Page 18 of Wicked Promises
A sob breaks through me like a crashing wave.
Is it too much to ask for a little peace?
“I’m giving you something to help you sleep,” the doctor says.
Ice rushes into my vein through the IV. It spreads through my body, weighing it down.
Panic still crushes my chest, though. Just because I’m about to be dragged under doesn’t mean all my fear goes away. No, it’s being pulled down with me… right into my own personal nightmare.
My memories.
Chapter 5
Caleb
Mr. Black meets me outside the county jail, and I can’t say I’ve ever felt like more of a miscreant. But at least Uncle isn’t the one waiting for me.
After our ‘interview’, the detective said he had enough cause to hold me without pressing charges. So there I sat, while Margo was in the hospital without me.
“I found her,” I say once we’re in the car. “And they just?—”
“He already suspected you. When you showed up with her at the hospital, her arms still fucking bound…”
Eli’s dad isn’t a swearer. He drinks expensive whiskey when the occasion calls for it—after a big day at work, maybe—but otherwise, he doesn’t like alcohol. For years, I’ve been trying to find his vice. Smoking, gambling, women.
There had to be something.
Instead, I found a good man. He went to church with his wife on Sundays and tried not to disappear into his office on the weekends. He was present. At the games, cheering us on. When we were younger, he’d pick us up from school and we’d grab ice cream.
Eli’s family was more like mine for a long time. And if I had to pick a man to emulate when I got older, it was him.
He hands me my phone. “Your uncle called.”
I grimace. “I was hoping to avoid telling him I’m out.”
“Did the time in jail make you delusional?” He shakes his head. “I can sometimes pull a rabbit out of a hat, but I’m no miracle worker.”
“Maybe.” I fiddle with it. “How is she?”
It’s been just under seventy-two hours. Almost three days exactly since I saw her. And every moment of it has been hell. My skin has been crawling since they put me in the holding cell. There was an odor in there, but now that I’m out, I think it’s me.
I should be ashamed, but I’m just mad. At the detective, at Unknown and whatever fucking game they’re playing.
Finding their identity is my new priority.
Eli’s dad glances over. “She told the detective it wasn’t you.”
I didn’t expect anything different. Itwasn’tme. But the sudden relief at knowing she knows… indescribable. My shoulders lower a fraction, and I take a deeper breath.
“Is she still in the hospital?”
His grip flexes on the steering wheel. “They discharged her this afternoon.”
It’s a little past seven. Winter has well and truly arrived, because it’s already dark. And there’s a fresh layer of snow on the ground.
“She could be home already,” I muse.
I scroll through my missed calls and texts. Falling off the radar doesn’t go unnoticed in Rose Hill. But I’m only scanning for one name in particular. Instead, another catches my eye.