I tried to look away, but I couldn’t. Jarrett. Here. After all this time.
“Now get up.”
I rose, and saw the lock pick gun resting on my counter. I should’ve realized that?
??s how he got in. It was always his favorite tool.
“Where’s Louden?” I asked.
“Not here.”
“But—”
“He’ll be here soon enough,” Jarrett snarled, already out of patience. “But for now…” his dark irises flared. “It’s just me and you.”
I found myself backing up uncomfortably. For every step I took, he took one as well.
“So where are they?”
I shook my head. “Not here.”
His eyes scanned me, top to bottom, in all the most terrible ways. Eventually they fell on the satchel, still resting in the doorway.
“Holy shit.”
Seeing the satchel was like seeing a ghost. I could see it in his eyes.
“You gotta be kidding me.”
Shoving me aside, Jarrett took three steps and hefted the overstuffed bag. Then he upended it, spilling its contents everywhere.
Clothes, underwear, two stacks of twenties — all of it got dumped unceremoniously across my counter. Jarrett pocketed the money reflexively, then kept looking. It took him a full minute of sifting through my things to realize what he was searching for wasn’t there.
“Fuck me, Julia,” he snarled angrily. “Where are they?”
“I told you… they’re not—”
“You’ve already said they’re not here!” Jarrett cried in frustration. “I can see that for myself! Now tell me where they actually are, and—”
He stopped mid-sentence, and I noticed he was staring down. Scattered across my things were several small pieces of broken glass. Tempered glass. Tiny, spider-webbed chunks of it.
My heart sank.
“Still got pieces of the windshield in here,” Louden laughed bitterly. He flung the satchel to the floor while absently touching his face. “Well ain’t that a kick in the ass.”
He stomped toward me, and I shied immediately away from him. Uncharacteristically, he stopped himself. I watched as he took a long, deep breath and struggled to maintain control.
“Look,” he said, his tone much lower and slower now. “All you have to do is tell me where they are, and we’ll go get them together. You and me.”
“But Louden—”
“Louden doesn’t have to know,” Jarrett said, his voice going sinister. “Not right now, anyway.”
He looked me up and down again, and his expression slowly changed. It went from one of anger and frustration to something almost… co-conspiratorial.
“Or maybe he doesn’t have to know at all,” Jarrett suggested coyly. He reached out with one hand and laid it awkwardly on my shoulder. The gesture was supposed to be comforting, but it was all I could do not to flinch. “Maybe you and I just take off with everything,” he shrugged. “All of it.”
Wheels began turning in my head. “You’d do that to him?”