Evidently, the water heater was having hiccups. By the time he washed out the last glass on the counter, Jay’s fingers were practically numb. He was ringing out the sponge when Mason’s gaudy truck rolled into the lot. It hadn’t even pulled into a parking spot before Jay was out from behind the bar. The moment Ashlyn walked through the front door, he was there waiting for her.
“Where is she?”
“Hi, Jay.” Ashlyn took her time removing her coat and Jay tried not to let his irritation show. She was obviously pissed. “She stole my car, you know?”
“I heard. Where did she go with it?”
“Said she was going home? That was almost two hours ago. She never came back. I tried calling her a zillion times, but she shut her cell off. Or let it die . . . again.”
The rest of the information filed away somewhere inside Jay’s brain for later, but at the moment, it was that one word that struck him. Home? Em had gone home? Alone? Christ, he needed to get to her. Now. She already had a two hour head start but if he hurried . . .
“Where do you think you’re going?” Bart stepped out of the back just as Jay was pulling on his coat.
“I have to leave a little early. Personal emergency.”
“You have another hour left to your shift. I suggest you work it. You and your girl are getting to be more drama than you’re worth around here. You either work or you’re fired.”
It wasn’t even a question. “Fire me.”
The sour expression hadn’t even left Bart’s face by the time Jay was out the door. He’d find another job. He would never, ever find another Em in this life.
Chapter Thirty-two
Em
Left on Pulver Street. Right on Dempster. The plan had been to go straight to the police station, file her report, and get the hell out of there as fast as humanly possible. Instead, her fingers clenched around the steering wheel and her heart tried to beat its way out of her chest as she made the turn onto Elm and her foot slowly eased off the accelerator, as though her body was instinctively trying to delay the inevitable.
The strains of music floating from the car’s stereo faded into background noise as memories swamped her mind. There had been good ones. Years of them. But they’d all been overshadowed by the bad. A cold sweat broke out across her clammy skin as she neared the house on the corner. His house.
The house where she’d been a prisoner for years. Where he had hurt, used, abused, and broken her. But he wasn’t there anymore. He was the prisoner now. Somehow that failed to bring her any comfort. His punishment couldn’t erase her pain. It couldn’t take away the nightmares and the constant fear. It couldn’t erase the filth that existed beneath her skin. It couldn’t change the fact that she knew it was there—could feel it—even if no one else could.
She didn’t know what she’d expected. That it should have been painted black and graffittied, or demolished after what he’d done? It wasn’t. In fact, it looked exactly the same. She could still see him standing in that doorway. Em flinched at the memory of shattering glass. Gasped as phantom hands caressed her arms and face. She could still recall the feel of them so vividly that it felt as though it were happening all over again. The heat of his body, the alcohol on his breath.
This was a bad idea. She shouldn’t have come there, but she’d hoped that a glimpse of the house next door would give her the courage she needed to do what came next. There was no one in sight, but the old rusted swing set stood abandoned in the back yard like some kind of monument to lost youth.
Em had envied the girl’s innocence, and now she’d cost her it. She’d do anything to give it back. But it didn’t work that way. It was too late for her. Just like it was too late for Em. Nothing could undo what had been done to them. Nothing could ever make that go away. There was nothing she could do to make it right. Nothing.
The car made an angry clunking noise as she compressed the gas pedal, blowing through the stop sign. Not even Harrison could outrun memories, though. They were like acid, burning holes through her mind, like the bile creeping up the back of her throat. Em drove with no real direction, only the desire to leave that house as far behind as possible.
Her eyes welled with tears, making it nearly impossible to see where she was going until she was almost there. She hadn’t done it on purpose—not consciously—but this had been her destination all along. And now she was there, parked outside the short, rectangular building that looked like a million other buildings. The only thing to differentiate it, an equally rectangular sign hanging on the brick wall. White with blue lettering, deeming the place ‘Precinct 35’.