16. Juliette
Chapter 16
Juliette
T he bus smelled like old feet and sour apples, but it was mostly empty. Good news—she probably would have leaped out of her skin if someone brushed against her arm or sat down beside her.
The man in that car had nothing to do with Daniel. The man in the car was just meeting his dealer. She had replayed the mantra all night long, whispering it aloud as she watched the quiet parking lot.
The stranger she’d accosted had driven into the night and had not returned; no one had come looking for him. The man with the compass on his arm could have called his dealer to meet elsewhere—the dealer could have been a no-show, too, which was why compass-man had still been sitting alone when she’d gone out with her curtain rod.
But she didn’t believe that. Not anymore.
She’d stopped believing herself insane the moment the call had crackled through the police scanner. No, they hadn’t said Ronan’s name, but he’d told her he lived on Hawthorn Ridge—“explosive device at officer’s residence” and “code nine,” shorthand for emergencies.
Ronan had been hurt. And what were the odds that a gas leak or some other accident coincidentally occurred mere hours after he’d dropped her off?
She stepped off the bus and into the fresh air, mind racing, her senses on high alert. The dappled walk outside the hospital made her mouth go dry, though she saw no one lurking beneath the trees.
She’d gone to a bar with Jason Mercer—the next day, he’d been in a body bag. And Ronan Duffy had fucked her senseless on the hood of his car. She didn’t believe that Daniel knew the specifics, but he clearly suspected enough to try to kill the man she loved.
Loved? Did she love him? From the way she was shaking, trying not to vomit as she made her way up the walk and through the hospital’s main entrance… yeah. She did. Shit .
I have to get out of here. Now. Not later. While she still had the will to do so. She’d go back to the club tonight and get her money, run before things got any worse. But she couldn’t go without warning Ronan. Plus… she needed to see him one last time. She needed to know that he’d survive .
Juliette stopped at the front desk. “Detective Ronan Duffy?”
“Are you family?”
She held up the bouquet, the cellophane wrapping slick in her sweaty palm. She’d stolen them from a roadside vendor on her way to the bus stop. She wasn’t proud of that, but she needed a good reason to be here—a disguise in case they didn’t wave her through. Hopefully, this would go better than yesterday when she’d posed as a funeral home employee.
“Ah,” the nurse said, blinking at the flowers. She aimed an index finger up the left hallway. “Elevators are that way. Third floor, room 301.”
How had the nurse known that right off the bat? Was this a trap?
Juliette’s hackles rose, and she whipped around. Nurses bustled past in their scrubs. An orderly pushed a tall cart full of silver trays. Half a dozen patients, one in a wheelchair, one leaning heavily on a cane, another dragging a spindly IV stand. None of them looked at her.
Juliette nodded her thanks and hustled to the elevator bay, ducking inside with the crowd, pressing her back against the corner of the lift. Barely room to move, let alone breathe, but at least no one could stab her in the back.
The slow creep to the third floor seemed to take forever, but 301 was the first door on her right. Juliette scanned the hallway, said a silent prayer— please let him be okay —then ducked into the room.
The door clicked shut behind her, but she barely heard it. Relief flooded her veins. White gauze covered the front of Ronan’s left shoulder, but his bare chest appeared uninjured save a few bruises and some small, round cigarette-type burns. She couldn’t see his legs, and his face was turned toward the window, but… it seemed he’d gotten off easy.
Ronan appeared to register her presence because he turned her way.
“Hi,” she said softly, almost shyly, as she started toward the bed. Was that even her voice?
But Ronan’s eyes narrowed. “What are you doing here?”
The words hit her like a punch to the gut. “I… have a police scanner. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“Not what I meant, but that does explain a lot.”
For a moment, all she could do was stare. Certainly not the greeting she’d expected, but the tightness in his eyes might be pain—irritability after the explosion .
Juliette licked her lips, her tongue dry. “I think this is about me. There was a strange man in the motel parking lot last night,” she forced out.
“What a coincidence. There was a strange man at my house this morning, trying to blow me up .”
The acid in his tone made her breath catch. He was a completely different man than he’d been the night before. Switching on a dime… the way Daniel used to.
Just say what you came here to say, Juliette . Then run. It’s obvious that he doesn’t want you anymore—he already got what he was after.
At least this would make leaving easier.
“Listen, Ronan?—”
“I’m done listening.” He gestured to his body, the bandages on his shoulder. “I’m in a hospital bed. And I’ll be out of here later today, so whoever tried to kill me can try again.” Not a shred of desire now, nothing to indicate that he thought her beautiful. That savage hatred in his gaze… was for her.
He turned away, staring straight ahead as if he couldn’t bear to look at her face.
Her chest heated—fury, yes, but a deeper hurt was gnashing its teeth in her guts. Betrayal. Sorrow.
Instead of letting her stinging eyes fill, she snapped, “Are you blaming me for that pathetic scratch? If so, suck it up.” He balked, and she closed the distance between them. “This isn’t a coincidence, and neither was the man at my motel. He used to do this all the time, paying people to follow me and?—”
“These other people… were they arrested?” he said to his hands. “Did you call the police to report them? Did you even report that wound on your chest?”
Her scar throbbed, the air too thin. “I’m trying to protect the people I love. So, no. But do you really think that Jason stumbled into my life by accident?”
“So, what, he paid Mercer to date you, then killed him for it?”
“No, he paid him to follow me, but then we had dinner and?—”
Ronan rolled his eyes. “That makes no sense. And it’s awfully convenient that you’d suddenly decide to tell me now.”
What the fuck is wrong with him? But the hollow pain in her chest felt more like grief than fury.
“I wasn’t sure, okay? I really wasn’t. Years of gaslighting… it messes with your brain, and after having relative peace for so long?—”
He snorted, and her blood boiled. Still refusing to meet her gaze.
“If I knew who to look for from the beginning, this never would have happened,” he growled. “You’ve been running around playing some sick game of cat and mouse and leaving me blind.”
“You don’t understand. I am the game. If he finds me, and I’m not suffering enough, he’ll do something to hurt me worse. I honestly hoped he’d get tired of it eventually—tired of me. Then I could go get my mother and disappear.”
“Your mother…” His voice trailed off, eyes softening.
Her chest softened in kind. Could she blame him for not understanding when she’d held so much back?
“The second place I ran was this little town in Oklahoma,” she croaked out. “I got a good job as a secretary under an assumed name. Two weeks later, someone slipped a note under my motel room door that my mom had fallen down the stairs.”
He frowned. “So… you work in strip clubs because it’s demeaning? Because it… placates him?”
“I used to tell myself I took those jobs to build my confidence, but I just wanted an excuse—a reason to feel less helpless. I don’t think I ever felt like I had a choice, and I understood that more clearly after Oklahoma. It is its own brand of torture, constantly being told you’re not pretty enough, not even good enough for a strip club. That I’m ugly, the same thing he always told me. And maybe I deserve a little punishment. I’ve done… terrible things.” Her back straightened. “But I don’t deserve this.”
She’d told Ronan enough for him to understand her position, her fear, and he was torturing her, acting as if this was all her fault. Just like Daniel always had. And she’d be damned if she took that shit from Ronan, too.
In her time away from Daniel, it seemed she’d recovered just enough confidence to walk away from assholes.
Ronan opened his mouth to reply, but she was already backing off. “To think I believed that you had goodness in you—that you were more than just another voyeur with a Pretty Woman fetish.”
He finally turned her way, the softness in his eyes gone. “You lied to me. Forced me to cover for you with the medical examiner and my goddamn boss?—”
“You chose to cover for me. Even now, I have no idea why you did it.”
Ronan shrugged, then winced, brought a hand to his injured shoulder. “Yeah, well, I don’t know either.” He said it softly, deliberately, but her breath caught in her throat. There was power in his voice. Danger. Threat .
“I knew you were running from someone,” he went on. “I couldn’t figure out why you were hiding his identity. But it’s obvious now that you’re making a deliberate choice. And with the way you’re covering for him, it feels a lot more likely that you’re an accomplice. My partner thinks so, too.” His nostrils flared.
The air left her lungs, her eyes on fire. “Ronan, you don’t get it, he’s?—”
He put up a hand. “I don’t want to know who he is.”
Her jaw dropped. “All this about me not opening up to you, and now you don’t want his name? Now you don’t give a shit?”
“I gave a shit when I could have done something about it. Now, I’d like to live, Jenny. Whatever you’re involved in?—”
“What I’m involved in?”
He turned to face the window once more. “Go home, Jenny.”
She dropped the flowers; the dull smack when they hit the ground was louder than it should have been. She stood there for another moment, her eyes burning with unshed tears, her chest wrapped in jagged thorns. Then, with a final glance at the back of Ronan’s head, she walked out.
Goodbye , she thought. And fuck you.
Men were all the same.
She’d been stupid to think otherwise.