28 Days(17)
“What?” she asked, surprise filling her eyes.
“You’ve been abducted before, yet you have no concern for your safety by inviting me back to your place.”
She opened and closed her mouth before her lips pulled tight in anger. “As you put it like that, then I suppose I’ll have to call you instead.”
Saige gripped her purse and when her hand touched the doorknob, Alex pressed his hand to the door. Once she calmed, and didn’t look to be about to leave, he stepped away from her.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pointed that out.”
“It’s the truth,” she said to the door, her voice tight with anger.
“Saige, please look at me.”
She turned.
“I was being a dick. I really am sorry, and I promise you’ll be safe with me.”
“Sometimes you look as though you hate me and I guess knowing that you believe my statement incriminated your brother, I can understand that.”
“I won’t hurt you,” he said as softly as he could manage.
She raised her gaze to his.
“You’re probably the only one who can help at this stage. You’re all he has and I promise I won’t hurt you...you need to go and rest right now. Sleep the migraine away.” He offered her a wry grin.
She nodded and then winced as they exited Daniel’s office.
Alex’s attention was diverted when he noticed the man’s secretary, Fern, bent over her desk.
He smirked and licked his lips.
Saige caught him and rolled her eyes.
He laughed, motioning for Saige to follow him out, but his eyes strayed back to the legs on display in Daniel’s office.
Day 5
8:00am
* * *
Quinten stared at the blank pieces of paper that sat in front of him, at a loss as to what to write.
Saige hadn’t once visited him since he’d been arrested, charged, then incarcerated, so why would she come now?
The warden had asked him if he had any last requests, and the only one he’d been able to think of was to see his Saige. The form to have her vetted to visit had been completed, and he’d been assured she’d be granted access, but the rest would be up to her. As much as he tried not to get his hopes up, his heart raced at the thought that he’d get to see her one last time…even if there were bars between them.
Would she really come to see him though? Time was ticking and his hands shook with the reality of what was about to happen to him. He tried not to think about it, but how could he not when he was living this hell.
And what about his brother? Alex was due in a couple of days. It was a visit that he usually looked forward to, but now that he’d been moved and his death imminent, he didn’t know how to feel. His stomach was in turmoil, and he feared he’d puke.
He’d escaped a lot of the violence that happened in prison because, as a death row prisoner, he’d had a cell to himself and the security was different, or so he’d been told. It didn’t change his longing for the life that he had started to dream of before it was taken away from him.
The dreams had kept him going while Saige had been away at college, and the guilt he felt at being the one to bring her home the weekend she’d been taken still ate at him. He’d been sick and tired of his life, and had needed her badly. She’d heard his need through their connection over the phone and before he could say anything, she’d had a bag packed and was in her car.
That had been the last time they’d talked.
He missed her voice, her smile and, most of all, the feel of her arms around him. Even now, his heart swelled with the love they once shared, and no one could tell him it had all been a dream on his part. He knew that his brother believed the worst about Saige. She’d been the only thing to cause arguments between them over the years.
“You done?” the guard questioned.
They got edgy when he had a pencil in his hands. What they expected him to do with it, he didn’t know.
He wasn’t a killer.
“I haven’t thought of anything to write,” he admitted. “I thought the words would come, but now that I have the chance to write to her, I don’t know what to say. There’s so much.” He shook his head before he dropped his gaze to the sheet of paper. “What do you write to the girl you love, who you know you’ll never see again?”
Quinten had no idea how long he sat crying with the paper blurred in his vision. He just knew he had to write something because he couldn’t leave this life without her knowing how much he still loved her.
* * *
8:30am
* * *
Saige didn’t know whether or not she could trust Alex. One minute, he seemed like Quinten’s caring older brother, and the next he glared at her as hate emanated from him. The only way she’d understand Alex more was to read the statement.
The statement that she’d given so many years before sat on her lap while she gazed out of the window. Saige knew she had to pick it up and read the words she supposedly said, but the thought of reading what happened to her made her belly quiver with nerves.
Alex told her that the statement didn’t go into detail, but if she wanted more details they would be in the hospital report that her doctor had written for the court. She opted to ignore the latter for now.