Chapter 37
THIRTY-SEVEN
Blakely
The smell of sunscreen clung to my sun-warmed skin, and I couldn’t wipe the smile from my face.
Our day had made it into the top ten, or maybe even the top five, best days of my life.
We’d spent our entire day on the boat. Drinking, swimming, and just hanging out. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d laughed that much. And any lingering awkwardness between me and everyone else had completely vanished.
We missed Luke and Hazel, who’d gone home a little earlier the night before to see their newborn. But I was so happy I could cry.
Completely packed, I was dreading leaving the lake house and ending the perfect day. But we all—besides Reed, Josh, and Amanda, who were going to hang out a little longer—had to head back to the real world. I had meetings the next morning and had to pick Tato up from boarding before they closed for the night.
Devon tossed my bag in the trunk and rounded the car to where I stood next to the open driver’s side door. He glanced around, and seeing no one, took the liberty of pressing me against the car and letting his hands wander over my hips. He leaned forward and brushed his nose against my temple.
He smelled like summer and sunshine, and I wrapped my arms around his neck and buried my face against his collar, hoping for another whiff. “I had the best time with you.”
“Same here, sweetheart,” he said with a kiss to my jaw.
I laughed but agreed and slanted my mouth over his. A low, satisfied moan vibrated my lips, and I opened to taste the sound. Our tongues dueled, and our hands roamed.
The back door closing and the whistling that came immediately after made us part, but only enough to be socially acceptable. Devon still held my hips in his large palms, and I teased the hair at the base of his neck.
“Bye!” Ivy and James both waved and hollered before slipping into their car.
They pulled down the driveway, and we waited until they were out of sight before Devon kissed me again. The second time was slower and more thorough.
“If I don’t stop touching you right this second, I’m going to take you back upstairs.”
I groaned and put my hands on his chest, pushing lightly until he wasn’t in reaching distance. “Although that sounds amazing, I have to get Tato.”
Devon nodded, but when I dropped my hands, he closed the distance I’d just created between us. He took my mouth one last time in a kiss that I knew I would feel for as long as it took for us to kiss again.
“I’ll call you later, okay?” he promised, and I nodded.
My drive home was thankfully uneventful, as was picking up Tato, who had managed to wrap himself around every single one of the employees’ fingers.
They even sent me home with a goody bag of his favorite treats and a new blanket he’d apparently claimed as his own. Tato slept the entire way home, and I was dying to do the same. I’d planned to drop my bags and curl up on the couch with him.
I’d loved my night with Devon, but it wasn’t conducive to getting a lot of sleep.
Pushing open the front door, more worried about getting Tato inside, I almost missed the small bag sitting on the chair on my front porch. I’d never used the chair, but it was cute, and served as a good spot for me to set things when I had to get the door open.
I grabbed the bag as Tato hurried in ahead of me. I dropped his leash, and he didn’t hesitate to hop up on the couch and curl in a little ball. I could have sworn I heard him snoring before I locked the door.
I dropped my keys on the table near the door and remembered the bag in my hands. Glancing down, I looked over the baked goods sealed in cellophane and straightened. I didn’t have to open the bag to know they were peanut butter cookies. I could just tell by their beige, brown appearance. It was the third time my neighbor had prepared some sort of peanut butter treat for me. But rather than curb my sweet tooth, they only led to flashbacks and memories I would do anything to forget.
There was a white note attached to the top of the bag by a small string. Carefully, I opened the note and furrowed my brow at the words written there.
Missed you.
“What the—” I mumbled. I read the four words a second time before crossing into the kitchen and chucking them onto the counter. Such a weird note to leave someone who was gone not even two days.
I was considering making a snack before taking a nap when my cell phone began vibrating. I fished it out of my pocket, expecting to see either Devon or Amanda’s names, but it was a number I didn’t have in my phone. I stared at the screen for a few seconds before I realized it was a Colorado area code.
My stomach dropped in an instant. I hadn’t heard much from the detectives or the prosecutor assigned to my case since I’d moved back to Texas. Nick Hammond confessed to kidnapping and was charged with a myriad of crimes while I was still in Arkansas with my parents. Otherwise, we were waiting for the legal system to do what it was supposed to do. But the cogs of that particular wheel moved so slowly I thought I might never see him officially sentenced.
With shaking fingers, I pressed the accept button and put the phone to my ear. My “hello” was quiet, but the person on the other end heard me all the same.
“Hi, Blakely, this is Detective Wilcrest from the Colorado City Police Department. How are you?” I’d spent a lot of time with Detective Wilcrest following my kidnapping. I’d talked him through everything from top to bottom and front to back. He was a kind man in his late fifties who had a very successful career as a detective in Colorado.
I swallowed around thick emotion clogging my throat. “I’m good. How are you?”
“Well, I’m going to be honest, things have been better.” When I didn’t respond because I didn’t know what to say, the detective took a deep breath and continued. “I’m just going to cut right to the chase. Nick Hammond died two days ago.”
Somehow, I managed to mutter the words, “How—what—what do you mean?”
“Blakely, is there someone there with you right now, or maybe someone you could call to?—”
“No, just tell me what happened!” I bellowed into the phone. I was trying to stave off the panic that was already trying to take hold of me, and with every passing second, it was growing more difficult.
I waited for a moment while Detective Wilcrest cleared his throat. I heard a door shut on his end of the line, and the background noise I hadn’t noticed faded to silence.
“We found him in his cell two days ago,” he said, blowing out a long breath. “And about a week before, he’d started trying to recant. He claimed he was set up. It’s a tactic a lot of criminals use: they finally realize that they’re pleading guilty and what that means for the rest of their lives. But…”
“But?”
“But he left a note. We found it on his bed, and it made the same claims—that he was innocent. We started looking into it, and Blakely?—”
“No,” I muttered. “No.”
“We now believe that he wasn’t acting alone. It appears that Nick Hammond was only the fall guy.”
Suddenly, every breath I took felt like I was breathing through a straw, only pulling in just enough air to keep me alive but not enough to keep me from feeling faint. My legs almost gave out, and I caught myself on the edge of the kitchen counter. Tato was suddenly by my side, nudging against my thighs and looking up at me like he knew something was wrong.
“Who?” was all I could think to ask, and the word was barely audible. My voice cracked, and I could feel my heart colliding with my ribs like it was trying to escape my chest.
Understanding my one-word question without any other context, Detective Wilcrest said, “We aren’t sure.”
And that was when I stopped listening. Better yet, I could no longer hear him. I dropped my phone, and I didn’t care where it landed. There was a ringing in my ears, and the edge of my vision was going hazy and black. I gritted my teeth and braced my hand against my chest.
No , I thought. No, no, no.
This wasn’t happening. None of it. I’d made it this far, and I couldn’t—I couldn’t…I shook my head and fought the urge to collapse onto the floor. I wouldn’t let the panic win; I couldn’t let him win. I didn’t even know who he was anymore, but the control he had over me, I wouldn’t let it happen again.
Panic and fear welled up inside me, but beneath it was bitter frustration and indignation. I tried to home in on the latter. The anger that made my skin heat and my heart thump a furious rhythm was so much easier to grasp. The panic only managed to slip through my fingers. It was intangible and unreal and wholly unhelpful.
So, I focused on those emotions and grabbed my phone from where it had fallen.
On unsteady legs, I strode into my bedroom and stood in the doorway, blinking a few times before I walked into my closet. I didn’t worry about turning on the light, instead using the sunlight streaming in from the sliding glass doors on the opposite side of the room.
I stared blankly at my dresser. Glancing between the drawers, I couldn’t remember which one held the clothes I was trying to find. I couldn’t remember what clothes I was trying to locate either. I couldn’t remember how to move my hands or open said drawer once I found it.
My phone vibrating in my hand pulled me from the vicious thought cycle. I looked at it, and my mom’s name scrolled across the screen for the first time since I left their house so many months ago.
I knew it was a bad idea when I did it, but I answered anyway. I put the phone to my ear. No words came out of my mouth. I couldn’t force them even if I wanted to. I’d lost control of my tongue and forgotten how to constrict the muscles of my throat to make the proper sounds.
“Blakely?” my mom’s voice asked sharply into my ear. She said my name again, and when I still didn’t answer, she sighed. “At least grunt or something so I know you’re listening.”
I tried to clear my throat, but the sound that fell from my lips sounded more like an animal in pain.
“Great, okay,” my mom said, happy enough with my lack of response. “I just wanted to make sure you heard from Detective Wilcrest about the update on your case. I would just like to say for the record that I told them when they arrested Nick Hammond that I knew he wasn’t the mastermind—he’s an idiot and doesn’t have the ability to solve a basic math problem, let alone stage a cross-state kidnapping.”
The words flooded out of her mouth at a speed that was hard for me to comprehend in my state. “Anyway, your dad and I think you should come back here. I’m sure you’re already on the verge of losing it, and we can’t have that right now. This is a big year for me, so why don’t you come back home before you have another… episode .”
Episode. I’d tried to block that from my memory. It wasn’t a mental health crisis; it was an episode. I was being dramatic. Because I could stop it. Because I could control it. I was just weak-minded and foolish. And it had been over a year and a half since I’d been in that basement—I should be over it by now.
All the things my mother ever told me echoed through my mind.
Before I knew what I was doing, I hung up the phone. I didn’t say a word or acknowledge her in any way. My back hit the dresser, and I slipped down until I was sitting on the floor with my knees pressed to my chest.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Tato lying down in the doorway to the closet and rest his head on his paws. I stared at the clothes hanging in front of me and tried to focus on the carpet beneath me.
I stared and stared, and I tried to breathe, but nothing felt real anymore. All the anger and panic and frustration that were on the verge of boiling over were suddenly gone.
And there was just…nothing.