I’m debating whether to go careening off the wagon with Jim Bean or Jack Daniels when I hear footfalls behind me.
I wait until I’m at my truck before I whirl around to face whoever’s tailing me.
My heartbeat fucking stutters.
“Holly?”
“Jack?” She looks smaller than she did last night, and younger. She’s got on a uniform of some kind. Housekeeping, maybe.
My body reacts before my mind catches up, dropping the files into the back of my truck and pulling her toward me. Her body relaxes as my arms go around her. She clings to my shirt.
“It’s Cal, actually,” I tell her.
She pulls back slightly.
“You’re a cop?”
“Afraid so.” I cup the side of her face. “I was undercover last night. That’s why I couldn’t tell you.”
She nods in understanding. I stroke the line of her jaw, stunned and bewildered. I never thought I’d feel her in my arms again, and now that she’s here, I can’t recall why I ever thought it was right to let her go.
But the fear in her eyes tells me she didn’t come here for a social call.
“What’s wrong, sweetheart?”
“It’s McKenzie,” she says. “I think she’s in trouble.”
“Your friend from the party?”
She nods. “She went off with some guy who was supposed to take her to someone’s house. She never came back. And then...”
A seed of dread plants itself in the pit of my stomach. Kenzie’s story is both unique and disturbingly familiar. None of the other girls mentioned their friends being driven away from the parties, but the girls had to have left the premises somehow.
“Have you reported her missing?” I ask.
“Only to you.”
I think about marching her back into the station, straight to Lieutenant Harris’ office and saying here, see, I was right. But something stops me. If this goes as high as I think it does, there could be eyes and ears in the department.
I could be putting Holly in danger just by showing her face.
“Let’s keep it that way for now. Have you had breakfast?” I ask, though I can already guess her answer.
“I could eat,” she says.
I grab my files and wedge them into my truck’s small backseat, then motion for Holly to get in.
“Where are we going?” She gasps as I rest my hands on her hips to help her up into the passenger’s seat.
“Someplace you can eat pancakes while we talk.”
Chapter Nine
Holly
Cal takes us to a diner with a retro vibe. Black and white tiles line the floor, as well as the walls above red pleather booths. The place is packed. Conversations blend into white noise, drowning out the music that’s already blaring from a jukebox.
I feel my chest clench and my armpits start to sweat. Cal’s grip on my hand tightens, probably in response to my own vice-like hold on him. He waves to a gray-haired woman who points to an empty booth in the back.
I let him guide me to a table, which is surprisingly quiet. He takes the side facing the door, and I take the booth facing the wall so I can’t see the other diners. Out of sight, out of mind. That’s the idea, anyway. Sometimes the trick even works.
He hands me a menu and tells me to order whatever I want. When our server arrives, I stumble over my words. Cal orders for both of us: two coffees plus an order of chocolate-chip pancakes with bacon, two scrambled eggs, and a side of wheat toast.
“Thanks,” I tell him when we’re alone again. “I hope you’re planning to eat some of that.”
He shakes his head. My foot bounces under the table as we wait for our coffees. Cal studies me with a familiar intensity that makes me self-conscious, but not nervous. Not like the old men last night, or the driver who took Kenzie away.
“When was the last time you saw McKenzie?” he asks.
“Last night, at the party. A few minutes after I...climbed off your lap.” My cheeks warm at the memory. I command myself to focus. “She went off in a black SUV to some guy’s house. Apparently, he wanted to enjoy the pleasure of her company in private.”
“What kind of SUV was it?”
I close my eyes and try to picture Kenzie climbing into the back. “I don’t remember. Fuck...”
He reaches across the table to squeeze my hand. “It’s all right, sweetheart.”
My insides melt like chocolate at the warmth in his tone. It shouldn’t be this easy for him to break down my defenses. The man lied to me about who he was.
Seeing him again filled me with joy, like helium filling a balloon. Learning the truth felt like someone taking a pin to that joy. Yet, when he pulled me into his arms in the parking lot, I couldn’t bring myself to push him off. Somehow, my body recognized him on a deeper level, in a place where names and histories and titles mean nothing. Where the only language spoken is through a comforting embrace.