After she’d shown her face back in LA?
How could she do it?
Risk it?
Or maybe that’s what she’d been intending to do all along.
My entire body vibrated with hostility as I cut across the two-lane road and into the long dirt parking lot in front of the run-down, single-story motel. To the left was a diner, the open sign blinking a sad plea in the window.
Dust billowed behind my car as I flew to the far side of the lot and whipped into the spot in front of a faded turquoise door.
Room seven.
Hand was shaking out of control as I fumbled into my phone and dialed her number.
Stomach in knots and my mind spinning out of control.
Just this…feeling taking me hostage.
A thick dread that something wasn’t right.
Same sense I’d gotten the night we’d lost Nathan.
Her phone rang and rang before her voice came on the line. “This is Juna. Leave me a message.”
“Fuck,” I spat, pulling the phone away and glaring at it before I tucked it into my pocket and hopped out. I ran for the door, hammered on it with the back of my fist. “Juna!” I shouted. “Open the fucking door.”
Nothing.
I moved to the window, slamming my palm against the pane. “Juna. Where the fuck are you? Open up.”
Silence echoed back.
I pressed my face to the glass and tried to peer through the gap in the drapes.
Couldn’t make out shit through the glare.
Until I did.
A foot…there was a foot hanging off the side of the bed.
I smacked the glass again.
That foot didn’t move.
“Juna!” I screamed it that time. Screamed it and screamed it. “Juna!”
She didn’t move. I rammed my shoulder against the door.
Took me two times before the wood split and the thin metal lock busted free. The door banged against the inside wall, and I raced in only to freeze in the middle of the room.
Lungs losing air at the sight.
Juna stabbed at least a dozen times.
Lifeless eyes staring into nothing.
I bent in two. Tried to breathe.
To focus.
To fight.
But the walls spun.
Spun and spun.
I barely registered the sirens. The two cruisers that pulled up behind my car. The stampede of feet and the cock of a gun and one who yelled, “Get on the floor. Face down, hands out in front of you.”
Could feel nothing but the truth.
I was a monster. And my sins had finally caught up to me.
Thirty-Seven
Eden
Coldness set in.
Bone deep.
It was the kind that caused you to tremble and shake. Your teeth to chatter. No chance of warmth because you were frozen from the inside out.
I sat propped against the kitchen wall while sickness clawed through my system.
Sadness.
Sorrow.
Fear.
Sweet little Gage had made me a cup of tea.
Lukewarm because he wasn’t allowed to get hot water. Then he’d pushed it across the floor up close to me, then mimicked my stance with his back propped to the wall.
He might be the only thing that could melt the iceberg that surrounded me.
Where I was adrift in a barren sea.
Sure to drown.
Destroyed.
Ruined.
Gage threaded his little finger through mine.
I glanced down.
At Harmony’s son.
At the little boy who’d put that bracelet around my wrist. The bracelet that felt like a brand.
My nephew.
How?
And she was gone. Gone. And I was never going to get the chance for her to explain.
Agony clawed up my throat. Talons that cut through skin.
“It’s okay to cry sometimes, Miss Murphy. Don’t you worry, not at all, not one bit. My dad said we all get sad sometimes and it’s natural and we ain’t got nothin’ to be ashamed of.”
Trent.
A blade driven straight through my aching spirit.
How could he…?
That time, I made it to the trash bin, vomiting what was left of the breakfast I’d eaten before Trent had left. Before he’d left to take care of Gage’s mother. Before he’d promised his love.
How?
Pain speared and sliced and cut. Soul deep.
I retched over the bin like I could purge it out.
Or maybe I would finally wake up. Wake up from this nightmare.
A fist banged on the front door.
Heavy and hard.
“Eden, it’s Jud.” The rough voice echoed through the wood and into the kitchen.
I swiped my hand over the back of my mouth and stumbled that way.
Gage darted ahead of me.
I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, could hardly stand.
I struggled with the lock, barely setting it free to let the door drop open.
Jud’s dark eyes took in the room, fixed on me as he let Gage jump into his arms.
“Uncle Jud, hi! You came over! Are we still gonna go to our house? Miss Murphy got sad so maybe we should stop and get some ice cream so she feels better.”
Sorrow filled Jud’s gaze, the man never looking away. The bob of his throat when he swallowed was like a million pounds beneath the fullness of his beard.
“How about you go get your shoes on while I talk to Eden for a minute?”