I ran a hand over my face and dropped my head against the headboard as I replayed the morning in my mind.
Every word. Every look. Every sound.
Every mistake I’d made with her.
I knew she couldn’t handle being fucked like that. I knew. And I’d somehow forgotten everything but my need for her until she’d gone utterly still beneath me.
And then I’d watched as the strongest girl I knew completely broke.
The only reason I wasn’t going out of my mind was the sole fact that she’d let me pull her to me. That she’d fallen into my arms and stayed.
Looking down at the sleeping girl wrapped in my arms, I trailed my fingers across her cheek and down her jaw, savoring this short time with her. After another pass across her cheek, I carefully moved out from underneath her and forced myself away without looking back.
I knew if I did, I wouldn’t leave.
Once I was dressed and armed, I left and headed down the halls until I reached Beck’s room.
I didn’t knock. He never seemed to.
My attention immediately went to where he was passed out on his bed as I strode in.
I didn’t stop moving, I just smacked his back on my way to open his blinds.
He jumped off his bed, his arms up and hands curled into fists. Facing away from me. “What? Come at me, you fuck. What?”
I knocked on the wall I was leaning against and waited for him to turn to look at me.
The sleep immediately cleared from his eyes when he saw me, and anger filled its place. “Can I help you?”
“Need to talk to you.”
“Unless it’s about the ghost, I don’t wanna talk.”
I shifted my head in the slightest shake. “It’s not. But I’ve been following and digging nonstop since we last talked. There’s still nothing. He is a ghost . . . or Mickey’s just bullshitting, and there’s no one.”
Beck lifted a brow. “What, you finally had time to do what you promised? Trouble in paradise?” An irritated laugh punched from his chest. “Are you surprised? Did you forget what she is?”
I slid a knife from my pocket. “This is the only warning you’ll get. Don’t talk about her like that.”
He eyed the knife then gave a hard nod.
“I need to know about the people Jessica’s mom owes. Who she owes.”
Beck just continued to stare at me.
“Who is she paying?”
He shrugged. “Me.”
I gripped the knife and clenched my teeth. “Unless you want to explain the bruises on her neck . . . who else?”
He sucked in a breath and held it in as his head dropped back. When he ran his hands over his face and gripped at his beard, he finally let the air out in a hard rush. “Jesus fuck. Kieran, man—”
I threw the knife to the right of his head and had another ready before the first was sticking out of the wall.
“Jesus fuck, man, fuck. Let me talk!”
“Talk faster,” I said on a growl.
“I didn’t fucking do it. You know I wouldn’t,” he said quickly, holding his hands out in front of him. “But I was trying to figure out how to explain it without you throwing a goddamn knife at me. And you did it anyway.”
I stared him down for a few seconds before folding my arms over my chest. “Explain.”
“It’s not the first time she’s had them.” He held his hands to his chest and said, “I fucking lost my mind the first couple times, but she just laughed. You know that damn laugh? She laughed like she thought it was the funniest damn thing that I was worried about her.”
I didn’t tell him that she hadn’t laughed with me.
I waited for him to continue.
“You know I already hate what she does. I don’t want to think about what she does with those guys. Especially when they leave marks on her like that. So I don’t talk to her about it now.”
Beck was an idiot. “How often does it happen?”
He let loose a ragged breath as he thought. “I don’t know. In the ten years I’ve known her, I’ve seen it four . . . maybe five times. I don’t know, could be more. Maybe double.”
I nodded and forced myself not to throw another knife near him just to scare him for being blind. “It’s not one of her clients.”
“Clients,” he said, scoffing.
“She owes people money. One of them is doing this. Who does she owe so I can put an end to it?”
For the first time since Beck had walked into my room to find Jessica there, he wasn’t looking at me like he hated me. He looked sorry for me.
“I know what it’s like to want her,” he said. “I know what it’s like to get trapped in her. Trust me.” He laughed sadly and walked to his bed to fall heavily onto it. “But, man . . . she doesn’t owe anyone but me. She isn’t paying anyone but me. Even though you don’t want to think anything bad about her now, it is Jess. She is crazy. Have you considered that maybe she’s lying to you?”
“Dozens of times,” I said immediately. “In the beginning.” I pushed from the wall and dropped my arms, sliding my knife into its spot. “Who she really is? She’s not crazy, and she doesn’t lie.”
Not to me.
“Keep telling yourself that,” Beck murmured. “I’ll be here for you when you realize how good she is at playing her game.”
I walked over to the wall and pulled my knife from it. “How do I find her brother?”
An amused huff burst from Beck until he realized I was serious. “Dude, she doesn’t have a brother.”
I nodded and tapped the blade against my open palm as I turned for the door. When I had it open, I stopped and looked back at Beck. “Have you ever considered she’s been lying to you?”
With everything going on with the ghost, I’d started to wonder if I was losing my ability to find anyone. Or if Jessica had dulled my mind to anything other than her.
The fact that I was staring at the person I’d spent less than thirty minutes tracking confirmed I hadn’t lost a thing.
The guy Mickey hired was really damn good. Or, as I’d told Beck, didn’t exist. It would be like Mickey to have us scrambling around, looking for someone who wasn’t there. And I’d be pissed if that was what it came down to.
But with nothing more than an easy slip into the Raleigh Police Department’s system to check a schedule and get an address and phone number, I’d followed Jessica’s brother to where he was having lunch with a pregnant blonde in Wake Forest.
All I could see when I looked at her was Lily.
And I hated Beck for telling me the way he did. For telling me at all.
It would’ve been easier never knowing.
I watched as she stood from the table and ran her hands over her swollen stomach, her diamond ring flashing in the light of the restaurant as she laughed about something. She started toward the back of the restaurant, toward me, but I waited until she was halfway there before I moved from where I’d been tucked into a darkened corner.
She smiled as she passed by, but I kept my eyes ahead.
I couldn’t look at her when I would only see a failed job and future that I’d lost . . . even if it should’ve never been mine.
Jessica’s brother tensed, his hands fisting on the table when I soundlessly slid into the side of the booth his wife had just left.
His dark eyes flashed, then widened with recognition. I could see the way his body tensed and twitched, like he wanted to check on the girl he’d just let go.
His teeth gnashed. “Can I fucking help you?”
“Jentry, right?”
He didn’t answer.
I pointed toward the fisted hand that showed his wedding band. “Your wife? She’s fine. But I plan to be gone before she comes back. So this will go faster if you answer.”
“Then talk,” he said through gritted teeth.
I could see the darkness rolling beneath the surface, and for a second I almost smiled.
Jessica might’ve been right when she’d said we were alike.
“Why won’t you help your sister?”
“That doesn’t concern you.”
My mouth curled into a cruel smile. “I don’t agree.”
His chest pitched with a huff of disbelief. “I’ve tried. For years, I’ve tried.”
“Ever asked her what she needs help with?”
“What she wants is for someone to give her money. What she needs is to get away from our mother and all that shit,” he hissed. “She needs to get away from what she’s doing. I want to help her.”
“What she needs is for you to believe her.”
He settled in his seat, his head shaking and his mouth pulling in an incredulous smile. “I don’t know you. I doubt you know her. I seriously fucking doubt you know what she needs.”
“And that’s why she’s never let you help her.” I slid out of the booth, but leaned on the table to whisper, “She’s in trouble because she’s been trying to take care of everything by herself. She needs help. There’s only so much I can do. You’re a cop. Do something.”
“She lies,” he said when I’d taken a few steps away, and he waited to continue until I was looking at him again. “Clearly you haven’t known her long enough. But that’s what she does. Lies and does whatever it takes to piss people off. It’s hard to help her when she doesn’t want to be helped. It’s hard to help her when you don’t know what’s real and what isn’t.”
I wondered if anyone had ever seen the real Jessica before.
If anyone knew what she was like beneath the chaos.
I shook my head and stepped back. “Wait for her to stop laughing. That’s when it’s real.”