6. Ryder
RYDER
The second I saw that photograph in Alex’s hand, I stopped believing this was about intimidation and knew it was Preston Lee trying to force his way back into her life.
I’ve never wanted to hurt another human being the way I’m craving his blood on my hands, and I know that should scare me…but I’d do anything to keep her safe.
By dawn, I still haven’t slept.
The kitchen is dark except for the stove light and the low blue pulse from the police scanner near the sink.
I keep the volume turned down enough to hear dispatch without letting it fill the house.
A beer sweats beside my notebook on the counter, untouched since I opened it hours ago.
The label has started peeling at the corner from all the condensation, and I keep picking at it with my thumb instead of doing anything useful.
The photo sits open on my phone. The first of the two Alex sent with four words. One showing the front and one the back.
AllyCat: In case you need it.
I saved a copy outside the thread before I answered her, then spent the rest of the night staring at the screen until my eyes burned.
She’s younger in the picture. Smiling beside that jackass Preston while his arm hooks around her waist like he’s keeping her exactly where he wants her.
It’s the kind of photo people look at and make stupid assumptions about.
Such a happy couple enjoying a nice night.
A pretty girl with a good-looking man who probably shook hands with fathers, charmed mothers, and held doors open while everyone congratulated him for having manners.
I know better. Not just because I know some of the truth, but also because I know Alex in a way normal people wouldn’t understand.
I look at the pressure of his hand on her hip. I look at Alex’s smile, too wide and too careful. Then I look at the picture I have of the message written on the back.
You looked happier with me.
My grip tightens around the beer until the bottle creaks.
Preston isn’t trying to scare her off. He isn’t warning her to stay quiet or punishing her for leaving. This is so much worse than that. Preston is a man trying to remind her of who he thinks owns the before and after of her life. He’s trying to get her back under his control.
He wants to make her back into that version of herself.
The version of her in that picture wasn’t happy. She was surviving long enough to get home and bleed where no one could see.
I set the bottle down before I break it in my hand.
A notebook waits in front of me, already full of ugly pieces I don’t like seeing in one place.
It practically hurts to make the list of shit that Alex has had to deal with.
The blocked calls. White roses that were delivered that she didn’t know I watched her throw away.
Her bedroom window opened three inches. Dark SUV downtown.
Fake maintenance worker that could potentially have been sent by Preston.
Photograph left in her car at Mason Ridge.
Preston’s name goes beneath the list, just so it’s clear that I think he’s responsible for everything.
I write Josh’s name in the corner and stare at it until the letters blur with my focus.
He should know. If anyone deserves a call, it’s him.
He’s her brother. He loves her. He’d come fast, loud, and more than ready to tear the world apart until he found a piece of the destruction in Alex’s life with Preston’s fingerprints on it.
That’s the problem.
Alex would see his fear, make adjustments to how she’s acting, and turn hers into something smaller so he wouldn’t have to carry it for her.
I watched her do that for years. Smooth the edges of her own problems to make everyone else more comfortable.
Make jokes at her own expense so that no one saw the sadness in her eyes.
Pretend the bruises were old if she ever got questioned, the silence was exhaustion and not fear of what would happen if she spoke, the distance was nothing personal.
Josh missed it. We all did, though that excuse tastes like shit every time I try to swallow it down.
If I call him now, he’ll ask why I know this much. How I got close enough for Alex to trust me. He’ll ask why she sent the photo to me. Why I was at Mason Ridge in the rain.
He’ll start to see why I always seem to be close enough to catch the pieces of her life when they start falling.
My phone is in my hand before I let myself think any harder about it because I need to talk to someone, if not him.
Remy answers on the sixth ring with a voice filled with gravel and a history of bad decisions.
“Cook, I swear to God, unless someone is bleeding or committing a felony, I’m blocking your number until sunrise.
Parker is naked in our bed waiting for me, and I’m not going to lose a chance to get between her legs. ”
“Preston left a photograph in Alex’s car with a note on the back.”
The silence that follows lasts just long enough for him to wake all the way up.
“In the car?”
“In it. She remembers locking it, and then the door was open several inches and she found the note on the driver’s side seat.”
“Send it.” Then the call disconnects.
I do what he ordered and send him both photos. The picture itself, and the note on the back.
He calls back twenty-six minutes later. I know the exact count because I watch every minute change on the stove clock like an idiot waiting for a verdict.
“The SUV you gave me before traces to a rental company two towns over,” he says.
“The reservation info is garbage. He used a fake address, and the name doesn’t match.
The payment method got flagged after the rental cleared, so whoever handled it had enough time to disappear with the vehicle before the payment was marked as suspicious.
But it wasn’t declined. Just a different name on the card than on the reservation. ”
I close my eyes.
Preston planned this. He didn’t panic and circle her town hoping to catch a glimpse of her. He got a vehicle under fake information, followed her, found out where she’d be, and got close enough to her car to leave proof she couldn’t ignore in a way that would terrify her.
“Ryder,” Remy says, and I already know I’m not going to like the tone.
“What?”
“She needs to make a report.”
“I know.”
“You say that like you’re agreeing with me, but I can hear the part where you’re already building your own case in a notebook and deciding rules are flexible because you want to protect her yourself.”
I look down at the page without saying anything because he’s right, and I respect him too much to lie to him.
He sighs. “I’m serious. Help her report it. Don’t become another man making choices around her while calling it protection when you can include her and give her the agency that she didn’t have before.”
The words hit exactly where they’re meant to.
I hate him a little for it.
But we end the call after that, and I know that I have to do it. I have to talk Alex into reporting this shit so that they can help her in a way that I can’t…at least not alone.
First, I have to drag my ass into work for my shift on the ambulance instead of the fire rig and hope nothing goes terribly wrong.
By noon, I’m in the living room of a duplex on Miller Street, kneeling in front of a woman with a split lip while her boyfriend leans against the kitchen counter and smiles like he was born with nothing to hide.
The call came in as a woman reporting herself as falling down the stairs. Those are the tidy words dispatch uses. They don’t cover the crooked lamp by the couch, the broken glass swept badly against the baseboard, or the way the woman keeps apologizing for taking up our time.
“She tripped,” the boyfriend says. “But not at the top of the stairs, at the bottom of them.” He places a hand on her shoulder, and I can see the way his fingers dig into her skin.
She nods before I ask her to confirm his account. There’s no rug anywhere near her feet.
I check her pupils while she stares over my shoulder. Her hands twist in the hem of her shirt, fingers worrying the fabric until the seam curls. When I ask if she feels dizzy, her eyes flick toward him, quick as a flinch.
“I’m okay,” she says. “Really. I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to apologize for getting checked out.”
The boyfriend laughs under his breath. “She gets worked up.”
I keep my face calm. A reaction from me will not help her after we leave. Men like him know how to make women pay for other people’s concern, and I have no interest in handing him a weapon he didn’t already have.
So I ask questions. I offer transport. I keep my voice even while Josh draws the boyfriend’s attention to paperwork near the counter. Before we go, I slide a resource card halfway beneath a magazine on the coffee table.
The woman sees it. Her eyes fill, but she doesn’t cry.
“No hospital,” she says softly.
I nod once. “Okay.”
On the way back to the station, Josh watches me from the passenger seat for a long minute before he says, “You look like you’re trying to decide whether prison is worth it.”
“Bad scene.” The words almost stick in my throat. But they’re not the ones I should be saying. I should be telling him about his sister, but I don’t. I’m not ready to. Not yet.
“Yeah.” He glances out the window, humor gone. “They usually are.”
My hands stay locked on the wheel the rest of the drive.
After shift, I go to the hardware store instead of home.
Heavy duty window locks go into the cart first. Then motion lights, extra batteries, a better screwdriver set, and two small cameras I can place without drawing attention if Alex gives me permission.
I repeat it to myself while I stand in the checkout line and still hate how little comfort it gives me.
The cashier scans the pile and lifts his brows. “Planning for the apocalypse?”
“Nah,” I chuckle darkly. “Bad landlord.”
He waits for more.
He doesn’t get it.