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~Jason’s POV~
The numbers blurred together on the screen. Last night, I’d felt unsettled and it ended up turning into a very long night of tossing and turning. Sleep never came. I still didn’t understand why. Nothing was different about my life.
I worked a lot. Kept Foster in check. Made Waylon meet with me at least weekly for a meal. Other than that, nothing. But my brain refused to calm down enough for me to sleep.
So work became impossible as my brain refused to focus on my tasks. All morning nothing was getting done. I was surprised I even made it through the two meetings I had. My staff knew I was in a foul mood and kept interactions to a minimum. They knew to remain scarce when my mood wasn’t good. My anger issues had left them wary. I made it up to them as often as I could with free meals, parties, and bonuses each year for dealing with my assholeness. It seemed to work.
Just as I was about to give up and go for a walk, my office door crashed open.
“What the hell?” I asked as Foster practically ran into the room, breathless, dark brown eyes wild as he glanced around the room.
“Jason.”
“Yeah.”
“We have a hit.”
I frowned at my best friend. His eyes were wide, face pale, in complete disbelief. He kept glancing around as if he thought he was dreaming. I sat up straighter, recognizing the signs of his manic behavior. Not much unsettled Foster like this anymore, yet the wild look that he had gotten so often after she disappeared was back.
“Foster, what is it?”
He licked his lips and paced. His black hair was in disarray, and when he tugged at the strands, I understood why. “She’s back. She’s alive.”
My heart froze for so long that it felt like someone was holding on to my lungs and squeezing tightly. Foster was too far gone in his tirade to notice the effect it had on me.
“I don’t believe this. I mean, I never gave up. I needed answers. But I never expected this. It’s been ten years, Jason. How is this possible?” He walked back and forth, movements jerky. He didn’t know what to do.
“Stop, Foster. Stop right fucking now.”
He did.
“Tell me everything,” I said in a slow voice, more so to give myself time to process than to get him to calm down. “What are you talking about? You aren’t bullshitting me, are you?”
“She’s alive. Josie is alive. She just checked into The Plaza.” He tugged at his hair hard enough for me to wince. “I have an alert up for her name. A Joslyn Naevana checked in. I always get a visual in case of name changes. And she matches. There’s an eighty-six percent match. It has to be her.”
“Wait, here in the city? Eighty-six percent?”
“Yes! Fucking here. She’s only blocks away from us, living it up in that fucking hotel.” Foster’s wild dark eyes were all the hint I was given before he grabbed the photograph on my desk of the three of us—Waylon, Foster, and me—mountain climbing, and whirled it against the wall. The glass shattered as the frame fell to the floor. He wasn’t done though. My recycling bin was next.
“Foster!” I snapped, jumping to my feet. I ran around the desk and hooked my arms around his, pulling tightly so his back was to my chest as he thrashed around. A broken sound I was all too familiar with came from him. It was a low keening that hurt my ears and twisted my heart.
Ten fucking years and she turned up at a hotel nearby. Right down the street from us. If Jason didn’t need me right then, I’d be there demanding answers from her. Frankly, I was surprised he wasn’t already there. Maybe the shock drove him to me rather than to her. I’d consider that a blessing. There was no telling what kind of damage he would have done if he’d gone directly to the hotel.
I’d probably have to bail him out of jail. Again.
“She’s alive. She looks so healthy too. How? Why? Why now?” he asked, sounding so dangerously young and vulnerable. I lowered him to the small sofa. He slumped forward, gripping his hair hard enough for my scalp to feel the pain. I grimaced and grabbed his arm, forcing him to let go.
I got it. I understood. I was asking myself that too. We were finally getting over her. Waylon was even in a serious relationship. Just last week, he was telling me about popping the question. And I had started dating around again. Nothing serious, but better than how I had been since Josie disappeared. The only one who had never really moved on was Foster. I didn’t even know if he ever hooked up with someone after her.
If the person he saw really was her, then this had to be a punch in the gut for him. How long had she been so close to us? Why hadn’t she reached out to us? She was going to be the one. We had all invested in our relationship with her, willing to fight the world to keep her with us. She was our childhood sweetheart. Then one night, she disappeared.
The only person to know had been her sister, but then her sister had a breakdown and had to be forced into a psychiatric hospital, refusing to speak to anyone about anything. Then she conveniently fucking blocked out all the memories and moved on with her life. Even Josie’s parents gave her some crackpot story about Josie to help her move on. Then they did the same: moved on with their life. They had wiped Josie from their life like she had never existed. It had pissed me off enough that her father had nearly pressed assault charges against me.
But us three? We never gave up. Her disappearance fucking destroyed us.
And she was only down the road, living it up in a fancy fucking hotel. What the fuck?
Anger rose in me.
“Have you called Waylon?” I let go of Foster. He sat there, looking so broken, chest heaving as he took in deep breaths. He shook his head, still glaring down at the floor.
“Okay. Give him a call. Have him come here. Once he’s here, we’ll figure out what to do next.”
“I want to go see her.” Foster moved toward the door.
I grabbed his arm and forced him to remain sitting. He tried to yank out of my grip, but I wasn’t going to give up. His attempts were halfhearted anyway. If Foster were determined to do something, no one could stop him.
“No,” I said. “We need to play this right. What if she runs from us? What if she goes back into whatever hole she’s been hiding in? We can’t afford that.”
“Will she really do that? Her move wasn’t smart,” Foster said.
“Not smart at all. And we don’t know what she’d do if she knew we were on to her.” I rubbed at the back of my neck, hoping to relieve the tension building there. “Maybe she had thought it’d been long enough? Or that we were still on the west coast? I don’t know what to think. But we’ll find out. We need to be smart about it though because I refuse to let her go without an explanation.”
Foster finally calmed enough to lean back on the sofa, chin resting on his chest. I wasn’t fooled by the posture. Foster had joined the military as soon as he turned eighteen, and after Josie disappeared, he pushed himself harder, taking on dangerous missions, not caring about himself. When he wasn’t on an assignment, he had been obsessively searching for Josie. It took Waylon and me everything we could to get him to stop with his self-destructive decisions. He was even out of the army now, instead opening his own investigation firm, traveling the world to conferences as a special speaker.
I picked up the phone, hating that I was going to have to burst Waylon’s little world. He had been doing so well, better than the two of us. I didn’t know how he was going to respond.
The phone rang four times before he answered.
“Yeah?”
“Waylon, what are you doing?” I asked.
“Getting food for Sofia. Why? What’s going on?”
“Foster found her. He found Josie.”
I held my breath, waiting for his response. Nothing.
“She’s in the city. She’s staying at a nearby hotel.”
Still nothing. Then the phone disconnected.
Shit.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
This was all fucked up.
Why now? After so long, why was she now showing up?
