Page 39 of Crossing Lines

“AJ, wait. Baby, he’s in a bad place.”

“Don’t call me baby. Let me go. I’ll show him a bad place. Look what he let himself turn into! One fight, and he turns to a bottle?”

“Amber Jaymes—” The sound of a slap ricocheted through the room just as I opened the door. Chip’s words cut off abruptly.

Turned into what?I was going to ask, but the scene before me had me coming to a stop in the doorway. My sister’s arm was still in the air, being held by Chip. His eyes bored into hers. He kept his tone hard, but the anger lacked any real heat. I saw that much in his stance. “Listen, kitten, he’s in a bad place. Let me go get him. I’ll beat some sense into him if I have to. You don’t need to see him like this.”

They hadn’t heard the door open or seen me yet. They were wrapped in their own bubble. The fire in her eyes morphed into pain, and tears rolled down her cheeks. Chip released her arm and pulled her close, holding her against his chest as she cried.

Seeing my baby sister, hurting, crying for me…It felt like someone had kicked me in the balls.

The look of hurt on Stella’s face as she’d walked out and now AJ crying in my best friend’s arms—all of it was my fault.

Diesel, ever at AJ’s side, finally had enough of Chip touching his human and started to growl. His big paw swatted at Chip’s leg, trying to push between them.

“Down, you mongrel.”

“Don’t be mean to my dog!” AJ slapped his arm, but there was no heat there anymore. She was wiping her face when she caught sight of me. The heat did return to her eyes then, with a fire born of hell and pissed-off women. She pointed at me. If her finger had been a sword, I’d have been dead. “Get dressed. Gearup, and if you know what is good for you, you will keep your damn mouth shut.”

“Whoa, kitten. Relax. Give him a minute to get dressed, okay? I won’t let him get back in bed, I promise.”

She huffed and stormed out of the room, Diesel at her side.

What in the hell had I missed? “What’s up her ass?”

“Don’t be a dick. I’ll gladly step aside next time she comes at you. Better yet, next time, I’ll let Keith come with her. Would serve your stupid ass right. Get dressed; we need to get to the station. Stel’s missing. No one knows where she got off to.”

That got my full attention. “What? Where is she?”

“If we knew that, dumbass, we wouldn’t be putting together a search party. Jesus. Did you drink away all your brain cells over the last ten hours or what?”

Seriously? I took in a deep breath, let it out, and hurried around to get dressed. Chip helped with my bandages. I was in too big of a hurry. Stella missing? What had happened over the last however many hours? I should have gone after her. I knew she needed time; I needed time to cool down too. I had a message from her, I think. It had come a few hours after she’d left. I scrambled to find my phone.

Yes, I had a message from her. I replied, begging her to come home. She never replied back. My eyes twitched. Fuck!

“Let’s go,” Chip said, walking out of the room.

“Where are you, Stella Grace? Where are you?” I muttered, shoving the phone into my cargo pants pocket.

The trek downstairs was painful, but I kept quiet. We left the house, and I was lucky enough to get to sit by the freaking buffalo called a dog. He watched me as if he were judging me. I cracked my neck when the truck stopped. I’d never been so grateful to pull up to a police station in my life.

I got out of AJ’s truck, biting back a curse when I hit the cement a little too hard. My leg was not happy with me, but I didn’t care. I had to find out what was going on.

Walking into the station was akin to walking into a war zone. Phones were ringing, people were bustling about, radios going off. AJ located Wayne and said something to him. He turned and locked me in a glare that made me want to take a step back. I didn’t, though. I stood my ground. He turned back to Gabe and Robert, whose eyes were locked on a map. What in the hell was going on here?

“About time you drug your sorry ass out of bed.” Charlie slapped a paper against my chest and walked on by.

“Asshole,” I muttered. I scanned the paper, which turned out to be a map. The red lines along the roads made my brows shoot up.

“What you’re looking at is a map denoting the known whereabouts of Kurt Bohlen. It seems like he has some help, but from whom we don’t know.” Gabe turned when the door to the inner office hall opened. Lieutenant Ridgewood and Officer Kruger, his K9 partner at his side, both came in, grim-faced.

“Sorry for the interruption, Sheriff. We’ve gotten a call from a resident out off county road 15. She tried calling here, but,” he waved his arm around, “My dispatcher said she was calling about a strange car driving down past her house. The only thing out there, according to her, is an old barn. Possibly kids messing around, but in light of current events, we’re going to check it out.”

“I’ll send a deputy with you. Charles.”

“On it, boss. Come on, boys, let’s roll.”

“Wait. Can someone tell me what in the hell is going on here?” They walked past me and out the door without a second glance. I sighed. “Please?” My head was pounding, and not for the first time today, I wanted to puke. What had I been drinking?Oh yeah, moonshine and Jack. My liver and brain would never be the same.

---