by Megyn Ward
“Who’s her?” The denial is so automatic that it comes out before I stop it.
“You know what? Stop—just stop.” Declan comes to a halt in the living room and turns on me, his face a harsh, angry collection of features. “Patrick gave Jane Friday off and then you texted Conner about ten seconds later, to dump your Friday night shift—and then surprise no one hears from either one of you for three fucking days. I don’t need my brother’s IQ to figure out that the two of you were together.”
“Okay, I—” I say, giving up but Declan’s not finished.
“And now here you are and Jane’s nowhere to be found, so unless you have her tied up in your bathroom—”
“Wait—” The crack he makes about me having Jane tied up somewhere rolls right over me, barely even registers. “What do you mean nowhere to be found?” I feel my heart take off at a gallop, giving two hard beats before it drops to my stomach. Lifting a hand, I press it against the back of my head. “It’s Monday, right?” I look at the window. I don’t know what time it is but if the sun is any judge, it’s late-morning. “She’s supposed to be at work. She left last night, or maybe earlier this morning, I’m not sure—”
“Not sure?” He glares at me like he either thinks I’m too stupid to live or he doesn’t believe a word I’m telling him. “What do you mean, not sure?”
“I was sleeping,” I tell him, dropping my hand to return his glare. “She left while I was sleeping. She’s supposed to be at work. Did you try calling her?”
Declan stares at me for a second. I‘m not sure what he sees but whatever it is, it’s enough to calm him considerably. “Yeah—her phone goes straight to voicemail. Con tried to ping it but it’s either shut off or dead…”
“She’s supposed to be at work.” I say it again like a dummy and Declan scowls at me.
“She was at work.” He says it slow and careful like he’s trying to stay calm. “She came in early—while Tess and I were still sleeping. I heard her at her computer but didn’t get up to check on her because she’s been coming earlier than usual lately so I didn’t think anything of it. When I finally came out, she was gone and left this stuck to her computer,” he tells me while he reaches into the front pocket of his jeans to fish out a piece of neon green paper. On it is a quick, hand-written note.
I need another day. Maybe two
I understand if you need to fire me.
Jane
Seeing it reminds me of the note I found stuck to my windshield after work, Thursday night. The note from my father.
Looks like you’re still having a hard time
hanging on to your women, Son. I thought I
taught you how to fix that problem.
Something cold crawls across the back of my neck and my heart rockets up from my gut to throat.
“Is this her handwriting?” I stare at the note in my hand, feeling like an idiot because I don’t know. I don’t know what Jane’s handwriting looks like. That’s something I should know, right?
Declan’s brow slams down, low over a pair of narrowed blue eyes. “I don’t know—” He snatches the note away from me and peers at it like it’s written in hieroglyphics. Giving up, he offers it back to me. “I think so… maybe.”
I snatch it back, my jaw clenched so hard it feels like its locked shut. “Maybe?” Now it’s my turn to get shitty. “You don’t know what your assistant’s handwriting looks like?” Making my mind up before he can clap back, I shake my head. “We should check her place,” I tell him, moving past him toward the kitchen. Tucked under the stairs leading to the loft is a cabinet full of apartment keys. I can use Jane’s to check on her. That’s okay. It’s allowed. Declan will be with me, so—
“Don’t bother,” Declan says, following my progress through the kitchen. “I already checked. She’s not there.”
“You have a key to Jane’s apartment?” I wait for the revelation to send a wave of jealousy spiking through my system. It never comes. There’s no jealousy. There’s only a spreading mass of apprehension, growing and gnawing at my gut.
“Key?” Declan give me a short bark of laughter and shakes his head. “I didn’t need a key—and before you ask, everything looked fine.”
Even though I have no idea what I didn’t need a key means, I let it go because it doesn’t matter. If Declan says Jane isn’t in her apartment, then she isn’t there. “I need to talk to Con,” I tell him, pocketing Jane’s key before shutting the cabinet. “He needs to find a way to find her. He needs to track her—”
“Track her?”
“Her car—she left it at Gilroy’s. Maybe she—”
Declan shakes his head at me. “It’s still there. Been there for days. Hasn’t moved.”
Shit.
“Cedar Junction,” I say, plan forming fast. “I need to get into Cedar Junction.”
“Cedar Junction? The prison?” Declan reaches up to swipe a rough hand over his face. “Okay—mind telling me what the fuck is happening right now?”
“Do you know who Matthew Collins is?” When all I get is a what the fuck frown in response I swipe a rough hand over my face. “The Family Man.” I hate saying it out loud. Hate the cute, catchy names that reporters and law enforcement give to monsters like my father. “You know, the serial killer who—”
“Yeah.” Declan nods his head. “I know who he is. Tess is really into this docuseries on Netflix—”
“He’s my father.” It’s something I’ve never said out loud to anyone by Jane. Something I’ve tried to hide from my entire life. I’m done hiding. Jane is missing and I’ll do anything—face anything—to get her back. “If something happened to Jane then—”
“The Family Man is your father.” It’s not a question. It’s a statement, made for the sake of clarification. To make sure he understood me correctly. When I nod, Declan’s eyebrows shoot up on his forehead and he lifts a massive hand to scrub it across his jaw. “Okay…” Declan says, sounding more worried than skeptical. “You think he has that kind of reach?”
“I know he does,” I tell him, thinking of the hundreds of letters and messages he’s managed to get to me over the years. “If something happened to Jane, my father has something to do with it.”
Declan stares at me for a second, probably trying to digest everything I just told him. Finally, he gives a smile that can only be described as downright evil. “You don’t need someone like my genius brother to get you into a maximum-security prison,” he tells me, reaching back to dig his phone from his pocket. “You need someone like me.”
Forty-Five
Jane
This seemed like a good idea a few hours ago.
Now, sitting outside his house three hours later, I’m wondering what the hell I was thinking. Why I’m here. Why I feel compelled to meddle in Logan’s life. Why I can’t just leave it alone.
Lying next to him in the dark, listening to his slow, even breaths. Feeling the weight of his arm wrapped around me, all I could think about was after.
After Logan left.
What would happen to him.
Where he would go.
How alone would he be.
It was my fault that he was leaving again. I ruined home for him—took it away with my impulsive curiosity. Maybe I could do something for him, try to fix it, before he goes.
Easing myself out of bed, I pulled on my clothes and snuck up to his loft. The conglomeration of computers on the conference room table were switched off, their monitors dark, reminding me that they haven’t been used in days. Rather than try to navigate them, I dig out the sleek black laptop I watched him stick into his backpack before we left to meet Abbey Reid’s sister on Thursday. Opening it, I’m more than a little surprised when the home screen flashes on and the computer connects to the apartment’s Wi-Fi, no password required.
Fifteen minutes later, I had an address for Logan’s grandfather. To be honest, it wasn’t that hard—there’s not a lot of Emmett Collins’ listed and only three in Connecticut.
> And only one of them is the right age.
351 Meadow St.
Winsted, CT 06098
Scribbling the information on a piece of paper, I folded it into a hasty square and stuck it in my pants pocket because I didn’t know what else to do with it. I didn’t think that far ahead. I think about presenting my ill-gotten information to Logan like a fattened calf—look what fruits my meddling has brought you today. Not only would he probably hate me for it, this is Logan we’re talking about. I’d bet my life he already has the information. He knows where his grandfather is—the problem is that he’s convinced himself that his grandfather wants nothing to do with him. That he abandoned him and for all I know, he’s right.
But I decided to find out for sure.
Rather than go back into the bedroom and risk waking Logan up, I just left. Stepping outside his apartment after willingly shutting myself up in it for days felt strange—almost wrong. Irrevocable, like once I was left, I could never go back. I felt a momentary flutter of panic in my chest at the thought. Almost turned around to run back inside. Down the hall so I could crawl back into bed and wrap myself around him. Pretend for just a while longer that Logan and I met under normal circumstance. That what’s happening between us is just beginning and not over before it even really started.
Even though it’s what I want to do, I don’t. I go home and shower. Change. Grab my phone and purse and get halfway out the door before I remember that my car is at Gilroy’s.
Not wanting to waste time on an Uber, I use the key I’ve had since Noah was born and let myself into Silver’s apartment as quietly as possible. Holding the door open with my foot (because that somehow makes what I did less wrong) I lean in to rummage through the bowl of keys on the entryway table.
Look at me, breaking and entering and car theft, all in one week. My mother would be proud.
Reminding myself that neither Tobias or Silver would give a shit if I borrowed all of their cars and drove them into the harbor, one right after the other, and promising to return it with a full tank of gas, I grab a set and lean back out into the hall and lock the door behind me.
Four hours later, I’m turning into a long gravel drive that runs parallel to what looks like a small, wooded park surrounded on three side by a low stone wall. Set back off the drive is a two-story house with a steeply pitched roof and a wide, deep porch. Killing the engine of my borrowed car, I sit here and try to imagine Logan playing here as a kid. Running in the grass. Climbing trees. Growing up outside of an institution, with someone who loved him.
Suddenly, I’m angry. So angry I get out of the car and slam its door hard enough to announce my presence before I round its hood to march across the grass, walkway be damned, toward the front porch. Mounting the steps, I raise my fist to bang on the screen door but before I can, the door behind it is opened and I’m face-to-face with Logan’s grandfather.
“Emmett Collins?” It’s a stupid thing to say—I know beyond a doubt that the man I’m looking at is Logan’s grandfather because he looks just like what I imagine Logan will look like in fifty years. Tall. Lean. Long limbs. Broad, powerful shoulders. Ice blue eyes, their gaze so intense that the punch of them is a little unsettling unless you’re prepared to take their weight. And a shock of snow-white hair that sticks out in a hundred different directions all over his head.
When all he does is stare at me, I clear my throat and try again. “Mr. Collins, I’m—”
“If you’re a reporter of some sort—” He shifts his glare past me, letting it land on the stolen Porsche I parked in his driveway. “or another lawyer, stupid enough to try and help my son get out of prison, you can get back into your fancy car and get the hell off my property.”
I don’t know what surprises me more—the fact there are people out there, actually trying to get Logan’s father released, or the fact that he thinks I might be one of them. Either way, I just stand here for a second, at a loss for words.
“Miss, I’m an old man and if you don’t mind, I’d like to spend what little time I have left, not doing whatever it is that—”
“I’m none of those things,” I say, the fact that he’s getting ready to shut the door in my face, jolting me into action. “My name is Jane. Jane Halstead and I’m in love your grandson.”
Forty-Six
Logan
Meet me out front in an hour.
That’s what Declan told me after a brief, terse conversation with whoever he called.
“I’ll come with you,” I told him, prepared to leave my apartment in nothing more than a pair of track shorts if it meant not wasting time.
“You can’t come with me—not where I’m going,” Declan tells me with a tight shake of his head while he shoves his phone back into his pocket. “Just be out front and ready to go when I get back.”
After that, he left.
Not bothering to shower, I pull on a pair of jeans and the first shirt I can find before tugging on my shoes and making my way out the door. I don’t know where the fuck I’m going. What I’m supposed to do for an hour while I wait for Declan to do whatever it is he’s going to do to get me in to see my father, but whatever it is, it feels useless.
I feel useless.
Like I’m spinning my wheels.
Wasting time.
On impulse, I get off the elevator on Jane’s floor. Not sure what I’m going to do—maybe ransack her apartment. Tear it apart for clues. Something that will tell me where she is. That’s she’s okay.
Anything but stand on the sidewalk outside my building and wait for Declan to come back.
Stopping in front of her door, I know it’s useless. The total lack of evidence at the scene was one of my father’s signatures. He was meticulous. Anyone he asked to abduct Jane who be just as careful. If Jane was taken, there won’t be any evidence to prove it or that he was involved—and going inside, rifling through her stuff, looking for something I know I won’t find could prove problematic for me if something happens to her. Could implicate me if—
Sick to my stomach, I turn away from her door, my gaze traveling down the hall toward Tob and Silver’s. Seeing their front door, a sensation rushes over me so fast it makes me dizzy, mixes with the nausea to send me lurching toward it. I hurt Jane. That’s something she’d need to talk about. Something she’d tell her best friend. Digging my keyring out of my pocket, I shove the one Tob gave me before he left into the lock and give it turn without a second thought, without a moment’s worry about what might happen if I do.
The door swings open on a quiet apartment. The living room is empty and that something that rushed through me and pushed me down the hall sours in my belly.
Hope.
It was hope.
Hope that I’d open the door and find her sitting on the couch, Silver’s arm wrapped around her shoulder while she tells her everything. Who I am. What I did to her. How much I hurt her and even though that would mean that Silver knew the truth about me I didn’t give a shit because it would also mean that Jane was safe. That she—
“Hey.”
I tear my gaze away from the couch, swinging it toward the kitchen to find my brother standing in its doorway, dark hair mussed, wearing a pair of lounge pants and cradling his newborn daughter to his bare chest, a burp cloth tossed over his shoulder.
“I—” I go palms up, shaking my head like I’ve been caught with my pants down. “I didn’t—”
“Shhh… Silver’s still sleeping.” Tob’s face crumples into a frown while he jerks his head toward the kitchen before disappearing back into it.
Not given much of a choice, I follow him. Standing in the doorway, I watch while he opens the microwave and pulls out a bottle. Securing the baby to his chest with one hand, he uses the other to screw the collar and nipple into place before giving it a shake. “Here,” he says, keeping his voice low. “Test that for me.” Holding the bottle out to me, he gives it another shake.
Pushing myself into the kitchen I take the bottle from him. “I
don’t know—”
“Just squirt a little on the inside of your wrist,” Tob says, watching me while I do as he says. “Does it burn?” When I shake my head, he grins. “Perfect.” He shifts the baby, slowly moving her from his chest to cradle her in the crook of her elbow the same way Gray did, that day at the hospital and she instantly starts to snuffle and root around his chest. Leaning his hips against the counter, Tob sighs. “Got back late last night,” he tells me while reaching for the bottle I’m holding out for him to take. As soon as he touched her cheek with the nipple, she turns toward it and opens her mouth, latching on to it with a grunt that makes him laugh. “We got this, little girl,” he says softly, watching her take strong, greedy pulls from the bottle in his hand. “We can let mom sleep—we got this.” Looking up at me, he’s still smiling. “Listen, thanks for—”
“I have to tell you something,” I say, cutting him off before he can finish because he needs to know who he left his family with. Who he trusted to take care of them. And I have to tell him about Jane. That means I have to tell him everything. “About me. About my father—who he is. What he—”
“I know.” He looks back down at his daughter, the corner of his mouth quirked up.
“You know.” I stand here for a second, staring at him because I don’t know what it means. What he’s telling me. “What do you mean you know?”
“I know who your father is,” he says pulling the bottle from the baby’s mouth and holding it out to me. When I take it, he shifts the baby again, bringing her up to the burp cloth tossed over his shoulder without missing a beat. “I’ve always known.”
I stand here like an idiot, staring at him while he burps his daughter, giving her gentle but firm pats on her tiny back while his other hand supports her. Holds her close. “You had one of your investigators dig into my past. You had them—”
