The Risk

“Who’s Eric?” Brooks attempts to sound casual but fails. I’m glad he asked before I did, though, and the wink he gives me reveals it was intentional. I nod back, appreciating the solid.

“Nobody,” she says tightly.

Well, that tells me nothing. Is she seeing somebody else? Does she have a roster of guys she hooks up with, a bench full of McCarthys?

The hot jealousy burning my gut is not a pleasant sensation. I’m a competitive guy, but I’ve never competed for the affections of a woman before. Because no woman has ever chosen another man over me. That sounds pretentious and I don’t care. The idea of Brenna seeing other dudes is not okay with me.

Which creates another first: I’ve never been the one to initiate the are-we-exclusive conversation. How does one even bring that up?

When her phone buzzes with a voice-mail alert, I feel even testier. “Are you going to check that?”

“No need. I know what he wants.”

The unwelcome jealousy burns hotter. “Is that so?”

“Yup. Whose turn is it now?”

“Mine,” Brooks offers. But as he sorts the tiles on his tray, Brenna’s phone rings for a second time.

And then, after she ignores it, a third time.

“Just answer it,” I mutter.

With a heavy breath, she reaches for the phone again. “Eric, hey. I told you I don’t have time for—” Her sentence comes to an abrupt halt. When she speaks again, concern has softened her voice. “What do you mean you don’t know where you are?”

Brooks and I exchange a wary look.

“Slow down, slow down. You’re not making any sense. Where are you?” There’s a long silence. “Okay, stay put,” she finally says, and I swear her voice cracks a little. She blinks rapidly, as if fighting tears. “I’ll be right there.”

26

Jake

“Thank you so much for doing this.”

Brenna’s voice is barely audible, and she’s sitting directly beside me. The rain is nothing more than drizzle now, the brunt of the storm having finally blown past us, but beyond the windshield, several streetlights still aren’t functioning. I’m behind the wheel of the Mercedes, because Brooks had too much to drink. He’s in the backseat, though, after insisting on tagging along.

“I mean it,” she stresses. “You guys didn’t have to come. You could’ve just let me borrow the car.”

I glance over darkly. “Really, and let you drive in a storm—”

“It’s not storming anymore,” she protests.

“—in a storm,” I repeat, “to track down your ex-boyfriend?”

At least that’s what I understood of her objective, when, in a panic, she begged to borrow Brooks’s car. Apparently she dated this Eric dude in high school and now he’s in trouble.

“What kind of trouble is he in, anyway?” I demand.

“I’m not sure.”

I give her a sharp look.

She seems to be grinding her molars. To dust, from the looks of it. “Drugs,” she finally mutters.

“What kind of drugs?” I’m not purposely trying to interrogate her, but I do need to know exactly what we’re walking into.

Rather than respond, she gazes down at her phone to examine the map. Two fingers pinch the screen to zoom in. “Okay, so he said he can see a street sign—Forest something,” she says absently. “He thinks it’s Forest Lane.”

“That narrows it down,” I say sarcastically. “There are probably dozens of Forest Lanes or Streets or Avenues around here.”

She scans the map. “Four,” she corrects. “One is about ten minutes away, the others are upstate. I think it’s probably this one near Nashua. That’s closest to Westlynn.”

I blow out a breath. “So we’re driving to New Hampshire?”

“Is that okay?”

I don’t answer. But I do click on the turn signal and get in the right lane to be ready for the I-93 ramp. “Who is this guy, Brenna?” I grumble. “He sounds sketchy.”

“Super sketchy,” Weston agrees from the backseat.

“I told you, we dated in high school.”

“And this requires you to drop everything and rescue his ass?”

Bitter? Who’s bitter?

“Eric and I went through a lot together. And yes, his life has gone off the rails, but—”

“Off the rails how?” Before she can even answer, I pull over abruptly, flicking on the emergency signal. I draw a loud honk from the motorist who was behind us, but everyone else goes around.

“What are you doing?” she demands.

“I’m not driving another inch until you give us more details. And not only because this feels like a wild goose chase. We need to know what we’re walking into. We’re playing the most important game of the season this weekend, and if you’re taking us to some crack den—”

“He’s not in a crack den.” She rubs her face with both hands, clearly upset. “All right. Let me call him again.”

Seconds later, Sketchy Eric is back on the line.

“Hey, it’s me,” Brenna says gently. “We’re in the car.” She pauses. “Just a couple friends, don’t worry about it. We’re in the car and we’re on our way to come get you, but you need to be more specific about where you are. You said Forest Lane—what else is around you?” She listens for a few beats. “The houses, what do they look like? Okay. Row houses. How did you get there? Do you remember?” A pause. “All right. You were with your friend. Got it, he drove. And he left you there. What did you do there?” Another pause, this one thick with tension. “Okay, you smoked.”

I meet Brooks’s uneasy eyes in the rearview mirror. I hope to God we’re talking about marijuana. Cigarettes would be ideal, but I doubt a pack of Marlboros is responsible for this insanity.

“My map shows a few streets with the word Forest in them. Are you near the coast at all? Did you go toward Marblehead? No? Are you sure?” Brenna suddenly brightens. “Oh, okay, I know where that is. No, I remember Ricky. I can’t recall a Forest Lane, but I definitely remember the neighborhood. Okay. I’ll call you when we’re getting close. Bye.”

She hangs up and says, “Nashua. He’s near our old ’hood, just like I thought.”

We’re facing a forty-minute drive, then. Longer if we encounter more pitch-black intersections on the way.

“I’m gonna crash,” Brooks says. “Wake me when we get there.”

We drive in silence for a good ten minutes before I finally can’t take it anymore. “You’re really not going to tell me about this guy?” I growl at Brenna. “You’re gonna let me walk blindly into whatever fucked-up situation your ex is in?”

“I can’t tell you what the situation is, Jake.” She sounds tired. “I haven’t seen him in a long time. He called recently and asked for money, but I told him no.”

“And yet now we’re going to rescue him.”

“Yes, we are,” she shoots back. “You didn’t hear his voice, okay? He sounded so messed up. What would you do if someone you used to care about called you up in a panic and said he doesn’t know where he is, that he’s cold and he’s wet and lying in some gutter? Would you leave them there? Because I can’t do that.”

“Why? Because you dated in high school? Who is this guy? Eric—Eric who?” My frustration only keeps growing. “Who is he to you?”

“His name’s Eric Royce.”

I wrinkle my forehead, vague recognition floating through my mind. The name is familiar to me. Why do I know that name?

“He was a number one draft pick out of high school,” Brenna continues. “Drafted by Chicago.”

That’s it. “Oh shit,” I say. “What ever happened to that guy?”

She pointedly holds up her phone. “He’s high on meth in some gutter, Jake. That’s what happened to him.”

“Meth?” Brooks straightens up, his nap forgotten. “We’re going to meet a meth head?”

“I don’t know,” she says unhappily. “Last I heard, meth was his drug of choice, but for all I know he could be high on oxy, or drunk off his ass. I honestly don’t know.” She rakes both hands through her hair. “You can drop me off and I’ll deal with it alone. You guys don’t have to be there. Stop two blocks away or something, I’ll walk the rest of the way and then grab an Uber home.”

I stare at her in disbelief. “I am not abandoning you in a fucking meth neighborhood, Brenna.”

“It’s not a meth neighborhood. It’s one town over from where I grew up, and I grew up in a safe, normal town, okay? And yes, every town has the occasional druggie, and in this case that druggie is Ricky Harmon, but I’m just assuming we’re dealing with crystal meth. I don’t actually know for sure, and you freaking out on me isn’t going to miraculously produce any answers.”

A tense silence hangs between us. In the rearview mirror, I see Brooks’s expression soften. He reaches out and squeezes her shoulder. “It’s all good, Jensen. We got your back, ’kay?”