“It’s fine, baby,” he said soothingly. “A few bruises, that’s all. I got run off the road, I shifted and slid out of the car while the asshole was shooting, so I’m a little scraped up, but I’ll be okay.”
“Are you sure?” I knew I sounded desperate. I felt desperate.
“Yes, I’m sure. Now go get Val and get out here, okay?”
I sniffled again. “Okay,” I agreed. I wanted to see him—no,neededto see him. Needed to touch him. To reassure myself that he really was alive and real and not a hallucination conjured up by my exhausted and grief-stricken brain.
He let out a breath. “Seth—don’t let the cops know I’m alive, okay?”
I was about to object, then realized he was right. “Okay.” I swallowed. “El?”
“I love you, baby.”
Tears tracked their way down my cheeks, but I swallowed them back. “I love you, too,” I told him. “So much.” I couldn’t make myself hang up the phone.
“I’ll see you soon, okay?”
“Okay.”
He was the one who ended the call.
I was soakedthrough by the time I got to the Augusta County Sheriff’s Office, since I had to walk through the rain from the hotel. I stepped through the front doors, my dark t-shirt clinging to my skin. I’m sure the look wasn’t even remotely flattering, given my physique, but I was so emotionally wrung out that I really couldn’t have given any fewer shits.
I walked up to the receptionist. “I need to see Agent Hart,” I told her. “I believe he’s here somewhere.”
Her eyes widened slightly. “Sir?—”
“I will absolutely just start yelling,” I warned her. “If that’s what it takes.”
I must have looked somewhat unhinged, because she immediately picked up the phone on the desk. “Sir, there’s someone here to see Agent Hart. It seems… urgent.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” I said when she hung up the phone, although that didn’t seem to make her any happier.
I stood there dripping on the floor, trying to contain my agitated nervous energy so that I didn’t annoy the woman at the desk to the point where she’d call one of the deputies to come and remove me. I tried not to obsessively check my phone, although I did notice at one point that it had been seven minutes since I’d asked after Hart.
What I was worried about was the fact that Elliot was alive and that I was going to have to convince Hart to come with me without telling him—at least until we got to his car—that Elliot was alive. And I was betting that he was raising unholy hell in hisattempt to get information about Elliot’s death when the cops didn’t actually have any because he wasn’t dead.
Andthatthought made me realize that whoever had done the crime scene investigationhadto know by now that Elliot’s body wasn’t in the car.
Which made me realize that nobody had tried to notifymethat they knew that Elliot wasn’t in the car.
I really needed to talk to Hart.Now.
Another check of my phone said it had been twelve minutes.
I didn’t really have another option, given the fact that I had no car—Shit, I have no car now. Goddamnit.—and I needed to get out to the Hills’ farm. So I needed Hart, because there wasn’t anyone else I could ask to take me all the way out there, especially because Elliot didn’t want the cops to know he was alive.
Shit.
Sixteen minutes.
I was just about to go back up to the counter when Hart, his hair pulling loose from his braid and his clothing extremely rumpled, with a new stain on his pale blue shirt that looked like it was probably coffee, came around the corner, his brow deeply furrowed.
“What the fuck’s happened?” he demanded.
I stared at him, trying to figure out how I was going to convince him to leave his investigation. I went with the only innocuous thing I could think of that would take us out there. “We need to go feed the animals.”
“Feed…? The fuck are you talking about, Mays?” I’d seen this particular incredulous expression on his face before—the face that said he thought someone had lost their mind or was spectacularly stupid—I just hadn’t ever had it directed at me.
