tell him. “He was a fucking pedophile.”
“I’m not arguing,” he says. “My only worry is if he was on someone’s watch list.”
I squint at him. “Like the FBI?”
He nods.
I scoff as I wrap my arms around my chest, pacing toward the window on the other side of the room. “Do you know how many creeps there are out there doing the same thing he was?” I ask as I look at the streets below. “How many victims go under the radar? In my experience, that agency doesn’t give a damn about people like us. I don’t trust an agency—who’s supposed to protect us—who sits back and watches shit like this happen all across the country, then doesn’t get involved unless the caliber of client is to their liking—and yes, I say client because equality is bullshit in this country, most especially when it comes to things like this. When’s the last time you saw a marginalized person’s story on the news?”
“Preach,” he says.
My jaw is so tight that I feel like I’m about to break my teeth.
“Did anyone find him yet?” I ask.
“Only been twelve hours,” Kade says. “Loner guy like that… He could rot in there for days.”
I wrinkle my nose. “That’s a little sad and gross.”
I don’t regret what I did to him.
I can still see the faces of those underage girls and know that he could have continued his charade and targeted more. And as for what he could have possibly done for Damien…
“There was nothing on his computer that linked him to Damien or his victims?” I ask as I come back toward him.
Kade shakes his head. “Doesn’t mean there wasn’t. But nothing within the last couple of years. I’ll keep digging.”
I flop onto the couch, my shoulders slumping. Bonnie’s terrified face breaks behind my eyes. The way she began thrashing, the way she was sobbing… Five minutes and one voice triggered her entire body into panic mode. Five minutes ripped down her safety net.
Vomit-laced combat boots and a ripped tulle skirt.
Blood dripping from a broken sink.
Her unconscious body in my passenger seat.
“They’re after her,” I say numbly, staring at my hands, something wet trickling down my face.“What am I supposed to do if she doesn’t tell me about the call today?” I ask, wiping away the tear. “Am I supposed to just walk with her and pretend I’m not losing my mind? Or like she isn’t losing her mind?”
Because I know she has to be.
Kade doesn’t speak for a moment, and I claw at my skin to get another tear off my face.
“You just walk with her,” he eventually says.