Burying Water (Burying Water #1)(65)
I think about that question as the tick-tick-tick of the turn signal fills the silence in the car. “Not really,” I admit finally. “I just didn’t feel like I fit in there. Amber’s friends are nice and all, but . . . I don’t know. Maybe it was too much for me.”
Maybe I would have enjoyed myself had I been with Jesse.
Or maybe I’m just more of a loner.
He chuckles. “Amber’s friends can be too much for me. Amber always was the social butterfly growing up. She didn’t mind the attention at all.”
“I feel like I’m so different from her in that way. Maybe I wasn’t before, but I am now.” I pause before adding, “Thanks for not arresting Jesse tonight. I think that was partly my fault.”
He nods once but doesn’t ask any more questions. I’ve probably created enough work for him as it is. “Wouldn’t have done anybody any good.”
“Will you get into any trouble over that? You know, with voters and letting your son off and stuff.”
His forehead furrows deep. “This is my last term. I’ll be resigning after this. Retiring, technically.”
“Really? The way Ginny and Amber talk about you, I thought you were meant for that shiny badge.”
“Doesn’t hang quite right on me anymore.”
The rest of the drive is silent.
It isn’t until I’m sitting alone on my back balcony, taking in the canopy of stars, that I really think about what happened tonight. I trail my finger against the long ridge running down my face. How many more times will I hide this scar, only to surprise a guy who might otherwise think I’m pretty?
Who will then pass me by once he discovers that I’m not?
I sit back and wonder if I’ll be able to find someone who sees beyond it. It’s just a scar, right? A blemish on the outside.
And a confused girl with no past on the inside.
Mostly, though, I sit and wonder about the guy next door. I wonder where he is right now, because he’s not in his garage.
And that makes my heart heavy with disappointment.
TWENTY-FIVE
Jesse
then
It’s just after ten by the time I turn into the driveway. I take the potholes extra slow for Alex’s sake, but I can’t avoid them completely. Her fingers curl around the door’s molding with each bump.
She argued with me when I told her where I wanted to take her, but after I promised that it would be fine—that no one would see her like this—she relented, throwing together an overnight bag. I pulled her BMW into the garage and then I helped her into my car, a wary eye on the cameras. I didn’t want to bring it up but she must have read my mind, because she told me that she knows how to delete footage and Viktor never checks anyway.
So, just like that, I left Portland behind, with Alexandria Petrova in my passenger seat. I didn’t even go home to grab a change of clothes, because I wanted to get her as far away as I could, as fast as possible.
I round the house, passing the sheriff’s sedan that I hoped wouldn’t be there but knew probably would.
“There’s a police car in your driveway, Jesse,” she says slowly.
“I know. It’ll be fine, I promise. And it’s not a police car. My dad’s the sheriff.” I keep heading down the narrow path toward my garage. I call it “my garage” because my granddad used to own this property and he left that building to me. Sure, it’s on my parents’ land and they cover the electricity bills, but the space within—to work, to sleep, to be happy—is mine. No one’s going to go against a dead man’s wishes. Not even the sheriff.
An outdoor spotlight appears in my rearview mirror and a moment later, a figure steps out from the sliding door off the kitchen, flashlight in hand. It takes three minutes to walk from the house to the garage and he’s already on his way.
I hit the automatic button to the double door that I keep with me at all times and roll into my big, beautiful garage. Under other circumstances, I’d be floating on a euphoric high right now—pulling my dream car in here for the first time.
But right now, I have a beat-up girl in the passenger seat and if my father sees her looking like this, no one’s going to be happy. Hell, he’ll probably haul me in for questioning. It wouldn’t be the first time.
I unfasten her seat belt for her. “We’ve gotta move quick, okay?”
She nods and picks up her purse. I grab her bag from the backseat and then run around to the passenger side to help her out. Thank God the garage’s entrance is angled toward our neighbor’s house—an old hermit lady who’ll be locked up in her bed by now—or he’d see right in here.
In seconds I have the back door unlocked. I guide Alex up the narrow stairs and into the small attic apartment, the air cold and stale. “Here, just sit still. Or better yet—” I lead her to the stripped bed, the bedding sitting neatly folded. My mom must have been in here. “Lie down. I’ll come back soon.”
She eases herself back until she’s lying on my bed, staring up at me, her eyes wide with panic. “Please don’t tell him, Jesse. I don’t want to explain this to anyone.” I’m guessing that if she’d known my father was a sheriff, she never would have agreed to this.
“I won’t. Promise. Just don’t move, because this floor will creak.” I lean down to kiss her forehead, adding with a whisper, “And he doesn’t believe in ghosts.”