“Fuck you,” he snaps, and I let off a round in his knee that has him falling forward, groaning.
“I asked you a fucking question. Who do you contact when you have a pick-up?”
“Nah, cous’. Alive, remember?” Sage says, putting his hand on my gun when I raise it to Yury’s temple.
“He doesn’t deserve to live,” Wes growls, and Yury’s eyes turn to him.
“This is bigger than you and me,” Yury says, moving his gaze to mine. “Shoot me, motherfucker. I’m dead anyways.”
“Tell me who your contact is,” I demand, watching something work behind his eyes then his nostrils flare.
“All I got is an email,” he says, dropping his head as something that had been strangling me since Ellie walked out of the woods toward me unravels.
Taking a step back, I take my cell phone out of my pocket and begin typing in the information he gives me. Then we wait until my uncle shows up, who says nothing about the fact that Yury’s bleeding everywhere.
Getting in my truck and starting it up outside of the hospital, where I stopped to check on Avalee, the woman Yury had kidnapped, I lean my head back against my headrest and close my eyes. Harlen is staying with her at the hospital until her family is able to get into town. She is still asleep and would be in the hospital for a few days while she recovers from the worst of her injuries, then she’ll be going home with her parents, who live in Mississippi. She wouldn’t talk to the police without Harlen with her and refused to let him go, even when the doctors explained they needed to examine her, leaving them no choice but to sedate her.
From what Harlen was able to gather before they drugged her, her friends had been insisting she get out and date, so she downloaded a dating app onto her phone and met Yury. They chatted for a couple of days before she finally agreed to meet him for coffee, and that’s when he took her. Knowing how similar her story was to the other woman who was still missing Tallon did a search of the dating app site and found nothing. Avalee’s profile had been erased along with any chats she had with Yury leading up to their meeting. Now that there was a correlation between the two cases there was a chance the other woman could be found.
Lifting my head and looking out the windshield, I put the truck in drive and head out of the parking lot towards the highway. When I spoke with Ellie earlier and explained to her what went down, I could hear her cry in relief and sadness as I told her about Avalee. I knew she could understand to an extent what Avalee had been through, and that shit killed me. No woman should ever have to understand something like that, and there is no fucking way a woman should ever have to experience that shit firsthand.
Getting on the highway, I make a last second decision and turn in the opposite direction of home. I need to talk to Jules. I can’t figure out why it’s so important to talk to her after all these years. I just know something in me needs to put that part of my past to rest so I can fully move on.#p#分页标题#e#
It doesn’t take long to reach the town she’s now calling home, and when I pull up in front of the small house that is located on a street with homes similar in size, I’m surprised to see how well kept it is. The grass of the front yard is cut low, and the flowerbeds out front look like they have recently been tilled, like they are just waiting for flowers to be planted. Putting my truck in park and getting out, the front door opens just as I’m making it around the hood.
“What are you doing here?”
Taking in Jules for the first time in over twenty years, I’m taken aback by how different we look. I don’t know why I thought there would be some kind of resemblance, but looking at her now, I see there’s none.
“I don’t want any trouble,” she says, letting the metal storm door close behind her with a whoosh as she steps out onto the small front porch, wrapping a long blue sweater tighter around her waist.
“I’m not here to cause problems,” I say, moving to stand at the bottom of the stairs below her. She’s aged well. I knew from rumors that she was a beautiful girl, and time has surprisingly been good to her. Her dark brown hair is cut just above her shoulders, and her creamy skin hardly shows any sign of wrinkles. I don’t know why I pictured her weathered and warn, but I did. “Really, I’m not sure why I’m here,” I confess, placing my hands in the pockets of my jeans and leaning back on the heels of my boots.
“Go home, Jax,” she instructs quietly, turning her back on me and opening the door.
“Why?” I ask without thinking, watching her body jolt and her eyes come back to me over her shoulder. Holding my breath against the pain I see there, I question, “Why did you do it? Why didn’t you love me?” I whisper the last part, which seems to be the question eating away at me most.