Page 105 of Unbroken

“I don’t think I’d be able to let you out of my sight.” I took a deep breath and smiled softly at the relief flooding over me. “You can stay with me.”

“The officers are supposed to be driving past my place every hour, so…”

Devon shook his head. “I’ll tell them to reroute to my house.” No words were needed. I merely glanced over at Devon, and he saw in my eyes my answer. I didn’t want to be anywhere near my house right now. It felt violated and contaminated. “Let’s go get Tato.”

He pulled out onto the street and reached over to settle his hand on my thigh. I covered it with my own and let my head fall back onto the headrest. The thirty-minute drive back to my house was mostly silent, both of us lost in thought and trying to wrap our heads around the events of the evening.

It felt like a lifetime ago that Devon had ushered me downstairs at the concert venue where he’d called Detective Wilcrest and explained the situation. He’d been just as stunned as we were, but we all agreed he was likely long gone. He instructed us to head to the police station and that he’d make a call to Austin PD before we got there.

When we did, there was a detective waiting for us. Detective Baker, under Detective Wilcrest’s direction, took my phone in as evidence and took our statements. It was two and a half hours later before we were able to leave with little in the way of a lead.

He’d covered his tracks just like he always had.

Detective Baker was nice enough, and he agreed to help Detective Wilcrest with the investigation. But I wasn’t holding my breath that they’d find anything.

They’d also agreed to send a police car past my house every hour during the night, however, they didn’t have the resources to have a full-time cop parked outside of my house. We were both exhausted, but Devon had argued these were the exact circumstances that warranted something more than the occasional drive-by.

And although he’d tried, his argument hadn’t made a difference.

“Sweetheart, we’re here.”

I must have zoned out, because one second, we were pulling out onto the street outside of the police station, and the next we were parked in front of my duplex.

“Hmm…we are,” I said, unbuckling and retrieving my keys from my purse. I pushed the door open and hopped down, glancing at my house and despising the way I hesitated when I considered heading toward the front door. But Devon was right there a second later, shutting the car door and resting a reassuring hand on my lower back.

Ready to get it over with, I unlocked the door and pushed it open. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but I could feel myself holding my breath as I took in the living room. It was exactly as I’d left it. The kitchen light was still on, and the couch pillows were on the floor from where Tato had knocked them off.

It still smelled and looked the same, but something was off. It felt completely different.

It was tainted just with the thought that he’d witnessed me there when I thought I was alone. My semblance of privacy had been just that: imaginary.

Trying to ignore the pang in my chest, I started my search for Tato. If he wasn’t in the living room, there was only one other place he’d likely be sleeping, and sure enough, he was passed out on the end of my bed, curled up on the dark purple blanket slung over the corner.

I walked over to him and carefully blew on his snout. His nose started working, and his eyes blinked open. He stretched, and that pang in my heart tightened. I felt awful for leaving him alone for so long, but he didn’t seem to care. He hopped up and eagerly reached to lick my face.

His tail wagged, and I gave him extra love and scratches.

“That’s sweet how you wake him up,” Devon said from where he was leaning against the doorframe watching us.

“He gets scared otherwise, and he’s had a shitty enough life. He doesn’t deserve to be scared another second. Even if it is just a second.” I kissed Tato’s forehead and turned to Devon. “It’llonly take me a few minutes to get my stuff together. Do you want to pack up my laptop on the kitchen table?”

“Yeah, of course,” he agreed, and I couldn’t help but smile a little when Tato decided to follow Devon out of the room.

After he trotted off, I went straight to my closet and grabbed a duffel. Staying at Devon’s was likely not the most well-thought-out idea, but it was the best he or I could come up with in the moment. And I found myself throwing more clothes in the bag than I would realistically need for one night. Because I had to consider the possibility that I wouldn’t want to come back there after only one night. Whether I stayed at Devon’s or found another option, I couldn’t imagine I’d want to spend any significant amount of time there anytime soon.

My duffel busting at the seams, I was in the bathroom throwing toiletries into a separate, smaller bag when Devon called from the kitchen, “Hey, Blake?” His voice was slow and cautious, immediately making the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

Unsure what I was going to find, I peeked around the corner and down the hallway. Devon wasn’t looking at me, though. His hands were braced on the kitchen counter, and he was staring down at it like it had personally offended him.

“What’s wrong?” I asked as I walked toward him. The object he was staring at slowly came into focus. And that was when it hit me.

Peanut butter cookies wrapped in cellophane. They’d been pushed back behind my coffeemaker earlier in the week and completely forgotten. The words written on the cardstock attached to it echoed through my mind like they had the first time I’d heard them. Spoken by a deep, nondescript voice while chained to the floor in a dark, damp basement.

Tormented hazel eyes met mine, and all I could do was shake my head. My chin quivered, but, fuck, I was done crying. All my emotions were so stripped back, I was entirely numb.

Like Devon read my mind, he stood to his full height andretrieved his phone from his back pocket. “I’ll take a picture and send it to both detectives, but any questions they have can wait until tomorrow. Are you ready to go?”

Devon was the type of person you wanted on your side in a crisis. He was confident and level-headed; he clearly saw the way forward and easily made the hard decisions.

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