“Yes.”
“We haven’t seen her since Sarah’s been back,” I say
“It’s for the best.” Judy leans in and almost hisses, “She’s trouble, Jaxon.”
Her insulting works get my back up. On the defense, I ask. “What make you say that?”
I don’t miss the nervous glance Judy casts Karl’s way, or the way Karl is tugging on his collar like his shirt just shrank two sizes.
What the fuck have they done?
“What?” I ask through clenched teeth, my fingers clenching and unclenching at my side.
“Well, Karl took it upon himself to check into her background. You never can be too sure about anyone these days.”
Motherfucker.
I pinch the bridge of my nose and try to keep my shit together. “What did you do?”
“Karl hired a private detective. He’s been following Rachel, and dug up information on her. He even paid a visit to her old boyfriend in New York. The man was charged with assault, you know. Not the kind of people we want in Cassie’s life, Jaxon.”
For one brief second I’m frozen with shock, my words lodged into my throat. Cassie’s voice in the background pulls me back. “Oh, my fuck, no. You didn’t. Tell me you didn’t,” I say my voice rising, bordering on panic.
“This ex said he’d been trying to find Rachel. To return her belongings,” Karl explain, oblivious to what he’s done, the danger he put Rachel in.
I grip the doorframe as rage prowls through me. “Tell me your detective wasn’t stupid enough to give an address.”
“No, no of course not,” Judy says waving a dismissive hand. “He said he’d deliver them to her himself.”
Fear trickles down my spine. “What did he deliver?”
“I don’t know. A box of something I guess.”
The box.
Jesus, fuck.
An all-consuming need to bolt from my house and find Rachel pulls at me. I try to calm myself. I can’t think clearly when I’m upset. “When did this happen?”
“What does it matter?”
“It matters, okay,” I practically shout.
“He went to New York before Sarah came home. Why are you so upset? None of this matters now.”
Panic curls through my blood. “Oh, it matters.”
“Sarah is home and Cassie has her rightful mother back.”
“Then where is she, Judy?” I bluntly ask, my voice far colder than it was moments ago. “Where is her mother on Christmas morning?”
“I…don’t know.”
“Two things,” I say, a new desperation racing through me. “Look closely at your own daughter before you decide what kind of people you want in Cassie’s life, and two, I want every piece of information that investigator has on Rachel.”
19
Rachel
From my grandmother’s old homestead in upstate Pennsylvania, I glance out the back window and watch the snow blanket the yard. It’s a gorgeous Christmas afternoon, the kind I remember from when I was very young, yet there is no happiness, no sense of excitement for me today. In fact, my heart aches with the opposite of happiness. I hug myself against the cool winter draft coming in through the old windowpane and exhale a heavy sign.
Grandma is having her afternoon tea and scones in the kitchen, but I haven’t been able to eat much since running away from my sorority a couple weeks ago—from Jaxon and Cassie. I have a million texts on my phone, but they’ve been coming in less and less. I guess Jaxon has finally realized I wasn’t going to answer and had given up.
A hiccupping sob catching in my throat.
“Something wrong?” Grandma asks from the other room, and I swallow down the pain, and try to inject a lightness in my voice that I don’t feel.
“Everything is fine, Grandma,” I fib, sure nothing will ever be fine again. But I’ve been pretty much fibbing since I arrived, not that Grandma can’t see right through me. She might be old, but she’s astute, and has lived long enough to know when someone is suffering.
Still though, I’m not about to lay my sob story on an elderly woman I’ve never really been close to. There is nothing she can do about my predicament, anyway. Predicament? Is that what I’m calling it now?
I think everything through, from the second I exchanged words with Jaxon, until I found that box left outside my bedroom door—a box with a few of my old belongings—Dylan’s way of sending a message that he knows where I am and can get to me at any time. It took all of three seconds to realize the danger, and ten more minutes for me to gather a few things, jump in my car and find temporary shelter and refuge at my grandmother’s place. No one, not even Jaxon knows about the old homestead.
My heart pounds at that, a new kind of fear creeping its way along my veins as I peer outside, look for signs of the man who had that box delivered to my house. My God, if he ever found out I was with Jaxon, if he ever used Cassie as a threat, I just…Jesus, I can’t let my thoughts go to such a dark and scary place. But if something did happen, and Jaxon ever got his hands on Dylan, he’d tear him into two pieces. He’d end up in prison and would undoubtedly lose his daughter for good. No way could I hang around and let any of those scenarios play out. Leaving was my only choice, otherwise…
Another sound crawls out of my throat, and I step away from the window. I shake my head to clear it and pad through the old house. That old fake tree from my childhood sits propped up in the corner, the blinking lights no longer working. Not much has changed since I used to visit here with my folks. Grandma might have mellowed a bit when talking about my mother, become a bit less judgmental of her. But now that she’s gone, it’s too little too late. She even seems a little sympathetic toward me, and the fact that I fled home at eighteen because of my father. Speaking of my father,
