Page 35 of Fractured

But wait. There was one line that froze my heart in my chest.

The victim was with the suspect for three hours before someone alerted authorities to his absence.

That wasn’t true.

She’d only had him for an hour before Mrs. Daniels called the police.

I remember vividly hearing the sirens race toward our street, the loud, shrill alarm blaring through the neighborhood as they passed by the park where I’d gone to be alone and read a book in peace. As a teenager, I’d escaped her company as much as I could, almost as if the more time I spent with her, the more likely I would be to catch her mental issues.

I’d only been in that park for maybe an hour.

If he was gone for three, that would mean that she had snatched him while I was in the house. That I had been in the house while he was there.

No. No, that couldn’t be right.

Then I went on a manhunt to search out every article that mentioned a timeframe. They all said three hours. Every one of them.

I tossed my phone on the table and watched as it slid across the wood until it fell off and hit the floor. Shoving my chair away, I wrapped my arms around my knees and rocked back and forth as I wanted to remember that day but tried to think of anything else.

There was a war inside my mind, and I didn’t know which part would win out. My phone had hit the floor hard, but I couldn’t move to check it, not when it represented everything that I didn’t want to know.

The cops would have questioned me if I had been in the house. They hadn’t. Had they?

Then I did the one thing I excelled at—I zoned out and left reality behind. The bright sunlight filtering through the blinds slowly faded as night drifted in. My phone chimed several times, but still, I sat there. If the house was on fire, I doubt I could have moved.

A knock came at the door. A louder knock. Then an even more insistent one. The door squeaked as it opened, and that jerked me back down to my reality. I always locked the door.

Unless I received a strange and foreboding letter that distracted me.

Ambrose and Atticus busted through the front door, squeezing past each other frantically until they saw me sitting at the table. Atticus continued to rush forward as Ambrose stopped in his tracks, the door swinging back to hit him on the shoulder.

The hilarity of their entrance had me cracking up. I laughed so hard, until tears streamed down my face. At that point, I didn’t know if they were real tears or not, but I couldn’t stop laughing.

“Yeah, she really looks like she’s in trouble,” Atticus said drily as he placed a hand on my shoulder and kissed my forehead.

“She wasn’t answering, and I was worried the worst was happening.” Ambrose seemed to come back to himself and stalked forward as he ran a long fingered hand through his hair.

Atticus smirked. “All that imagination running wild? Must be an occupational hazard.”

My laughter tapered off, but the tears kept coming. I tried to stop. With two handsome and sexy as hell men standing in my house, I didn’t want to be a basket case, but clearly, I had no idea how to get myself under control.

“Hey, hey. What’s this now?” Ambrose crouched down beside me. He gathered me in his arms, and immediately, some of the wildness inside me started to settle.

“Nothing.” I sniffed as I tried not to get snot all over his black T-shirt.

Atticus sighed behind me. “I hate to agree with Ambrose, but this doesn’t look like nothing.”

Ambrose squeezed me tight to him as I hiccupped and let all the tears I’d vowed to never shed in front of anyone fall. They were unstoppable, but each one that fell left me feeling better but empty, as if they were taking pieces of who I was with them.

I didn’t know if I would ever get them back, and I didn’t know if I wanted to.

“So no date tonight, huh?” Ambrose whispered into my hair.

All I could do was shake my head. I had been looking forward to this date all day. And now my own curiosity had ruined it for both of us.

Both men stood as silent sentinels while I slowly started to compose myself. By the time I sat back and wiped the residual wetness from my cheeks, I was too embarrassed to look them in the eyes.

We’d only just met, and twice, I’d cried in front of Ambrose, and now once in front of Atticus. There didn’t seem to be a whole lot of possibilities in moving forward. There was no hope before, but even if there had been, my errant moods would have killed it.

---