Dirty, Reckless Love (Boys of Jackson Harbor 3)

I frown, recognizing the last name but not the first. McKinley? Is he related to Colton somehow? I want to pull my notebook from my purse and add this name to the list, but I suppress the urge. I can do it later.

“Are you even listening to her?” my mother says. “She doesn’t remember the last three years. She knows nothing about that man.”

I frown at her. “What do you know about him?”

She avoids my gaze. “Not much.”

With a sigh, the detective puts his mug down. “I’m sorry. I just have to ask the questions. Tell me what you think about the Nelson McKinley situation.”

I shake my head. “I’ve never even heard his name before.”

Detective Huxley sits back in his chair, and when he studies me now, there’s less sympathy in his eyes and more skepticism. “Both amnesia and no access to current events?”

I look to my mother. She’s avoiding my gaze. “What does he mean, Mom?”

“Nelson is Colton’s father,” she says.

“Nelson McKinley’s been missing since late August. We suspected foul play, and we questioned your fiancé regarding the case. Unfortunately, he’s missing, so we can’t continue our interviews.”

I turn to my mom again, but her gaze is zeroed in on her hands. She knew this, and she didn’t tell me? “I thought they were after Colton because of what happened to me.”

“Well, that should be enough. Obviously he hurt you,” she says. “Why else would he be running from the cops like he is?”

“Running from the cops?” The detective arches a brow and gives my mother a pointed look. “Ms. Courdrey, do you have a reason to believe your daughter’s fiancé is on the run, or is that just conjecture?”

“It’s common sense,” she says. “Where else would he be?”

“My guess is somewhere at the bottom of Lake Michigan.” Levi’s answer to this same question lingers in my mind.

“Was Colton really so awful?” I ask Mom. We haven’t talked about my past beyond what she thought was necessary to keep me safe. I think we’ve both been too afraid.

“Not on the surface.” She shrugs. “You brought him home a few times.”

I bite my lip. I brought a drug addict home to meet my mom?

“He seemed nice. He made you happy.” The smile falls from her face. “Until he didn’t.”

“When . . .” My voice cracks, and I clear my throat. “When was that? When did things change?”

“Sometime over the summer. You didn’t talk about it, but mother’s intuition. I knew something was wrong. Something was different.”

Something was different. Was it the pregnancy? Had news of an unexpected baby turned my formerly loving boyfriend into an abusive fiancé? You hear stories about that, though I’ve never understood them. Why would a pregnancy turn a man abusive?

Or did the change have something to do with Levi Jackson?

“Your people need to find Colton and lock him up for what he did to my Ellie.”

The detective sighs heavily. “Ms. Courdrey, we’ve discussed this. There’s no warrant for Colton McKinley’s arrest, because there’s no physical evidence to suggest there should be. He’s a missing person, much like his father.”

“How can you say you have no evidence when you saw her in the hospital?” Mom asks. “You saw her connected to all those machines. Black and blue.”

“At this point, we don’t have any evidence to support that Colton was responsible. No one had seen him for days before the assault.”

No evidence. The detective who interviewed me before didn’t tell me that. Maybe because they were still processing evidence? But why didn’t anyone tell me Colton had been missing days before the attack? Doesn’t that mean it’s unlikely he’s guilty? Why did my family let me believe the man I was engaged to tried to kill me? “You mean Colton might not be the one who hurt me?”

“I respect your mother’s opinion on the matter and understand why she’d blame him,” Huxley says, “but at this point in time, we don’t know who was responsible for your injuries.”

I’m so confused. Is anything I believe true?