Atone (Recovered Innocence #2)(9)
That says more about how Beau makes me feel than I have words for.
“If I give you my email address will you send me the links to your sister’s social media pages?” he asks. “There might be something there that can help us find her.”
“I checked them tonight and there were no new posts. But sure. I’ll send you the links.”
He pulls a business card out of his T-shirt pocket. “My email address. And phone number. In case you need it.”
His gaze shifts away as he takes a sip of his water. The phone number is a stretch for him, an uneasy overture. He’s hoping I’ll call. I’m half hoping I’ll have a reason to. I study the generic Nash Security and Investigations card he’d jotted his info on, committing his phone number and email address to memory, and then tuck it into a sewn-in pocket in my bra. Everything of value and necessity stays on me in case I have to do the cut-and-run thing again.
“It’s warm,” I tell him, humming the M.
My unexpected flirtation catches him as off guard as it catches me. I clear my throat and break eye contact. What am I doing here with him? I’m not this person. I never have been and I never will be. I can tell he’s not either. I try to ignore the sensations that bombarded me from the first moment I met him. He can feel them too. His struggle to understand and control them mirrors mine. I see it in the way he studies me with a little crease between his eyebrows. We’re a f*cked-up pair for sure.
Chapter 5
Beau
Vera’s flirting with me. At least I think she is. It’s been a long time since a chick showed any interest in me that wasn’t morbid curiosity. She’s not very good at it, but I’m not either. I’m not sure why I asked her here. I’m pretty sure she doesn’t know why she came. We’re each making an effort in our own way. Toward what I don’t know. But it feels easy. A new and rare kind of comfortable. At least for me.
I don’t need to know who she was. Getting to know who she is now is enough for me. I’m not who I used to be either. I can never be him again, so I can’t fault her for wanting to reinvent herself. If it wasn’t for Cora I might have done what Vera did and changed my name, my location, and my life. It occurred to me more than once right after I got out that I could do just that. But I couldn’t do it to Cora. She worked too hard, sacrificed too much for me to disappear on her.
“Do you really think you can find my sister?”
“I’m going to try. I found you,” I remind her.
She tucks her chin under and stares at her hands. “Was it easy to find me?”
“No. It was a hunch combined with sheer dumb luck and tenacity. Basically, I drove by almost every pay-by-the-week motel in San Diego until I found the one with your car parked out front. If it hadn’t been parked out there tonight when I drove by, I wouldn’t have found you. That’s the dumb-luck part.”
She nods. “Thanks for telling me my mistake.”
“You’re not going to disappear on me, are you?”
“No, but I need to be a lot smarter.”
“Is it dangerous for you to be here?”
“It could be.”
“The gun?”
“Yeah, among other…things.”
My eyebrows rise at this. She’s not as tough inside as she wants or needs to be. This isn’t the life she chose, it was forced on her, but by whom or what? I remind myself that the answers to those questions don’t matter. I’ve been where she is. Hell, I’m right there now. All that matters is who she is and who she’s going to be. Same as me. And yet for all of my talk of the present and future, the past is an anchor I can’t cut loose, dragging along behind me. Her past—like mine—sits in the booth with us, an invisible presence both of us can feel. The only difference is that she knows mine, but I don’t know hers.
If I could change one thing it would be for what happened to me to be as unknown to her as what happened to her is to me.
“Should I get a gun?”
Her eyes widen a fraction. She’s surprised by how all-in I am. Oddly, I’m not. When I told her I’d do my best at the agency office, I wasn’t being glib. It wasn’t just a line. I am all-in here.
“Have you ever shot one?” she asks.
“No.”
“I hadn’t either, until a couple years ago.”
“Maybe you can show me how it’s done.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
The waitress brings our meals. I frown over Vera ordering off the kids’ menu. I should’ve told her I was going to pay, but I have a feeling if I had she still would’ve ordered the same thing. She’s quiet while we eat, the front of her hair falling forward to conceal her eyes. It’s a trick she does when she’s avoiding answering or trying not to be noticed. I can openly study her when she hides like this. I don’t miss any opportunity to look at her.
There’s a pinprick-sized dent just below the left side of her lower lip where a piercing used to be. There’s another one on her left nostril and two near her right eyebrow. She wears no earrings now, but both ears were once filled with them. I bet if she stuck her tongue out there’d be an abandoned hole in it as well. Where else has she been pierced? My dick suddenly comes to attention at the question.