Apparently, I hadn’t been notified about her release because I wasn’t ‘family’ and Daytin hadn’t put my name down in her file as a person to contact. She hadn’t put anybody’s name down.

But they didn’t give a damn about that, now did they?

I was furious and sick to my stomach.

How had she gotten out in the first place? She hadn’t gone through the proper procedures to sign herself out, which meant she shouldn’t have been able to get out of a secured facility. Then there was the question of how she’d tracked down Jacen.

And had he…

No. I cut the thought off. He wouldn’t. Daytin screamed victim right now, screamed broken.

Jacen wouldn’t want a broken doll.

That was one of the things that made him different from the others.

Besides, he’d called me so I could come get her. So I could take care of her.

The pizzeria came into view, but before I could breathe a sigh of relief, I caught right of him pacing at the curb.

Shit.

What now?

“What’s wrong?” I demanded as he jerked the door open and climbed inside.

“She bolted,” he said.

Gaping at him, I totally forgot about the fact that I was still in the middle of the street. Horns blared from the cars stuck behind me, but I ignored them up until Jacen put his hand on my shoulder and gave me a shake.

“Come on,” he said shortly. “Let’s find a place to park, and we’ll look around. She was determined to get me to pay for a hotel room. Maybe she already had something around here lined up.”

The thought of her and him casually discussing getting a hotel room made me see red, although not entirely because I was upset about her feeling like that was the only thing she was good for. Guilt immediately followed, reminding me of how absolutely shitty it was of me to be jealous when my friend was hurting.

Still...

“Nice to know she wasn’t your type,” I said, immediately hating how snarky I sounded.

“Little girls have never been my type.” His tone was dry, and I wondered if I’d offended him.

Dammit. I was no good at this.

Sighing, I tossed him a glance. “I didn’t mean to imply...I mean...I’m just worried about her.”

“I get it.” There was a pause, and then he added, “I’d never take advantage of someone like that. Not just Daytin, but anyone. I hope you know that.” Before I could come up with a response, he pointed ahead. “Parking.”

It took nearly ten minutes to find a spot in the crowded mezzanine-styled lot, but shortly after that, we were back out on the street, winding our way through the crowd, searching for a skinny girl who could disappear like smoke.

Jacen turned to go into the first shop he saw, but I caught his arm. “She won’t be in a store like that.”

“Why not?” He frowned.

“It’s just not how it works,” I answered absently as I skimmed the street for a place she’d go.

“How what works?”

Heat burned my cheeks as I realized what I’d said, but I answered him anyway. “People in stores like that watch girls too closely. Daytin may be eighteen, but she still doesn’t want to be found. If she’s looking to score some cash for drugs, she’s not going to risk stealing something from a place like that. There are easier ways for girls like us to make money.”

“Easier ways...” His voice trailed off and I knew he’d figured out what I wasn’t saying. “That’s not you anymore, Camry. And it won’t be Daytin much longer.”

I pressed my lips together and gave a quick nod. He didn’t get it. The track marks on my arms may have faded to almost nothing, and the physical cravings had subsided, but I was still a junkie. Recovering, yes, but never cured. I didn’t sell my body, and I had a real job now, a respectable one, but I still thought of myself as that girl who had been willing to do anything to get a fix. The one who’d let a single tragic event become an excuse to do whatever she wanted.

A bus trundled down the street and I watched, narrowing my eyes. “Bingo. Follow that bus.”

“Not to sound like a broken record, but…why?”

“Bus stops aren’t bad places to loiter and try to beg for money. I learned that early on. We’ll start there.”

* * *

With nothing to show after two hours of searching every bus stop, outdoor restaurant and street vendor, except some sunburnt cheeks, I finally let Jacen talk me into going inside and getting a drink, both to cool off and to regroup. Daytin had clearly gotten further away than I’d thought.

Or she’d already found someone to take her to the hotel. It was a strong possibility, and one I hated to consider. Not just because I knew how dangerous it was, but because I knew how much harder that would make finding her. We couldn’t go to every hotel in LA within walking distance, and that was assuming she hadn’t just gotten into a car with a random stranger.

“What can I get you two fine souls this afternoon?” the server asked as she smiled down at us.

She had one of those bubbly, happy voices that matched her picture-perfect features and figure. The kind that made women like me want to just disappear because there was never any way we could compete with a woman like that. I had the sudden urge to ask her if she’d moved here to be on TV or in movies.

“I’d love some nachos,” Jacen replied.

I frowned at him. He’d said a few minutes to talk and cool off.

“You need some food.” He picked up the menu and skimmed it, expression pensive. After a moment, he added, “And ginger ale, please. Camry?”

Light glinting off all the pretty bottles behind the bar made me crave something strong enough to make me forget about all this for a while, but I simply said, “Water, please.”

Some former drug addicts tried to curb their addictions with alcohol, but I wasn’t going to take that chance. I’d worked too hard to get clean, owed too many people too much.

Once the server left, I looked at Jacen. “We need to be looking for Daytin.”

“You need food,” he countered. “I need food. We both need some fluids and to get out of the heat. Twenty minutes and we’ll both feel so much better.”

I might have argued with him, but the screen flickering just past his shoulder distracted me. “You’re on TV.”

He jerked in his seat, a reaction I wasn’t expecting. His hand smacked into the ice water he’d half-finished, knocking it over before he could grab it.

“I’m a klutz,” he muttered, grabbing a couple paper napkins and dropping them on the small puddle of water. “Sorry about that.”

“It’s okay.” I tossed my own napkin onto the mess, but I was paying more attention to him than I was to the water.

“Stupid reporters,” he muttered, his cheeks stained red as he kept glancing up at the TV, then back down at the table, as if what was on the screen would change in those two or three seconds.

I found myself oddly bemused as I watched him on TV trying to dodge cameras with a tall, slender blonde. “She’s a model, isn’t she? She’s…well, she’s gorgeous.” I grinned at him despite the stab of jealousy I felt when I saw him put his arm around her shoulders. “I’d do her.”

“I didn’t do her,” Jacen snapped.

“I didn’t say you did.” My heart gave a happy little jump at the denial, but I didn’t let myself go there. I stuck with the easy stuff, keeping my tone droll. “They’re being pretty brutal. Adelina has sunk to an all-time low, dating a former soccer player turned stripper. Wow. I didn’t realize you’d become such an underachiever, Jacen.”

“You weren’t paying attention the past few years then.” He shrugged, the movement too casual, the lines at the corners of his mouth tight.

I tried not to let that hurt me. He had no way of knowing I’d clung to every scrap of information I could get on him. There were days that he had been the only thing keeping me from ending it all.

“Yes, actually I was.”

I glared at the TV as the captions scrolled by. Jacen didn’t deserve this. He was a great guy, no matter what his job–

“You were what?”

I looked over at Jacen, confused by his question. “I don’t know. What was I doing?”

My stomach chose that exact moment to growl loud enough that Jacen raised an eyebrow. I grabbed a couple nachos and shoved them into my mouth, then gestured for him to say whatever it was that was on his mind.

“You said you were…I don’t know.” He tore a piece off of his napkin and rolled it into a little ball. “It kind of sounded like you had been paying attention the past few years.”

“Of course I was paying attention. You were my favorite athlete.” I tried to sell it with a teasing smile, but I didn’t know how well it worked. Still, I wasn’t about to tell him how I’d practically started crying when I’d heard that he’d been hurt. That I had cried when I’d heard his mother had died. I’d been too messed up to go to the funeral at that time, and even if I’d had the money to go, I doubted I would have gone anyway. Not with the risk of seeing Kaleb there.

But because his stumbles had been made in public, I’d been able to follow each one of them. Now, however, I felt ashamed, because the paparazzi that were making him so miserable were the only reason I’d had a window into his life.