Daniel
I didn’t catch the last guy. I already had two down, but when I got that call from Emily I made a beeline home. She needed me. Someone else could catch the crook that had managed to beat the system and get away.
It took me half a day to get back to town which was already too much. Who knew what could have happened in the time it took me to travel all the way back?
I called Taylor when I was in town.
“You know anything about Ruby?” I asked him.
“I haven’t heard from her or seen her. Why?”
“I can’t get a hold of her. Don’t worry about it.”
I didn’t want to tell Taylor more than he needed to know. He was already too much a part of this, not just because he’d been hit but also because he knew that I cared about Emily—and I was starting to think that, on some level, he care about her, too.
I drove straight to Emily’s apartment without stopping at home.
I’d never been upstairs. When I was buzzed in, I went up to the door Emily had told me, but it wasn’t Emily who’d opened the door. It was her roommate. Her face when she saw me suggested she knew a lot more about my relationship with Emily than just the fact that we were involved.
“Well,” Sarah said with a cheeky smile. “If isn’t Mr. Leather and Looks himself.”
Leather and Looks?
“Is Emily in?” I asked. Sarah chuckled and opened the door wider so that I could come in. Emily appeared behind her. She looked pale, her skin washed out against her brown hair and her eyes had dark circles beneath them.
“I wasn’t expecting you,” she said in a hoarse voice.
“I had to come.”
Sarah made a sound and then disappeared to the kitchen.
“I’m putting on coffee,” she called. “You guy go and talk, I’ll bring it.”
Emily smiled and held out her hand. I took it and she led me to her bedroom. When I walked into the room, it was the opposite of anything I’d ever owned. There was so much white, with billowing curtains and puffy pillows and sun falling in through the window that it made my head ache. This was the kind of place my mom would have liked.
There was a desk in the corner filled with stacks of papers and a photo frame lying face down.
Emily got onto the double bed and nestled down into the pillows. I sat down on the edge, aware of my leather and my hard lines among all the soft shades of white.
“How are you feeling?” I asked.
Emily shrugged. “I’ve been better. At least I’ll know what to expect as I go on.”
I nodded. It killed me that she had to go through this. I thought about the business card Emily had found.
“Can I ask you exactly what’s in the injection?”
Emily frowned, got up off the bed, and walked to her desk. She sifted through some papers until she found the one she was looking for.
“Crystal meth, methanol, embalming fluids, and formaldehyde.”
I frowned. “Formaldehyde? Isn’t that something they use at mortuaries?”
Emily nodded. “And embalming fluid. It’s really not supposed to be inside living bodies.”
I pushed my hands into my hair and sighed.
“This is even worse that I thought.”
Emily sat down on the bed again and pulled a blanket half over her legs. She looked exhausted. Exhausted and beautiful against the white pillows. She didn’t say anything; she waited for me to go on. So I did.
“Ruby works at the mortuary at night now and then,” I said. That was the most important bit, after all. “She’s the kind of girl that fit into my life because she has hard edges.”
When I said that Emily winced. I could see she was trying to hide it, and I knew this was uncomfortable for her, but it had to be said.
“She has a nasty habit of roughing up the fugitives she gets ahold of. No one really said anything because they were all criminals and, well, we’d been dating for so long the gang kind of respected her.” I took a deep breath and looked down at my hands. Emily was competently quiet, and I didn’t know what she was thinking. “When I broke up with Ruby, I didn’t cut all ties because she’s got a business mind like I’ve never seen on anyone before. It was something we could use, seeing that we never really grew up with a lot.”
I glanced at Emily. She nodded. There was no sympathy, which was nice. There was no judgment, either, which was a lot better.
“Do you think she’s behind this?” Emily asked.
I thought about the card next to my bike.
“I think that she’s lost it. I think she’s trying to get back at me—and everyone I care about—because I dumped her. She’s gone to extremes. I’m scared of who she’ll get next. She’s already gotten to so many people I care about.”
Emily’s eyes slid to the side, and I wondered what she was thinking about. Taylor? Herself? Maybe she was wondering if all this was worth it.
“Well,” she said. “The upside is that she already got me. What are the chances she’ll try again?”
“You didn’t die,” I said. It was a fact. In my world, that was the final product. It wasn’t in Emily’s, and when I looked up at her again, her face had paled.
“I’m not going to leave your side until it’s safe, okay?” I said.
She nodded and swallowed, wincing like it hurt.
“I’m serious.” I shifted closer to her and kissed her forehead. “I’m going to stick to your side until we have this sorted out. I’m not going to let anyone hurt you.”