The Birthday List(102)

“No.” Her eyes begged me as she spoke. “I swear. I wasn’t even painting. Look.” She held up her fingers, all of which were clean.

“Then you won’t get in much trouble. Let’s go.” I took her elbow and started walking her back to my car.

“Please.” She was tall, probably five ten or eleven, so she kept up with my steps as she kept pleading. “I’m only sixteen. If you take me in, they’ll send me back to California. But I can’t go back. I can’t. My mom’s boyfriend . . .” She stopped her feet, tugging my arms so I stopped too. “Please. I can’t go back to live with him.” With her free hand, she lifted the long, dark hair off the nape of her neck, revealing a cluster of six cigarette burns shining under the streetlamp.

Fuck. This girl might be playing me, but the tears in her eyes and the torment on her face looked like the truth.

“You’re sixteen?”

She nodded.

“How did you get to Montana?”

“I came with my boyfriend. He’s twenty-one and we moved here together. But my dad lives here, he just doesn’t have official custody.”

“And was this boyfriend one of the punks who was vandalizing that wall?”

She shook her head. “No.”

My eyes narrowed at her lie. “Really?”

“I won’t do it again,” she whispered. “Please.”

I let her arm go and took a deep breath. Without a trace on her hands, I couldn’t prove she’d been spray-painting. All I could show was that she was with the crowd, which meant she’d probably get a slap on the wrist and a one-way ticket to California from social services. So instead of dragging her to my cruiser, I put one finger in her face. “This is your once. Your one chance. If I catch you again, I’ll drive your ass to California myself.”

“Thank you.” She threw her arms around my middle. “Thank you.” The second she let me go, she turned and ran in the opposite direction.

“Be good!” I called to her back.

“I will!” She waved and disappeared around the corner.



“Cole.” Matt put his hand on my shoulder. “Cole, are you okay?”

I watched as Simmons steered Nina Veras down the hallway. When they were out of sight, I shook my head, sinking to the floor as the world tipped upside down.

If not for me, Nina Veras would have gone back to California.

She would have been in the system. She would have been a thousand miles away from the liquor store and Samuel Long.

And Poppy’s husband would be alive.





Three days later . . .



The shrill ring of my alarm sent blinding pain through my skull. I buried my face in the pillow as I hammered my fist on the nightstand, missing the alarm the first time but smashing it silent with the second. Then I covered my head with another pillow—Poppy’s pillow—and willed the pounding in my temples to stop.

“Fuck,” I groaned as it just got worse.

I couldn’t gripe. I’d earned this hangover. For everything that I’d done, this was just a fraction of the punishment I deserved.

It had been three days since I’d gone to Poppy’s house and told her the news. Three days since I’d sat by her side on that single porch step and explained it all. How Nina Veras had killed Jamie. How she’d eluded the police and escaped. How the only reason she’d even been in Montana was because I’d been too much of a pushover to send her ass back to California.

How the loss of Poppy’s husband had been my fault.

She had stayed silent as I made the confession. She’d sat like stone, staring blankly at her front yard. The only movement came from her shallow breaths and the tears streaming down her face as I broke her heart. Only after I’d been done, after we’d sat in excruciating silence for an hour, had she finally asked me to leave.

Driving home that night, I knew I’d lost her.

I’d texted her the next day, just to check in, but hadn’t gotten much of a response. I’m fine. Just busy. I’ll call soon.

Busy.

I’m sure she’d been busy. Busy telling her family and Jamie’s the news of the investigation. Busy blocking me from her mind.

So I’d spent the last three days locked in my house, waiting for the phone to ring, mourning the best thing I’d ever had and lost.

The bourbon I’d guzzled last night hadn’t helped. My heart was still in pieces—the ache in my chest just another fucking bonus to go along with my splitting headache.

“Cole!” Dad’s shout carried up the stairs.

Goddamn it. I never should have given him my house key. The last thing I wanted was to see Dad. To see the disappointment etched on his face too. I didn’t need a fucking audience as my life spiraled out of control. Couldn’t I just be left to suffer alone?

“Cole!”

I guess not.

Whipping the sheet off my legs, I pushed myself to sitting. The room was spinning as fast as my stomach, but I swallowed down my urge to hurl and stood. On unsteady feet, I shuffled my way out of my bedroom and down the hall.

“Cole! Get your ass down here!”

“I’m coming,” I yelled as loud as my head and raspy voice would allow. “Just give me a fucking second.”