Page 68 of Wreck Me
He stared at her for a beat longer until his phone on his waist rang. With a curse, he jerked it off his waist and barked a hello into it, then left without a word.
She didn’t even jump when the front door slammed behind him. Even though she was in love with him and wanted nothing more than to plead with him to tell her what was going on, he would have to come to her. There would be no more games when it came to her heart.
Even if she’d finally found the man she knew without a doubt she’d love forever, she was done begging a man to love her.
Nineteen
Life, Interrupted
The red andblue lights cut through the gray fog, tinting the air an eerie purple color.
Shit. This wasn’t good. A cold, ominous feeling whipped through him. Accidents were always bad, but some were worse than others. And that dark, clawing in his throat wouldn’t let up. Fire trucks, an ambulance, and a state patrol were already on scene.
The fog that had rolled in had already wreaked all sorts of havoc on Madison Ridge, and it was only a little after eight in the morning. This was the fourth accident called in this morning alone but the worst one yet. And the scanner kept going off.
It was going to be a long day.
Aidan pulled his SUV off to the side of the road, cutting the sirens but leaving the lights on. Flares lit up the road to guide any traffic that came through. Fortunately, that time of the morning, there wasn’t much.
His gut clenched as he looked around and didn’t see anyone but first responders running around back and forth. Where were the passengers?
He walked up to the officer on scene, who gave him a rundown of what they’d been able to piece together so far. Single car accident, driver appeared to leave the road, ending up in the woods, wrapped around a tree, and from what they could tell there was only a driver. No passengers, but the driver was DOA.
Aidan nodded grimly, his chest tight, then thanked the officer. He zipped up his jacket against the misty, chilly air and began walking the area, taking notes and pictures with his tablet for the accident report. Trying to piece the puzzle together.
A few minutes later, there was some shouting from the EMTs and they started to pull the gurney out of the woods. When they cleared the wood line, the look on their faces and the sheet over the body confirmed what Aidan already knew but had hoped was bad info.
Shit. That feeling of foreboding he’d had since he got up this morning intensified. He met them at the back of the ambulance.
“Hey, Aidan.” John, one of the EMTs and his former classmate, greeted him, his shoulders slumped. “It’s Rob Davidson.”
Aidan froze, that yawning hole in his gut intensifying. “What?”
John shook his head and pulled back the sheet. Rob’s lifeless body lay still on the gurney, and Aidan dropped his chin to his chest.
Shit shit shit.He’d just seen the man last night. With his wife. And young daughter.
The daughter Megan had given her stuffed tiger to.
The pressure in Aidan’s chest was almost too much to bear. He wanted to throw something. Anything. But emotions had no place right then. He nodded curtly at John to cover him back up.
“We need—” John started.
“I’ll handle it.” Aidan stalked off and called Landon.
“Hello?”
“Hey, man, I know you were on last night but I need your assistance.” Aidan gave him a rundown, his voice emotionless. If there was one thing he knew how to do, it was compartmentalize. He called upon that skill he’d mastered and shut out anything that looked like emotion. Find the cold, the numb. He could think about all the repercussions later.
Because he knew what he had to do next, and it was the worst part of the job.
But why did it feel like he was walking to the edge of a cliff? With nothing but blackness below? Having grown up in the area and being a deputy in town for the last three years, this wasn’t the first time he’d known the victim. What made this one so different?
He shoved the thoughts away and focused on what had to be done. Facts. The tire tracks on the road, all the other little details that would tell them the story of what ended Rob’s life. He wanted to make sure he had as much info as possible when he went to see Margot.
He made more notes of the scene in his tablet, informed the tow truck driver of what was going on when they arrived, and updated Landon when he showed up.
Landon shook his head when Aidan told him who the victim was. “Aw, damn. I didn’t know him well, but he was a nice guy.”
