“Ellie, my name’s Detective Huxley. Thank you for calling.”
“Thank you for coming.” I pull open the door, and he gives me a soft smile as he walks in. I wrap my arms around myself. Everything will be okay soon.
“Where’s Colton?” he asks.
“I don’t know. He hasn’t been home in two days.”
The detective arches a brow. “Like father, like son?”
God, I hope not. I shrug. “I don’t know.”
“I understand you have some details on Nelson McKinley’s disappearance.”
“Nelson’s alive,” I blurt. I throw my hand over my mouth, but I’m already crying, tears leaking out of me just like the truth. “He’s trying to blackmail me, and I’m afraid he’s killed Colton or worse.”
“It’s hard to kill a man you can’t find,” he mutters.
“What?”
“I’m sure Colton’s fine.” The detective smiles at me. “Listen, I need some information from you. I need to know where Colton hid the hard drive.”
I frown. No one knows about the hard drive. I know I didn’t mention it when I called Huxley and asked to talk. I didn’t tell Tate about it or anyone else. “What hard drive?”
“The one with the evidence he has against his father.” He smiles and squeezes my shoulder. “It’s okay. Colton told me everything.”
I release a breath and feel the weight of these awful secrets lift off my shoulders. “When did you talk to him? I’m so worried about him.” Did Colton tell him about the hard drive? He didn’t even tell me. I found it locked in our safe deposit box after he stormed out. After my meeting with Tate, I decided to hide both the hard drive and the paintings. I can protect us from Nelson without turning over anything that would implicate Colton or myself.
The detective is wandering around the living room, looking under the couch, behind the TV. “Don’t you worry. I’ll be sure to track him down.” He points toward the hall. “Bedroom is this way?”
“I . . . Yes?”
He heads down the hall and flips the lights to the bedroom. When I walk into the room, he’s pulled all the drawers from the dresser and dumped them out on the bed. Is this normal? If he’s looking for evidence, shouldn’t he be wearing gloves or taking pictures or something?
“What are you doing?”
“Colton has evidence I need.” He lifts his head, and I notice a red-rimmed glaze to his eyes that I’m all too familiar with. This man is high and growing more and more agitated with each drawer he dumps out. “Where the fuck is it?”
The edge in his voice has me backing up a step. “It’s not here.” I wince when I realize I’ve said too much. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Bullshit.” He spins on me and brings the back of his hand against my cheek so hard that it sends a blinding flash of pain through my head.
I cup my cheek in my hand. “I want you to leave.” Why did I let him in my house? Why didn’t I go to the police station? “I don’t have what you’re looking for.” I run back to the living room, heading for the door, but I feel him behind me.
“Where is Colton hiding it? Where did he put it?” A smack across my face, and this time there’s something hard in his hand—the butt of a gun connecting with my skull. “I don’t want to have to hurt you.” Another smack and I fall backward, my head slamming against the floor. “I won’t let that punk ruin everything.”
Ellie
Sunday, October 28th
Levi turned Colton in. Betrayal turns in my chest like a hot blade.
I personally won’t believe that Nelson McKinley is dead until I see a body, but now they have evidence. They have reason to believe Colton is guilty of the very worst. I might believe it too if the evidence didn’t also implicate him in my assault. That makes me not believe any of it.
I’m so lost in my thoughts that I don’t even notice we’ve passed the police station until we’re on the other side of Jackson Harbor.
“Where are we going?” I turn to the detective, and his blue eyes flash with anger before he can hide it with a smile. “We’re just going on a little drive. Sorry I’ve been so quiet.” He waves a hand. “Go ahead and talk to me. What do you remember?”
“Where the fuck is it?”
The words. Huxley’s angry sneer. It’s a blip. Like the memory of a dream where the pieces don’t fit together. Huxley’s gentle smile and then his angry eyes. The back of his hand slamming into my cheekbone.
I inch toward the door, desperate to put space between this man and me without letting him know what I remember. I slide my phone from my purse. “Not much, unfortunately.”
“That’s all right. We’ll get there.” He pulls his gaze off the road for a beat and winks at me. So fucking suave. A charming and dangerous man. Not unlike Nelson. “Start at the beginning.”
His radio squawks as the dispatcher says, “The Jackson property has been searched but there’s no sign of the suspect.”
Huxley reaches forward and turns it off before I can hear more.
I wake up my phone and settle it onto the seat beside my leg so Huxley can’t see me pulling up the text-messaging app.
“Oh, here we are,” he says, hitting his turn signal. He pulls into the gravel lot of a storage facility. “Remember this place?”
“No,” I lie. I do remember. Tate convinced me not to accept any deal with Nelson, so I got this storage unit and hid the Discovery collection and Colton’s hard drive. “I’m so sorry.”
He grins. “There’s a storage unit back here with a few of your belongings. I thought it might help you get your memories back.”
I return his smile and pray mine is convincing. “What a good idea.” With shaking hands, I tap my screen to send my location to Levi.
Just as I send it off, Huxley pulls into a parking spot. “Get out of the car.”
Levi
“She’ll forgive you,” Molly says. “Just give her some time to come to terms with everything.”
My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I frown when I see the message from Ellie. “Why would she send me GPS coordinates?”
Molly shrugs. “Maybe she did it by accident.”
I tap on the link, and my phone automatically pulls up a map indicating a storage facility outside of town. I stand. “I have to go, Molly. I think she’s in trouble.”
She laughs. “But she’s with Detective Huxley. Surely a member of law enforcement would be able to keep her safe.”
Once, I might have thought so. But until we have more answers, I can’t trust anyone. I dial quickly and put the phone to my ear.
“Who are you calling?”
“The police.”
“To tell them what? That Ellie’s been abducted by one of Jackson Harbor PD’s finest?” The smile falls from her face. “Is that really what you think? Huxley’s the bad guy?”
I don’t answer. I’m already on my way out the door.
Ellie
“You’re smart, you know?” Detective Huxley unlocks the storage unit with a key on his key ring. “Getting this unit under your sister’s name? She has a different last name than you, and I never would have thought to look for it until I paid a visit to your mother. She was kind enough to let me search the belongings you left behind, and I found a key to this place. From there, it was as simple as going through storage unit agreements until I found one under a name that seemed familiar.”
“Why didn’t you just come get what you wanted yourself?” I ask, abandoning the pretense of not remembering the unit. “Why bring me here?”
“Oh, you know how storage units work.” He pops the lock open and waves me inside. If this were a movie, he’d take his gun out and point it at me to get me to enter that tiny, dark space. But this isn’t a movie, and fear can motivate you as well as a gun pointed at your head. Sometimes fear is as simple as the memory of the back of a hand cracking against your jaw. Sometimes it’s as simple as drug-glazed eyes demanding information you can’t share.