Twelve

Addy

Figuring Jay out was the most difficult thing Addy had ever come to face. She had always known men to be one extreme or the other: the nice guy, or the asshole. Jay, well, he was both. And then some.

She had a tough time trusting his motives, but an even more difficult time not trusting him. Why was that? Who was this man to her besides a criminal? He scared her—but, he intrigued her, and that was the strangest part of all. Few people caught her attention as Jay had from day one. Not Ryan. Not Abby. Just Jay—just this fucking crazy man in the seat next to her. Sometimes, being around Jay, Addy felt like she was back on the grade-school playground bickering with a friend over whether to play hopscotch or basketball during recess. Only, in this game, sometimes it would end in a knock-down-drag-out fight.

Some old country tunes filled the car, and neither of them spoke for a long time. The music soothed her, and she found it did well to drown out Jay’s insistent leg tapping on the floor. If he wasn’t tapping his foot, he was smoking, or he was playing the air guitar with one finger. It was…cute.

On the radio, the last country tune ended, and the DJ’s voice came back on, rattling on about the weather and upcoming concerts. Addy leaned over to turn the volume down when the man on the radio caught her attention, and she arrested her movement.

“Local police alongside the Federal Bureau of Investigation is still on the lookout for twenty-nine-year-old Jay Dexter, who was convicted of manslaughter in the deaths of his sister Ashley Dexter and their father, Malcolm Dexter. Jay was last spotted in a small town in Oregon, and it is said he may have a hostage, twenty-five-year-old Adaline Connorof Lakewood, Washington. Jay is thought to be heading toward Nevada. Laurel Dexter is offering a substantial reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Jay. If anyone has information on either one of these missing people, please contact your local police department. Jay Dexter is thought to be armed and dangerous.”

The next song came on, some stupid, hillbilly style twang, and a silence settled over the car. Jay’s grip tightened on the steering wheel, his knuckles growing white with tension. For a moment, she wasn’t sure she should ask, but she had nothing to lose.

“Who is Laurel?” she asked. “Who’s Laurel Dexter?”

“She’s no one,” Jay said.

Addy turned in the seat to face him, holding back her anger when he refused to look in her direction. “Who is she, Jay? You owe me that much.”

“Who is she?” he repeated. His tone had tightened, angry. “She’s my bitch stepmother. She’s the reason I got sent to military camp. She’s the reason I’m—” His voice cracked and he faltered, taking Addy by surprise as he caught himself and let his mouth snap close. Letting her gaze drop, she pressed her fingers together in her lap.

“You left this woman with no husband and no daughter?” she asked. “You really are a monster.”

Jay laughed at this, but it was bitter, and it sent a buzz of fear down her spine.

“Don’t I know it.”

“I hope they catch you,” Addy said. She was too angry to play nice right now. “I hope they find you and give you the electric chair.”

“I prefer the lethal injection myself,” said Jay. His face conveyed no emotion as he glanced sideways at her. She shuddered, unable to fathom what a horrifying death either of those would be. “I hear it’s less painful.”

“You deserve all the pain in the world,” she said, and for a moment, she meant it. Some seconds and even some minutes with Jay had been okay—they had nearly been normal. But then she was reminded of the situation at hand, and she remembered why she was here, and especially why he was here. All at once, any feeling of comfort or security would melt away, and she’d be back to the beginning, back to being the girl in the car with the gun to her side.

“Sometimes,” Jay said, and when she looked over, his striking blue eyes met hers with a sadness that caught her off guard. “Sometimes I agree with you there.”

Addy didn’t know what to say at first, didn’t know how to react. She had not expected that, and it threw her entire image of him off track. She was left staring in silence, scrambling to find the pieces of this whole thing that might make sense.

“I got out of prison three days ago.”

Addy looked over at him, trying to hide her surprise. His tone was neutral; there was no spite or sarcasm or pettiness. She saw him glance at her from the corner of his eyes, trying to gauge her reaction. So, she said nothing, only waited for him to continue.

“I served seven years in prison for manslaughter,” Jay said. “When I was nineteen years old, I was driving the car with my dad and sister in it. Everything was fine, you know. The radio was on and Ashley—my sister—was singing in the back seat.” Jay paused for a second to take a breath and then continued. “We were taking my father to the airport. He had to be in Tokyo that night for business, and we were running late. He was in a pretty shitty mood because his wife had picked a fight with him before leaving. She was supposed to drive him to the airport, but she refused, so Ashley and I said we would. It was my car, so I drove.”

Jay kept his eyes trained on the never-ending road in front of him. Addy could tell he couldn’t bring himself to look at her, but for some reason, she wished he would.

“I hit about eighty-five on the freeway toward SEA-TAC. Ashley was singing, trying to cheer my dad up, and he was checking his phone.”

Jay stopped again. Addy could see his knuckles turn white with the grip he had on the wheel.

“Whatever happened next is blurry,” he said. “I lost control of the car, and that was because I lost control of myself. Not mentally; I didn’t have some breakdown, but I blacked out. I just…fell asleep.”

Addy turned her body slightly in Jay’s direction. Her fingers itched to take his hand, just as a friend would comfort someone. But she didn’t because she wasn’t sure how he’d react.

“When I woke up, I was in the emergency room, and the doctors kept shining lights in my eyes asking what I’d taken. I couldn’t speak; I could barely breathe. And I didn’t understand what they were saying, Addy, because I hadn’t taken anything. But they kept asking, and they kept asking, and no matter how many times I asked them where my sister was, they just kept asking me what I had taken.”

Silence fell over them. Jay couldn’t meet her face, and she could see the shame in him. He was struggling, probably wondering if she would believe him or not. She wished she knew because Addy didn’t feel like she knew anything anymore.

“What was she like?” she said after a few moments of awkward silence. Now it was her turn to look away. “Your sister. What was she like?”

“She was amazing,” Jay said, and Addy heard the catch in his voice. He hesitated to pull himself together. “She was such a bright light for everyone around her, you know? We were twins.”

“So, it was vehicular manslaughter,” Addy said, to herself. “I don’t understand, Jay.” She met his eyes, searching his face. “You served your time, you were released, so what are you doing?”

Jay scoffed. He shook his head. The anger that had been replaced by sadness only seconds ago was back; she could see it creeping into his eyes.

“I wasn’t on drugs when I wrecked the car, Addy,” Jay said. He flexed his fingers over the wheel. “I wasn’t under the influence of anything.”

“So why did they think you were?”

“Because my toxicology report came back positive for GHB,” Jay said. “Also known as—”

“Gamma-hydroxybutyric acid,” Addy said. Jay glanced over, surprise written in the lines of his face.

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“One of the most common date rape drugs used,” Addy continued thoughtfully. “It has no odor and no color in liquid form, and it’s extremely fast-acting; it can take effect within fifteen minutes.”

“Loss of consciousness is quick,” Jay said.

“Why was GHB in your system?”

“Because,” Jay shifted his gaze back to the road, his teeth clenched. “I was framed for killing my family.”

Addy didn’t consider herself a saint—she didn’t attend church. She liked to drink, and she enjoyed the occasional smoke. She wasn’t an enthusiastic fan of children or crying babies, but she was no monster, either. Addy was a good person. And if she kept on resisting the urge to kill her fiancé in his sleep, she’d be okay. But if she was such a good person, why was she still here?

You had your chance, the tiny voice in her head said. You’ve had multiple chances. You don’t want to go home. You want to stay with him. You want to stay with—

Pushing that stupid little voice aside, Addy took a deep breath and sneaked a glance at Jay. He was staring out the windshield as they drove, that dark hair falling into his eyes, muscles tensing under the tee-shirt he wore. He was smirking, lip curled up in amusement as though he was thinking of something funny, and Addy felt yet another overwhelming urge to lean over and touch him.

Hold him.

Kiss him.

She couldn’t wrap her head around his story. She didn’t know how. For all she knew, Jay was hand-feeding her lies for nothing more than to get her to cooperate. She wanted to trust him; she wanted to believe with every fiber of her being that Jay Dexter was innocent and that every word that had just come out of his mouth was the truth. But she couldn’t, not yet, because he’d still taken her away from home and kept her with him. She was still his hostage (wasn’t she?) and he was still breaking the law. He was a wanted man; there was no doubt about that. Her desire to believe his story and the desire to stay alive were now at odds with each other. The more she thought about it, the more she tried to piece together the thoughts in her head, the more painful it was. All she wanted to do was shut down.

“Are we going to Nevada?” she asked after another hour. “The radio report said you might be heading to Nevada. Are you?”

“How many times do I have to ask you to shut up?” said Jay, but there was no genuine irritation in his voice.

“A few more, probably. If you thought this was going to be easy, you are very, very wrong.” She took a calming breath, wondering if breathing would even help her now. She had always been a basket case, even a little bit high strung, and in-and-out breaths did nothing for her. Booze worked. A punching bag worked. A good scream fest worked. Breathing did not work.

Addy pondered this for a while, trying to remember the last time she’d been so angry. She thought of Ryan and wondered what he was doing at that very moment. Was he missing her? Was he pacing the police station anxiously, eyes darkened from lack of sleep? Was he now regretting all the times he’d struck her in anger? Addy knew it was abnormal not to miss her fiancé more. Had they had an excellent relationship, he would be on her mind all day and all night. Her chest would ache, her heart would feel empty and void without him. She would probably cry, bury her head in her hands, and sob until her tears dried up and her heart stopped beating. But she didn’t. She hadn’t. She missed Ryan—she missed him quite a bit. But she sure as hell didn’t miss the fights and the drama, and she’d never felt safer than she did now: far, far away from him.

With Jay.

Ryan and Addy had stopped having meaningful conversations around the time he had discovered her cutting. It had been as if he feared her—if not frightened, turned off. Repulsed. No longer was she the stable, smart, pigheaded girl he’d lusted after in high school. She had transformed into something else in his eyes—a basket-case. A loner. An attention-seeker. None of those things had been true, of course, but her knowing that differed from him knowing it. It didn’t matter what she showed him and everybody else on the outside—Ryan had seen the other side of her, the weak side, and he hated it. He didn’t like being weak. He didn’t want to be weak. He had no intention of ever having to care for somebody weak—especially not her. She had to take care of herself, and that was okay.

But sometimes—just sometimes—Addy wished she had someone there to take her by the shoulders, look her in the face, and say, “I’m here for you.”

* * *