Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 84072 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84072 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
“Do I get to stab you afterward?”
I laughed. “Please do.”
“Hilarious.”
“What? I thought it was funny.”
“I think you’re starting to go insane,” he said with a grin of his own, like the idea brought him joy.
“Starting to?” I snorted. “I went insane ages ago.”
I walked over to the window and threw open the curtains while he cut the steak for me. I don’t do it to be annoying but because he needed constant humbling reminders of who he worked for. And while he was like family to me despite his moods when he didn’t spend enough time in that basement of his, I couldn’t survive without him.
And he without me.
I frowned as a pretty girl stopped at the front gate and stared at it. She didn’t knock or use the comm, just stared at the gate like it was alive or something. “Are you expecting company?”
“Now that’s funny,” Jasper said from behind me. “When do we ever get—”
The comm buzzed.
“—company?” I finished for him. “Exactly.”
The girl frowned when the gate didn’t open and then looked up like she could feel me, see me. My heartbeat slowed as I drank her in.
“I’ll get rid of her.” Jasper’s footsteps pounded against the marble library floor while I sat stunned into a stupor.
She was stunning.
And I could hear each of her short pain-filled breaths.
My curiosity spiked.
Pain was just as much an aphrodisiac as pleasure, and I was too far away to decipher which had chosen her.
Dark hair fanned around her face as she moved through the now open gate. The lights flickered overhead with a warning I really didn’t fucking need.
“So, it’s happening… again.”
I hated her instantly.
Hated the hope that was dangled in front of my face.
Because no matter how many times I tried and failed, I’d always believed the lie that this time was going to be the time I succeeded, even though in the back of my mind, I knew that was false. Hope was a painful lie—both the greatest gift and the curse of humanity.
And it was tempting me to try when I knew the truth—she would die.
How pathetic that my first reaction was jealousy.
I jerked the curtains back.
And nearly ran into the chair when the doorbell chimed throughout the massive house.
Chapter Three
Luna
Six Hours Earlier
My body was still sore from the accident, and since I refused any sort of pain meds, I was really struggling with sucking air in and pushing it out of my mouth—or just surviving in general as I stood there and waited for the gates to open.
“I’m sorry ma’am, there’s really nothing we can do.” The sheriff shifted his weight awkwardly from one foot to the next. He was most likely in his mid-twenties, which seemed young. Bright blond hair framed his face, and dependable, kind brown eyes regarded me. “Nobody in town has a seen a trace of your mom, and you’ll need to stay here and be available while this is an ongoing investigation.”
“She’s alive,” I argued. “She has to be.”
“Are you sure you drove here with her?” he asked in a kind voice that just reminded me I was all alone. “You did hit your head very hard, and nobody at the inn saw her walk in. There are no footprints leaving the back of the inn. I have one of my deputies searching the forest for a body just in case she made a run for it and got attacked by a cougar.”
I clapped a hand over my mouth. “You think she ran away and got hurt?”
“No,” he said softly, coming to stand closer to my hospital bed. “I think you’re very injured and might be having memory problems. The reservation at the inn is under your name, not your mother’s, as well as the registration of the Jeep you’re driving.”
I frowned. “But what about our apartment back in Portland?”
“From what I saw, it’s being used as an Air B n B for the next four months.”
The hell?
Why wouldn’t Mom tell me that?
Something was going on.
And I was going to figure out what it was.
My head pounded, and nothing made sense.
I didn’t want them to think I was crazy, but I needed answers, and I had no clue what to do. I knew I wasn’t crazy; I knew what I had seen, what I’d experienced.
My body shivered.
“Sorry to say you can’t leave town until we figure out what’s happening here. The lovely folks at the orphanage here have offered to take you in. They’re at capacity and recently started letting some of the older teens stay at the Inn since it’s next door, so you’re all set up for now.”
I was eighteen turning nineteen; they couldn’t just keep me here! So no, I wasn’t all set up, but until I figured out what happened to my mom, I was stuck. Could I possibly even leave?