Chapter 55
FIFTY-FIVE
Devon
“This is my top priority. I’ve managed to gather everything I can on Blakely’s case and reviewed it already,” Marie agreed with a nod. “I’ll let you know as soon as I find anything worth mentioning.”
I thanked her for the tenth time since she arrived and shook her hand. I’d texted her and Detective Baker seconds before the cops arrived, and they’d both come as quickly as they could.
She had a good relationship with the Austin Police Department, and coincidentally, Detective Baker himself. She’d worked with him to review the very little camera footage available and take our statements. Again, which did little to help since none of us had seen anything since we’d found the woman—Jade—in the trunk.
“We’ve already tried contacting the business next door,” Detective Baker said, stepping up beside me and motioning to the brewery that was in the next warehouse over. “We left a message for the owner requesting the security camera footage. It doesn’t look like any of their cameras are pointing in this direction, but no shame in trying. ”
“Did Jade tell you anything?” I managed to ask, even with emotion clogging my throat and squeezing my chest. Nothing, they still had nothing .
Detective Baker glanced around us and cleared his throat. In a voice a little above a whisper, he said, “I’m not supposed to discuss it with you, but honestly, Devon, I think you’re a good guy, and you care about your girl, which goes a long way with me.” He took a deep breath, and I braced for what he was about to say. Given the state of Jade and how long she’d been speaking with the police, I knew it wouldn’t be a story I really wanted to hear. “We haven’t taken her full statement yet, but she was picked up while she was on a run in a nearby park early yesterday morning. He approached her from behind and threw her in the trunk of a car. She passed out while in the trunk and didn’t come to until they were stopped somewhere else. He kept her blindfolded the entire time, but she knew he had dyed her hair, drew the tattoos on her, and kept saying Blakely’s name. Honestly, he kept her so drugged, there’s not much she remembers.”
My hands balled into fists at my sides. A deep anger coursed through me, so potent it felt like it was blistering my skin.
Jade was shaken just from a night spent with that psychotic fuck. I wish it didn’t, but it made me wonder how unlike herself Blakely likely was after months locked in his basement. It made me want to kill the fucker over and over and over.
“—message.” Too entrenched in my own rage, I missed everything Detective Baker said.
“I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“I said, this was clearly a message to Blakely.”
I gritted my teeth and turned to find her exactly where she’d been sitting for the past half hour—next to Jade on the curb, both of them silent and staring off in the distance.
“Issue is, what the fuck does the message mean?” The words were barely more than a frustrated whisper, but Detective Baker heard. He patted my shoulder and gave me a weary, understanding smile.
“We’re gonna find him, Devon. I can feel it. We’re close.” He sounded confident, but when I looked into his eyes, I saw the uncertainty I expected. The confidence was just a front. The act was part of his job to show victims and their families that there was hope in the middle of the madness.
But hope felt fucking useless sometimes. If it weren’t for her—for Blakely—I’d eat, sleep, and breathe hope.
“I’ll be in touch,” Detective Baker promised. I only managed a slight dip of my chin in response before he walked back to his unmarked car.
CSI was finishing up with my car, and Jade, who had been evaluated by the EMTs but refused the trip to the hospital, was waiting for her boyfriend to pick her up.
Watching the two of them together was trippy. If it weren’t for the circumstances, anyone would have thought they were twins. The freak had found the perfect doppelg?nger. I wondered how long he’d been planning the stunt. If he’d happened upon Jade and the idea had come to him, or if he’d been scouting a victim all along. The latter made me even angrier, and I quickly shook away the thought.
A breeze whipped past, and Jade tightened the blanket around her shoulders. Blakely’s black hair tumbled around her face. She absentmindedly pushed it back behind her ears, and my heart grew a million fucking sizes.
I never knew love like that existed—so all-consuming and intense that it was both exciting and fucking terrifying.
Blakely’s eyes sharpened, the far-off look finally disappearing as she glanced to her right at Jade. Jade was idly running her fingertips over her lips, which were cracked and chapped from the duct tape and lack of water. Blakely shifted and reached into her purse, pulling out something small and offering it to Jade.
I was too far away to recognize what it was until Jade accepted the object, uncapped it, and brushed it against her lips .
No one else would have understood the weight of that moment. But Blakely offering Jade the same comfort and kindness she’d received after she’d been found…it felt big.
And it felt even bigger when she looked up and locked eyes with me, a small, gentle smile curving her cherry lips.