Chapter Eight
Six Months Later
AJ
Belle jumps up, her tail wagging for all of five seconds before she realizes I’m alone. Then it’s like someone let all the air out of her sails. She sniffs me, whines once, and parks her ass back down, staring at the door.
She doesn’t understand why her best friend abandoned her.
A single scratch behind her ears is all I can manage.
She’s Grace’s dog through and through. From the moment we met her at the rescue, Belle knew she’d found her person.
She was Grace’s shadow, her protector, and her security blanket for six months.
Hell, the last photo I took of my wife was with Belle out on the back deck at sunset.
It’s my phone’s lock screen. In a frame on my desk at work.
And that moment—that one perfect moment when Belle put her paws on Grace’s shoulder and licked her ear—haunts me.
Because I keep trying to picture Grace laughing like she did that day, but I can’t.
Whenever I close my eyes, all I see is my wife alone, broken, and in pain.
I kick off my boots and trudge into the bedroom. It’s the only room that still smells like Grace. Every Saturday, I walk ten miles of the Butler Trail around where she disappeared, and when I get home, I shower with her soap and add a single spray of her perfume to her pillow.
For six months, my sanity has been tethered to that fucking pillow.
Stripping off my jeans, tie, and dress shirt, I sink down onto the bed and drop my head into my hands, fingers digging into my scalp as if I can pull the pain out of me.
Austin PD suspended their investigation into her disappearance today.
My wife is officially a “cold case.”
If it weren’t for Jasper, I’d probably be in jail right now. Having to stand next to those APD assholes as they announced there’d been no new leads since early summer did me in. I was about to lose my shit when my brother clamped a hand down on my shoulder.
“AJ…don’t.”
I wanted to punch every cop at that fucking news conference. Every cop who worked the case and failed to find even a single goddamned lead.
But most of all, I wanted to wrap my hands around Lieutenant Davy’s neck and squeeze the life out of him for saying that whoever took Grace was clearly “a professional”—the universal code for “human trafficker.”
My beautiful, smart, talented wife is probably some demented asshole’s personal sex slave—if she’s even still alive.
Belle’s cold nose swipes along my neck. Hoarse, gut-wrenching sobs catch in my throat. I slide to the floor, wrapping my arms around the dog and letting six fucking months of pain cut me so deep, sixty pounds of fur and sadness is all that’s holding me together.
Jasper calls me three times before I pick myself up off the floor and dump food into Belle’s bowl. I should make myself dinner—something besides a frozen burrito and tater tots—but I only enjoyed cooking when Grace was here to eat with me.
Still, if I aim to keep walking the trail week after week, I’m gonna need to start eating more. I had to punch a fresh notch in my belt this morning—the second since she disappeared.
While the burrito and tots heat up, I head for my home office. APD froze me out of the case after only three days, so I took matters into my own hands.
The bulletin board takes up half the wall. Grace’s photo is tacked dead center, and every lead I uncover goes on an index card, scrap of paper, or torn napkin—whatever I have nearby. And there are dozens of them. All cataloged by time, location, potential suspect.
Three separate security cameras caught images of Grace in the hour before her GPS signal stopped moving. Five other runners remember seeing her that day, but I haven’t found a single fucking person who was on the trail between two and three p.m.
That lake is one of the most popular recreation areas in Austin. How was she out there all alone on a sunny day in April?
Grace’s last email is tacked in the upper left corner of the board. One of her students asked if he could turn in his final art project early.
Joshua,
Looks like I’ll be in town after all this weekend. If you can meet me at my classroom at noon on Saturday, I’ll be happy to grade your painting for you.
-Professor Stone
APD couldn’t interview the kid for almost two weeks. He’d been on his honeymoon. But half a dozen of his friends and one of the local bar owners alibied him. Apparently he’d gone right from the community college to his bachelor party.
The wind starts to howl, and fat raindrops pelt the windows. With a low hum, the heater kicks on, and I wonder if Grace is somewhere warm.
She could be cold. Wet. In pain.
Or dead.
“I’ll find you, Grace. If it’s the last thing I do, I’ll bring you home.”
Belle starts to bark, and a few seconds later, the doorbell rings.
I race to the foyer, half-convinced Grace heard me and is waiting outside. But it’s only my brother. The dog lets out a loud sigh, then stares up at Jasper like it’s his fault she’s so damn disappointed.
“What do you want?” I ask, too weary to force any strength into my tone. “I’m busy.”
“You gonna invite me in? It’s rainin’ hard enough to strangle a toad out here.”
“Not if you’re fixin’ to give me a lecture. I’m walking the trail tomorrow. End of discussion.”
“For fuck’s sake, AJ. What do you expect to find out there? The assholes who took Grace ain’t gonna drive right by you with a ‘Want to get kidnapped? We can help!’ decal on their window.”
“Last I checked, you weren’t my goddamn keeper. My Saturdays are my own. If I want to walk the trail, I’m walkin’ the trail. It’s no skin off your nose what I do with my time. You ain’t gone with me in six weeks, and I sure as shit don’t expect you to start up again now.”
Jasper stiffens, his blue eyes taking on the same frustration I feel deep in my soul. “I stopped going because I can’t stand seein’ what it does to you.”
“I don’t matter here, Jas. Grace does. If she were here—if I were the one missing—she’d be out there every fucking day looking for me.”
“And so would I,” he says, his shoulders slumping in defeat. “You’re so deep in your own head, you can’t see I’m on your side.”
The smoke alarm blares. Fuck. The tots.
I race into the kitchen, grab a pot holder, and yank the tray from the oven. The tots are petrified bits of ash, and the burrito exploded in a mess of burnt and blackened cheese.
“Pizza will be here in forty-five minutes,” Jas says from behind me and tucks his phone back into his pocket. “You got any beer?”
“No.”
He opens the fridge and snorts. “You always were a terrible liar.”
I give him the side eye. “I’m a damn good liar as long as I ain’t talking to someone I’ve known since conception.”
Twisting the tops off two bottles of Shiner, he chuckles, then hands me one. “Harris is losin’ patience with you, AJ. You’re dangerously close to getting shitcanned. How many days have you called in sick this month?”
With a shrug, I take a long pull of my beer. If he’s asking the question, he already knows the answer.
“Nine,” Jasper says. “Billings, Schaffer, Urbanski, and I are all workin’ overtime to cover for you—unpaid, by the way—but Harris ain’t gonna let this go on for much longer.”
“This? You mean my wife in the hands of some fucking trafficker? Being tortured as someone’s sex slave?
Or her body rotting in some unmarked grave?
” I get right in Jasper’s face, but we’re the same height, and after the past few months, he’s got an extra twenty pounds on me.
“If Harris would like to put a stop to it, I’d be much obliged. ”
“Dammit, AJ. Those Austin PD jackoffs should never have closed the case. Hell, they shouldn’t have opened it to begin with.
It should have been ours.” Jasper scrubs his hands over his face, then sighs.
“Billings has friends there who’ll keep investigating on the down low.
No one’s givin’ up on Grace. But you gotta come back to work. It’s been six months—”
I grab the bottle out of his hand and heave it at the sink. It lands with a solid thunk. “Get out.”
“AJ—”
“No. You just told me to move on, asshole. Fuck you!”
Belle bounds into the kitchen with a quiet growl. Leaning against my legs, she stares at Jasper like he’s her mortal enemy.
My brother doesn’t move for what feels like forever. I should care that I put that hurt in his eyes.
I don’t.
When he finally shuffles out of the kitchen, I follow him all the way to the door, just so I can slam it in his face as he turns to say goodbye.
Belle circles the bed in the foyer three times, then plops down with a heavy sigh. She’ll stay there until I turn in. Always waiting. Always hoping. Despite taking my side earlier, her big, blue-eyed gaze doesn’t pull any punches. She blames me.
She ain’t the only one.
Grace’s dad hasn’t spoken to me in months. Not since he found out it was that goddamn stakeout that put her on the trail in the first place.
The house is too silent. Too still. The weight of it crushes me. Grace’s laughter used to be a constant melody. Now only ghostly whispers linger in the dusty corners.
I should smell enchiladas, tamales, or grilled cheese and tomato soup. Instead, it’s nothing but stale air and burnt tots.
Reaching under my shirt, I curl my fingers around her wedding ring. She never wore it running, and I found it in her jewelry box two days after she disappeared. I’ve worn it on a chain ever since.
Her favorite mug sits on the counter, waiting for her. The only coffee I drink at home now is Cafe Vienna. But it tastes like shit when she’s not here to share it with me.
How much longer can I do this? Keep pretending that one day, she’ll come home.
My legs give out and I’m on my ass on the floor, the back of my head slamming into the cabinet for good measure. A raw, guttural scream escapes, and my eyes start to burn.
The neighbors are too far away to hear—I think. But I wouldn’t care even if they did.
I’m broken. Without Grace, there’s nothing left of me to fix.
“Please come back to me,” I beg the universe. Or God. Or maybe Grace.
But only silence answers, and it’s louder than any words.