His brows arch. “Go on.”
“I almost ran him over with my car, gave him a concussion. He never pressed charges. Never even blamed me. Is that the kind of person his criminal record says he is? Because this is the truth, right in front of us.”
“He says his mother set him up.”
“Do you know his mom’s boyfriends used to beat him up? That she used up the money he stole and gathered to buy herself fixes? That she had her boyfriend break him.” I pause, thinking back to the few things he told me. “Break him and leave him for the police to find.”
Zane leans forward, frowning, and Rafe drags his chair closer to mine.
“He said that?” Rafe asks. “When?”
“A few days ago, when talking of his mom and how he thought she’d been dea
d all this time. He said she just left him and vanished, never came back.”
“Until now,” Rafe whispers. “Z-man…”
“Yeah.” Zane grimaces. “I dug deeper. The night the fucker was arrested, he had many broken bones, including a knee cap. He was found at his mom’s house, with Shane who was trying to help him. That seemed strange to the policemen who found the two, but the judge decided their juvie record condemned them anyway.”
“If he’s telling the truth,” Rafe says, his golden eyes shining, “it’s his word against the evidence. It won’t fly.”
God.
“Ah fuck.” Zane scrubs both hands over his face and pushes his chair back. “We should talk to Seth. See if there’s any detail that we could use to reopen the case or something.”
“If we prove he’s telling the truth about his mom, this means he deserves a dragon tat,” Rafe mutters.
“Yeah, he does. Fucker should have talked to me about this from the start,” Zane says. “But I get it.”
That it’s hard to trust when the ones closest to you have let you down so badly.
***
After knocking on Seth’s door for what feels like ages, my stomach is a knot of worry. Meanwhile, Rafe is muttering under his breath, and Zane who’s been on his cell phone all this time, looks murderous.
It isn’t helping with my worry.
“Called both Seth and Shane a dozen times each. Fuckers. Both of them took off and turned off their phones? I told them to stay put. Told them to wait.”
Don’t know what to say to that. He’d sounded pissed rather than trying to help yesterday when he was shouting at Seth, but why then isn’t Seth answering my phone calls, either?
“Maybe he’s upset with all of us? You know, for not believing him?” I tuck a stray curl behind my ear. “Or he’s walking and can’t hear his phone ringing?”
“Upset. He has a criminal record. What was I supposed to think? Shit.” Zane kicks at the wall with his boot, leaving a black mark. “Dammit.”
The climb down the stairs is done in silence. The building seems eerily empty. When we reach the bottom, the boys pull out their packs of cigarettes and head out the back door to smoke, and I follow them, trying to think where Seth might have gone.
Why is the ball of dread in my belly growing instead of diminishing? His friends are trying to help him. So he’s not at home right now. So what?
What am I not seeing?
When I’d first gone up to his apartment, what feels like years ago but was only a couple of weeks, there was something…
Something on his door.
“Hey, guys.” They’ve already lit up and are puffing clouds of pale smoke in the cold air of the back alley. “The sticker is gone.”
“Sticker?” Zane is leaning against a big dumpster, his eyes glinting like gems in the dimness. “What the fuck are you talking about?”