I really need to stop telling Mom and Dad what I’m thinking. They always fucking tell Mason.
“She’s been missing for thirty-six days and underwent some pretty shitty things from what I heard in the interview, and she goes to bed early and you take that as a cue to sleep on the couch?”
I groaned into my hands and sagged into the back of the couch. “Mase—”
“You know I love you like a brother. You know I trust you with my life. You’re one of the smartest guys I know, and not just when it comes to our job. But when it comes to your future wife you are dumb as shit.”
“Tell me, why is it that you’re the dumbest guy I know, and you’re always the one trying to show me how stupid I’m being?”
A cocky smirk crossed Mason’s face and he shrugged before turning toward the front door. “It’s because I’m fucking awesome, bro. Go make sure she’s okay.”
“I can’t get the sight of them kissing out of my head,” I admitted.
“There’s a lot of shit we will never get out of our heads, Kash. Don’t let this one ruin the best thing you’ve ever had.” He opened the front door and looked back at me one more time. “You should really watch the entire interview. What we saw yesterday wasn’t a normal occurrence for them.”
I watched as he walked out the front door, and I leaned forward, putting my elbows on my knees, and my head in my hands. I knew he was right. It didn’t make any of this easier though.
Mason had taken this case about as hard as I had, and he’d seen every part of it just the same as me . . . but it wasn’t the same for him. He wasn’t in love with Rachel, he hadn’t been planning his wedding and about to marry her, he hadn’t had to watch his fiancée kiss her kidnapper.
So different.
Still, I knew I had reacted the wrong way yesterday. I should have tried to understand, I should have just been there for her. I should have sat down and listened to her side when detectives weren’t interviewing her. And I should have fucking held her last night. She was finally back and I didn’t even try to be near her. I’m such a dick.
Standing quickly, I walked down the hall, toward the closed bedroom door. I raised my arm to knock before I realized how fucking ridiculous that was and just opened the door. The bed was empty, so I walked into the bathroom and called out her name. When I didn’t get a response and didn’t find her in the bathroom or the closet, fear surged through my veins and I ran back into the bedroom calling after her.
“Rachel! Rach!” This isn’t fucking happening. “Rachel!”
I’d just started to turn to run back to the living room in search of my phone to call 9-1-1 when I saw the paper and ring sitting on the nightstand. My stomach dropped and I stared at the nightstand for a few moments before I could force myself over to it. Grabbing Rachel’s engagement ring, I fisted my hand around it and tried to make sense of the words on the paper.
I understand, and I don’t blame you. I’m sorry.
“Understand what?” I whispered to the empty room.
The sound of pounding feet on the hardwood had me turning just as Rachel entered the room.
“Where the hell were you?” I yelled across the small space.
She flinched back into the wall near the doorjamb and her eyes darted around the room as her mouth opened and shut. “I-I-I, um . . .”
“Rachel, you can’t disappear like that after what we just went through, okay? Fuck!” I stalked over to her and for the first time in over a month, I brought my mouth down onto hers. “I thought—Jesus Christ, I thought you were gone again,” I choked out and started to kiss her but stopped abruptly when I realized she was cringing into the wall. “What’s wrong? Am I hurting you?” I took a step back but kept the hand that wasn’t clenched around the ring on her waist.
She kept her eyes on the ground, and I watched as her chest rose and fell roughly before she finally shook her head.
My eyes fell over the bruised parts of her body that I could see, and I wondered again how she’d come to get those. I hadn’t stayed for that part of the interview yesterday. Like Mason, I knew the sexual assault exam showed nothing, but why was she shaking . . . Oh my God. I’m scaring her. My fiancée is scared of me . . . after being kidnapped and held captive for over a month, she’s scared of me. Son of a bitch.
Strike one.
“Rachel,” I said softly, making sure to keep my voice low and even. “Am I scaring you?”
Her eyes darted up to mine quickly, but long enough for me to see the moisture gathering in them.
“Damn it,” I whispered, soft enough that I’m not sure she even heard me. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m sorry for yelling at you, I was just fucking terrified when I walked in here and couldn’t find you,” I explained to her as I slowly brought her body closer to mine. “Please don’t be scared of me, I honestly don’t think I could deal with knowing that I am what scares you after everything you’ve been through.”
“I just—I just didn’t want to be in a bedroom anymore. I’m sorry. I went outside to write, you were still asleep, and I didn’t think you would go looking for me . . . I just wanted to be outside.”
Slipping the ring into the pocket of my jeans, I cupped her face, lowered my forehead onto hers, and watched the few tears slip down her cheeks. “Shh, no it’s okay. Don’t cry, Rachel. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have yelled.” Jesus, of course she wants to be outside, she was in a room for thirty-six days! “Let’s go back outside, we’ll talk out there, all right?”
She swallowed audibly and nodded her head as I pulled her away from the wall. When she didn’t make an attempt to go back down the hall, I grabbed her hand and started leading her down it. I didn’t understand why she kept walking directly behind me instead of beside me, and I shot her a confused look when she grabbed onto the back of my shirt with her free hand, but she wasn’t even looking at me. She was staring down at the ground.
I opened my mouth to ask what she was doing, when a flash from yesterday hit me hard. The way she’d been following Trent down the hall as Mason and I waited in the rooms. I heard her say in the interview that he would take her to a bathroom that was at the other end of the building. Is this how she always walked with him? Stopping suddenly, I turned to her and noted that she looked calmer now than she had since we first found her yesterday. But I couldn’t let her do this; this wasn’t normal.
“Rachel, does this feel right to you?”
Her eyebrows scrunched together as I loosely grabbed the hand holding on to my shirt. “What?”
“Does this feel right to you? Normal . . . walking like this, holding on to my shirt?”
“What? No, I—” Her eyes widened and she quickly released my shirt before taking a step back. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I—”
“Don’t apologize, Rachel. You have absolutely nothing to apologize for, okay?” Bringing her back to me, I made lazy circles on her back and waited until she was looking up at me. “Is that how you had to walk with him?”
Rachel’s eyes turned pleading. “Yes, but it was only because he needed to make sure no one took me! He didn’t do it—”
“It’s fine,” I assured her. “I’m just making sense of it, but we’re going to fix it, okay? You’re going to walk the rest of the way in front of me without any physical contact from me. You already went through the hall a few times alone, and you know this hall well. No one is going to come after you in it, there’s no one here but you and me.”