Chapter 57
FIFTY-SEVEN
Blakely
Staring out the partially open window, the heat and sunshine drifted in with each gust of wind. I was lost in thought, as I often was, with my journal open in front of me. I’d finished work and shifted a few feet from the desk Devon had built me and set up in the corner to the center of his bed.
I’d filled five entire pages—front and back—with anything and everything that I needed to expel from my head.
The nightmares continued the way they always had. I woke up without a clue what the contents of the dream were. But it was my thoughts during the day that really plagued me. Jade’s beaten body, molded to look identical to mine—the image of it was never going to leave me.
If he wasn’t caught soon, I worried what his next move might be. And maybe if I could just understand what he wanted, what his purpose was in all of it, then I could infer what he would do next.
But it was a question I hadn’t found an answer to in two years. It sure as hell wasn’t going to happen on a random Thursday evening. And reasoning away the actions of a mad man was pointless and fruitless. No matter how much it ate at me.
Except I was determined to protect my friends, and without knowledge of his motive, it felt like I had no control. Actually, it didn’t feel like I had no control; I quite obviously had none. That was it.
Everyone knew to be on high alert, and luckily, Marie was now on the case as well. She was more determined than I thought possible for someone who wasn’t directly and personally involved. If anyone was going to find him, it was Marie.
Jade had asked me after we’d found her what I would do. If—or she, a little more optimistic than myself, said when—we found him, and I was given the opportunity, what would I want to do. If I’d ever given any thought to revenge or retaliation. I had, but not with any seriousness since two years before. At the beginning, right when I’d escaped, it was cathartic to think about doing to that nameless, faceless man what he did to me. Or worse.
And I thought I’d completely moved on from it, but those thoughts had crept back just as he had.
“I’d find some way to remind him of me. I’d want him to live the rest of his miserable life with the knowledge that although he tried, he never broke me.”
That’s what I’d told her, and I was completely serious, too. I wasn’t a particularly violent person, but given the opportunity, I wouldn’t hesitate to dole out the punishment he was fucking due.
Contemplating all the creative ways I could execute that promise and ingrain that reminder permanently on his skin, I jumped when my phone vibrated next to me.
Marie: Call me when you can. Not super urgent.
Marie: Just found a few things you’ll both want to know about .
She’d sent both texts to the group she’d created with me and Devon. Slamming my journal shut, I hopped off the bed so quickly I startled Stormy and Tato, who were curled up next to me.
I threw open the door and immediately heard the sound of the electric saw humming in the garage below. Devon had been down there for an hour working on his latest project. And when I pushed through the metal gate, the image I was greeted with was reminiscent of what I’d witnessed the first time I’d stepped into the garage.
Devon was shirtless and slick with sweat. His tattoos were glistening, light wash jeans were sitting lower on his hips, and I took a second to save the mental image of him in his element.
He spotted me a second later. He finished the cut he was making and turned off the saw, chucking his safety glasses next to the wood.
“Hey, sweetheart. What’s up?”
“Marie texted. She wants us to call her. She said it’s not super urgent, but I don’t want to wait.”
“Of course, do you want to go inside or?—?”
I shook my head and rounded the workbench as Devon fished his phone out of his back pocket. “Out here is good. You can keep working after we talk to her.”
Devon started dialing and reached for me, but I was too high-strung to stand in place. I gave him an apologetic smile and started pacing.
Marie answered on the third ring. “Hello, Devon.”
“Hi, Marie,” Devon responded, but I stayed silent.
“I won’t take up too much of your time,” Marie said. “But I just found a few things you should know about. First, I’m going to send you a list of names. It’s employees, volunteers, and visitors that ever entered the hospital where your mom was staying in Houston. It’s a list Blakely’s seen before, but I think it’s worth her looking over again. You should look at it as well. We’ll cross-reference who you might recognize. I’m also putting together any photos I can get my hands on and reviewing any security camera footage I can locate.”
“We’ll start looking at them as soon as you send us the list,” Devon agreed. I came to stand beside him, chewing awkwardly on my thumbnail and rolling my ChapStick back and forth in my other hand.
“Is there anything else?” I asked urgently.
The nervous energy thrumming through me wasn’t ebbing. It was becoming increasingly hard to ignore it.
Marie didn’t skip a beat. “It’s your sister Sydney’s boyfriend. It’s unrelated to your case, as far as I can tell, but my first step is almost always to research family members. And I know you had a special interest in him because of his interest in Blakely and her case. Although your parents are right assholes, Blakely, I don’t believe they have anything to do with this. The only family member to turn up something strange was Sydney because of her new boyfriend.”
Devon tensed next to me, and the muscles in his neck jumped. My hand landed on his forearm, which I gave a reassuring squeeze. “He’s taught in three other states before coming here,” Marie continued. “His most recent restraining order just lapsed. One of his previous students took it out on him.”
Devon’s hand tightened around the phone, and he managed to ground out, “A restraining order?” through his anger.
“Unfortunately, yes. Her entire family was murdered, and he harassed her so much about the tragedy that she had no choice. He wouldn’t leave her alone, calling and texting, wanting her story for a paper he was writing. It looks like he mostly picks young women who don’t have many family members or a support system, so he can easily manipulate them. Now, this is all conjecture, but based on his MO, I’m assuming he got to Sydney because he couldn’t get to Blakely. That was his way in.”
I mumbled several curses under my breath and immediately pulled out my phone. My text to Sydney was simple: call me.
“Thank you, Marie. Is there anything else?” Devon’s voice was eerily calm, and he glanced over my shoulder at Sydney’s response, letting me know she would call me soon.
“Not yet, but I’ll let you know as soon as I have something. Expect that list of names and the other documents I gathered for Julian tomorrow.”
She hung up without a goodbye, just in time for Sydney’s name to appear on my phone. Devon tossed his phone to the side and reached for mine, which I happily gave him.
One very long and painful conversation later, Devon and I slumped against the workbench. “She was so reckless,” he murmured, running a palm up and down his face.
When the professor Sydney had been flirting with all semester finally reciprocated, she couldn’t resist. He’d played her perfectly. It had all started off innocently enough, or as innocently as it could have. He was interested in her in the beginning, just her without an ulterior motive—as far as we know—but she admitted that when she’d mentioned me and my story, he’d changed.
He’d pushed to visit her family immediately, and one visit wasn’t sufficient. She just hadn’t wanted to admit it to herself or anyone else that his intentions were anything but true. That was why, when we’d called her before to tell her about my phone call with Julian, she’d still been protecting him and making stupid excuses. She didn’t want to be wrong.
She swore she would end things, and then she apologized over and over and over again.
“She didn’t mean to,” I whispered. A new wave of emotion hit me. Emotion I couldn’t quite identify, but it was sweeping and overwhelming.
I stared down at my hands and inhaled a shaky breath.
“She might not have meant to, but it happened nonetheless,” he continued, annoyance and frustration obvious in every word. He was too caught up in what Sydney had—or, better yet, hadn’t—done, but I’d moved past it. She was apologetic, and we had bigger things to deal with .
“Dev—” I began.
“No, Blake. She put you in danger, and?—”
The emotions finally bubbled over. “And Julian is the least of our problems, Devon,” I snapped before I could think it through. “Sydney is going to break up with him, and it seems like he gave up on me. If we have to, we’ll go the restraining order route for both me and Sydney. I’m not worried about it, and neither is she. It sucks, but it’s over.”
I was fuming, my hands shaking as I paced away from him. When I chanced a look back at him, guilt marred his features.
“Fuck, Blake,” he said, crossing to me in two quick strides. “I’m sorry. I didn’t?—”
“I know, I know,” I said and took a breath. I tilted my head back and stared at the wood beams in the unfinished ceiling as my hands landed on his chest. “I’m just…I don’t even have a word for how I feel right now. Annoyed? Frustrated? Infuriated? None of them seem to fit.”
Not being able to name the feelings was going to drive me crazy. It was anything and everything all at once.
“I—” he began, but I cut him off immediately with a quick shake of my head.
“And I swear to god, if you say that ‘all my feelings are valid’ or ‘you’ll get through this,’ I’m going to go nuclear. I don’t want any cliched, unhelpful expressions or platitudes people use when they don’t have anything better to say.”
Slowly, the corners of his mouth tipped up in a smile that he was trying—and failing—to hold back. I narrowed my eyes in suspicion at his reaction. Gently, he smoothed the furrow between my brows with his thumb, then grasped my chin. He tilted my head up an inch, so I had no choice but to look directly at him.
“I was going to say that I love you. So fucking much. That work?”
Similar to Devon, an uncontrollable smile spread across my face. “Yeah, that works.” He ran his thumb over my smile before he leaned down and pressed our lips together.
“I love you, too, by the way,” I whispered against my mouth.
He kissed me again and again. “Good. Now, get back to work.” I stepped back, but he clung to my hands, groaning when I kept walking backward. “Don’t groan. You told me I was a distraction when I was in here last time.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “But you’re the best distraction.”
“I know. I’ll show you what an amazing distraction I am later, when you’re making the dinner you promised me.”
Our fingers slipped apart, and I turned to leave, feeling somewhat lighter knowing that we were moving forward. That we were moving in the right direction. And Devon was by my side.