Unraveling the Past

“What’s the matter? Afraid I’ll die of exposure or get attacked by a wild animal and you’ll be blamed?” Though she gave him plenty of time to deny it, he didn’t. All he cared about was getting into trouble if something happened to her. “Go back to the party. I’m sure you’re dying to tell everyone what a stud you are.” She raised her voice. “But you might want to leave out the part about how it lasted a whole five minutes.”

“Everyone was right about you,” he said. “You really are a bitch.”

Bitch. Slut. Loser. All names she’d been called before. Whoever said words couldn’t cause pain had obviously never gone to high school.

“And don’t you forget it,” she said with her patented sneer. And she walked away.

This time, he let her go.

Good. She didn’t want him chasing after her pretending he cared about whether she made it home safely or not. Oh, sure, he’d been all charm when he’d called and invited her to the party, had layered it on even more when she got there, flirting and joking around, but it’d all been an act. She wasn’t sure who she was angrier with: him for not being different, for not living up to her hopeful standards.

Or herself for sleeping with him anyway.

She squinted at the narrow path cutting through the woods. If she kept walking, she’d end up in the clearing near the quarry’s entrance.

She hoped.

Too bad the farther she got from the clearing and the fire, the darker it got, the trees seeming to have multiplied to cut off any and all light from the moon. But it still beat going back the way she and Nate had come. She knew what would happen if she rejoined the party. The girls would freeze her out with their bitchy comments and accusing glares, blaming her for giving the boys what they were too frigid to. The guys would exchange smirks and elbow nudges and Nate would end up avoiding her the rest of the night.

And she was too wasted, too emotionally messed up at the moment to pretend it didn’t bother her.

She took out her phone and pressed the speed dial for Marissa, her best friend back in Boston. Holding it to her ear, she began making her way through the woods again, her steps unsteady, her head spinning.

“Come on,” she muttered when Marissa didn’t pick up. “Where are you?”

Despite her best efforts, tears streamed down her face. She angrily wiped her cheek with the back of her hand. Her toe caught on a tree root and she pitched forward. Her phone flew from her grip and she landed hard on the ground on her hands and knees.

Tears and snot dripped from her face as she fought to catch her breath. To not puke. Her palms stung, her head swam. She straightened her leg, felt material rubbing against her knee and realized she’d ripped a hole in her favorite jeans.

God, but this place sucked. She hated it here.

Patting the ground around her for her phone, she crawled forward. Something rustled behind her. She froze, holding her breath as she listened. When only silence surrounded her, she continued her search, inching forward along the forest floor, the sharp twigs scratching her.

“Shit,” she whispered.

“You can say that again.”

Her head jerked up and she fell onto her rear, squinted against the harsh glare of a flashlight. But she didn’t need to see who had spoken, didn’t need a light to know a cop stood before her. No, not just a cop, but Mystic Point’s new chief of police.

“Hi, Uncle Ross,” Jess said. Then she reared forward and threw up at his feet.

* * *

POLICE CHIEF ROSS TAYLOR couldn’t breathe. Didn’t dare move. If he so much as blinked, he might lose all control. And that wouldn’t be good. Not when his instincts screamed at him to wrap his hands around the puny neck of the kid he and Assistant Chief Sullivan had dragged into the woods to help search for Jessica.

The kid who’d admitted he’d let her go stumbling off by herself in the dark. The kid who hadn’t had to admit what he and Jess had been doing while the rest of their delinquent friends drank and whooped it up in the clearing. The empty cups and the used condom Ross had walked past had made it all too clear they hadn’t been stargazing.

He exhaled heavily. Son of a bitch.

Ross knelt next to his niece. “Are you okay?” he asked quietly, well aware Layne Sullivan and the kid made a rapt audience to this little family drama.

Jessica stared up at him, her face illuminated by the flashlight Sullivan shined in their direction. Jess’s eyes—light blue like her mother’s—were huge. And unfocused, the pupils dilated. “No.”

Then she threw up again.

Behind him, the kid gagged. Ross pointed his flashlight on him and, sure enough, the boy’s face was pale. “Don’t even think about it,” Ross said harshly.

The kid swallowed hard. “Yes…yes, sir.”

Satisfied, Ross turned back to Jess. She sat back and wiped her hand across her mouth.

“Finished?” he asked.

“I hope so.” Her voice shook.

He helped her to her feet, keeping a firm hold of her upper arm so she didn’t fall. And so she couldn’t take off should the idea enter her head. Her pale, shoulder-length hair was matted and tangled, her clothes wrinkled and stained with puke and dirt. Tears leaked unchecked from her eyes, leaving trails of mascara down her cheeks.

She looked like every other underage drunk girl he’d ever arrested. He had to remind himself that she was just a kid. A rebellious, self-destructive kid. She was also his responsibility.

One he wasn’t sure he wanted. Wasn’t sure he could handle.

“What in the hell are you doing out here?” he asked.

What was she doing getting drunk, rolling around with some pimply faced kid, when she was supposed to be safely tucked away in her bedroom? Damn, he really wasn’t cut out for this guardian stuff.

She wiped the moisture from her cheeks. “You’re the one who told me I needed to give Mystic Point a chance. That I should put myself out there and make friends. Nate and I got very friendly. Didn’t we, Nate?”

Her tone was spiteful, almost…gleeful. But her eyes… When he searched her eyes he saw the truth. Anger. Regret. And such pain, he wasn’t sure he could fix it. Could fix her.

“We weren’t…” the kid blurted. “I mean…we didn’t…”

Ross glanced over his shoulder, his quick glare shutting the kid up.

“Sullivan,” Ross said quietly, “would you please escort this young man back to the fire?”

Three years younger than Ross’s thirty-five, Layne Sullivan was ambitious, levelheaded and had been the front-runner for the position of chief until Ross threw his hat into the ring. He had no doubt she’d enjoy spreading around the tale about how he couldn’t even control his niece. How inept he was when it came to dealing with a rebellious teenager.

“Yes, sir.” But she didn’t move.

“Is there a problem?” Ross asked.

“No…no problem. But what do you want us to do with the kids?”

When Ross, Sullivan and patrol officer Evan Campbell had pulled up to the bonfire, most of the kids had taken off into the woods. But a half dozen had been corralled and were being watched by Campbell—a rookie cop barely old enough to drink himself.

“I want you to do your job,” Ross managed to reply in what he considered a highly reasonable tone. “Check IDs. Those under the legal drinking age—” and from what he’d seen, they were all underage “—will be cited. If they’re under eighteen, take them back to the station and hold them there until they can be released into their parents’ custody.”

“You’re going to call our parents?” Nate asked, his voice hitching on the last word. “Oh, man, my dad is going to kill me.”