“Yesterday? Day before?” I wasn’t sure what time it was.
“You got a cathere?” he asked.
“She was hiding under the house,” I managed. It was easier to talk about the cat than?—
I couldn’t even think it.
“She got a name?”
“Sassafras.”
“Cute.”
“Thanks.” I sniffled.
“Fuck,” was Hart’s response, and then I found myself being hugged, and the sobs that I thought I’d run out of came back full force.
When I got myself back together enough to step away from him, I drew in a shuddering breath. “Shit. I’m?—”
“Don’t apologize,” he retorted, and his voice was as rough as mine felt. “This fuckingsucks. But as hard as it’s going to be, I need you to tell me fuckingeverything.”
I let out a deep breath, bracing myself, and told him, starting with when Elliot had left that morning, the last time I’d heard from him, when Istoppedhearing from him—although my voice broke—and then when the deputy had shown up at my door.
Hart’s lavender gaze sharpened. “He said the car was still too hot to investigate?”
“Y-yes?” That’s what the deputy had said.
“So… they haven’t actuallyseenhim?”
“W-what?” I stared at Hart in horror. The very thought of looking at Elliot… like that… My stomach roiled with nausea.
But Hart was excited by this. “You haven’t seen him? They didn’t have you ID him?”
“N—” I shuddered.
“So it’spossiblehe wasn’t in the car.”
“I—” My head was reeling, my heart pounding, sweat running down my spine. Was it possible? It didn’t seem like it could be, as desperately as I wanted to think it was.
“Jesus fuck, sit down. You look awful.” He guided me to the edge of the bed Elliot and I hadn’t been sleeping in—it was closer to the bathroom—and helped me sit down. Then he grabbed one of the trash cans and handed it to me. “If you’re gonna barf, do it in here.”
I looked up at him, trying to decide if it was good idea or a really terrible idea to let myself hope that Elliot might not be?—
But if I let myself hope, and then he was?—
“Hart, the car wason fire. And they thought it was me in it.Someonewas in it. Who the fuck else would it be?” Agitation and anxiety were making me snippy.
“Wassomeone in it?” Hart asked.
“Why thefuckelse would they send a deputy to tell—” I choked, swallowed. “He came here to tellElliotthatIwas dead.” I covered my face with my hands. “Fuck.”
“Senda deputy?” Hart asked.
I looked up. “Yes,senda deputy.”
“He wasn’t at the scene?”
“I don’t fucking know, Hart, okay? I kind of stopped paying attention to details once he said?—”
