Page 39 of Love on the Run

“Maybe,” she said, tipping her head down and hiding behind a curtain of auburn hair. “But I don’t know if I can do it.”

“I think you can.”

“You don’t know me.”

“Well, tell me who does and I’ll get them to convince you,” he said, half jokingly. But Callie just shook her head.

“I can’t think of anyone.”

“Wait…what?” Dumbfounded at her statement, Jake instinctively put his arm around her and pulled her to him.

Callie didn’t resist. Relishing the feeling of being close to him, she actually let herself relax a little, resting against him. “I don’t have anyone to go to. Not for something like this.”

“Where’s your family?” He remembered that she glossed over her family life yesterday, but he’d had assumed she had someone. He had his parents, his brother and his family, and then his friends from the Army who he still kept in touch with. Jake wasn’t exactly a social butterfly, but he always had someone to rely on if he needed to. It never occurred to him Callie might truly have no one. It also seemed a bit absurd for him to say what he was suddenly thinking: she had him.

She shrugged. “My parents got divorced a long time ago, when I was just a baby, really. They only married because of me. My dad remarried…I never really knew him. My mom acts more like a teenager than a parent. She never wanted…she didn’t know what to do with me. Even if I could get a hold of her, she’d be useless. My grandmother — she’s the one who really took care of me — died. That’s really why I went to California. I had some friends there. But not really the type of friends that are for life. They were fun, but we all went our own way.

“So when I took the car, I didn’t have a plan. I had no destination. I just drove. I flipped a coin in Nevada to pick north or south when the road split. Heads was north, so I went north. And I got this far. That’s all.”

“So I found you based on a coin flip?” Jake asked.

“Yeah. Lucky you.” Callie gave him a twisted smile.

That gave him an idea. He grabbed a quarter that was lying on the table next to him. “Okay, then. Hold out your hand.”

Puzzled, Callie did so. Jake put the quarter in her palm and closed her fingers over it. “Heads, you talk. Tails, you leave.”

Callie looked at the quarter, then at Jake. She wished she knew what he was thinking. She considered the coin for a moment, then shook her head. “I think this isn’t the sort of thing to leave to a coin flip.”

“No,” he agreed, and something in his expression made her heart warm. “It’s too important.” He squeezed her a little tighter and she smiled a little, looking into his eyes.

“You’re nice,” she said, meaning it.

“I try,” Jake responded, fighting an urge to kiss her. On the kitchen counter, his phone buzzed again. “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” he muttered. He got up, reluctantly thinking that whoever just called probably saved him from making a huge mistake, possibly even ruining Callie’s fragile level of trust in him.

It was Ty.

“Good timing,” Jake said dryly, in place of a greeting.

“What?”

“Nothing. What is it?”

“Just wanted to let you know that a body possibly matching Bellamy’s description has been found. Yesterday, actually. It was a John Doe. Gunshot to the head, hence the no ID. Guy didn’t have a face.”

“Where?”

“In a dumpster somewhere. It was obvious the body had been moved. I’ll make sure it’s checked against Bellamy’s info. Also,” Ty continued. “Foster hasn’t been seen since yesterday morning.We’ve got people who keep an eye on these things, and that’s a little unusual.I dropped a word to a few people in Homicide. They’re going to check Foster’s garage for evidence. Keep your eyes open.” The worry in Ty’s voice was palpable. “I wish I wasn’t stuck behind a desk. I can’t shake the feeling that you’ll need help.”

“He can’t know she’s here,” Jake protested, despite a tightening in his stomach. “I never put her name in the system.”

“Foster’s got plenty of people, and you can bet that half of them are doing nothing but looking for this girl, if she really saw what she says she saw.”

“No doubt about that,” Jake said. “She still working through the shock. You know the signs.” Ty, like Jake, was all too familiar with how people reacted to a trauma like a killing.

“Can’t sleep? Doesn’t want to talk about it, but can’t stop when she does?”

“Pretty much,” Jake confirmed. “But look, she’s as good as off the grid.”

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