“Nobody. Just this guy I met. It doesn’t matter.”
She couldn’t satisfy me with an answer quick enough on the phone. Then a day later, in my arms, she was vague again.
“Relationships change. There’s really nothing more to it.”
Fuck. FUCK. What didn’t she tell me? I understood her reserve as a sad moment in her life she didn’t want to dwell on. I could tell she was uncomfortable discussing it. I didn’t want to pry. I didn’t want to sound desperate to know her.
This is all my fault.
And God, I was desperate, to anything involving her. I was sated and starved at the same time.
My nostrils flare in time with the heavy expansion of my chest. I begin to pace. “What did he do to her? Who is this guy? Fuck!” My hands tug my hair. “Fuck, Hattie! Did he hurt Beth? My Beth? Who the fuck is he?”
She lifts her hand. “Shh. Reed, please. You’ll wake Danny. I don’t want him to know about this yet. He’ll drive up there and kill that man. I won’t be able to talk him down.”
I grip the back of a chair, leaning over it. My teeth clench. “What did he do to her?”
She stares at me for a long second, her eyes misting. “I think he was just very mean,” she explains quickly, wiping her fingers across her cheek to catch the fresh tears. “She said he never touched her, nothing like that, but I could tell, Reed. She said she never would’ve stayed with him if she had anywhere else to go. Why would she have said that if he was a good guy?”
I take in several slow, deep breaths, relaxing my grip on the chair before I split the wood.
Beth.
“A name,” I growl, pulling Hattie’s eyes back up to mine. “I need a name, and an address. Please tell me you know where this shit-head lives.”
Her shoulders drop. “I don’t have an address. His name is Rocco. That’s all I know. I don’t know his last name either. I’m sorry.” She pinches her lips into a thin line when the bottom one begins to tremble.
I tug the phone out of my pocket.
“Who are you calling?”
Sliding the chair out, I slump down, leaning forward onto my elbows. I hold the phone in one hand while the other cradles my head. My throat constricts. I feel dizzy, sick with blame, with a number of other emotions I’ve rarely ever felt. Some entirely foreign to me.
Rage.
Fear.
Loss.
Love.
I press the phone to my ear as a chair moves along the floor behind me. Hattie’s taken her seat. The call connects after the second ring.
“What’s up?”
“I need you to find someone for me. I need an address, and it can’t fucking wait, okay? Can you help me?”
“Hol-Hold on. Hey, turn that down a minute,” Ben says away from the phone. The police scanner quiets. “What the hell is going on?”
“Who is that?” I recognize Luke’s quick to annoy tone.
“It’s Beth. She’s gone. She went back to Louisville, to this guy. I need to go get her. I need to bring her back. She can’t be with him. I need . . .”
“Whoa, slow down,” Ben interrupts. “What about Beth?”
Swallowing, I cringe when I taste bile. I take in a shaky breath, blinking the room into focus.
“She left. It’s my fault.”
I try to speak slowly, to let the words settle in the air, but the longer they linger on my tongue, the sicker I feel.
I want them out. I want Beth back. I need to tell her so many things.
“I love you . . . I love you.”
God, I was a fucking coward.
I stand and resume pacing. “She went back to this guy she lived with before she moved here. I need to find her, Ben. You need to fucking help me find her. This guy . . . he’s mean to her. To my Beth, he’s fucking mean to her, and I am losing it, okay? I have a first name. I know she’s in Louisville. Please. I don’t ask you for shit. I need this. Can you just . . .”
“Reed, fuck, man, calm down.”
“I can’t calm down! I love her! Can you help me or not?”
Hattie gasps from her seat.
I advance to the island and flatten my palm against the cold marble. My head hanging heavy between my shoulders. My legs threatening to give out.
“What’s his name?” Luke’s voice cuts through the line, a bit distant. I realize I’ve been put on speaker phone. Fingers tap hurriedly on a keyboard.
I sag against the corner of the island. “Rocco. I don’t have a last name.”
“Rocco? The fuck kind of a name is that? He sounds like a little bitch.”
Luke’s remark is fucking spot-on.
“I doubt there’s a lot of Rocco’s in Kentucky. Should help narrow the search. Where are you?” Ben asks.
“Beth’s aunt and uncle’s house. Where she was staying.”
“Right . . . yeah, I know where that is. Mia mentioned how close Beth lived to us. What’s the house number?”
“12,” I blurt out, then question. “Why?”
“We’ll pick you up. Be there in twenty.”
“What? What do you mean you’ll pick me up? Give me the address so I can get the hell out of here.”
“And do what? Drive up there and beat the shit out of this guy for hurting Beth? Did you consider what might happen if he isn’t so willing to let her go? You don’t know anything about this guy. He could have fucking weapons in his house, Reed. What if he pulls a gun on you?”