Page 154 of Eight Years Gone

Walking to the car, he got in, quickly turning over the ignition. He backed out, waving to Grace before he drove off.

Colton crossed his arms as he sat ramrod straight in his seat. “I don’t know why you didn’t just let me get an Uber.”

Jagger turned onto Main Street. “Because we’re not going to Millsdale.”

Colton looked at him. “Then where the hell are we going?”

“To give you an education.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means we’re going to Wakeview.”

Colton sat back with a huff. “What the hell’s in Wakeview? There’s nothing I need to see in Wakeview.”

“I guess we’ll see.” He turned on the music, not interested in listening to Colton bitch before he pulled into the local McDonald’s for burritos. They definitely weren’t Bea’s famous French toast with cinnamon apples and a side of bacon and eggs, but they would have to do.

Three hours later, Jagger drove through an area that was as hopeless as it had always been with its boarded-up houses, gang-tagged buildings, and trash-littered alleyways. He turned down a street he hadn’t been on in over a decade, hating the hell out of being there.

Colton sat up as he looked around. “What is this place? Why are we here?”

“Because I wanted to correct some of your ideas—most of your ideas—about who you think I am. Who you think Grace is.”

Jagger rolled to a stop in front of the small two-story shithole that looked just as run-down and depressing as it always had, but now there was an orange foreclosure notice taped to the door and an auction sign in the yard.

“I can see that my mother’s finally gotten her shit together.” He shook his head, mostly surprised that it had taken this long for the bank to finally take the house. “My guess is she’s back in jail instead of finding the next guy to pay her bills.”

Colton looked at him. “This is your place?”

He nodded, gesturing to the last name on the battered mailbox. “It was. Until Logan’s football coach saw Logan and me throwing the ball before the start of our sophomore year in high school. Steve came knocking on my door one afternoon—asked me if I wanted to play football for Sheraton Prep. He gave me an out, and you bet your ass I took it.”

Jagger accelerated again, tightening his grip on the wheel as two blocks turned into three, and he spotted the chain-link fence at the junkyard.

How many times had he seen this place in his nightmares?

Slowing, staring at the spot where he remembered carrying Logan out, he stopped.

Colton looked around. “Let me guess, you lived here, too.”

Ignoring Colton’s snarky comment, Jagger did his best to relax his shoulders. “That’s where I found Logan the night he called me to come pick him up. They’d shot him, and I almost didn’t answer the phone.”

He clenched his jaw, barely able to tolerate remembering the worst night of his life as he sat idle in the car, mere steps from where it had all played out. “He was half-alive when I got him in the car. I’ll never be sure, but I think he might’ve died where you’re sitting.”

Colton’s good eye filled with horror as he blinked. “Why the hell did you keep the car?”

“Because I can’t seem to get rid of it. Maybe it’s because I love the damn thing. Maybe it’s a punishment for not saving him. I’m not sure which. I imagine it’s a bit of both.”

Unable to be there any longer, he took off, heading toward the place that had changed his life for the better.

Fifteen minutes later, he turned onto Sheraton Way, then into the mansion’s circular driveway, where a For Sale sign had been put in the yard.

Colton shook his head as he looked around. “This must be where Dr. Dad’s millions went. It must have been super rough growing up here.”

And there was the pissy sarcasm again. “Yeah, those poor little rich kids, right?”

Colton jerked his shoulders.

“Their mom died, and their dad dumped them off here to be raised by the housekeeper. Steve stayed in Philly in a condo, remarried a few months later, and rode Logan’s ass until the kid couldn’t breathe—until he decided that pain pills were the answer. Grace. The perpetual peacekeeper and the one who was constantly stuck in the middle. She’s always just rolled with the punches. And she’s had more than her fair share.”

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