I agreed.
One hundred and ninety percent.
“Everyone leaves a trail,” James said cryptically.
“Bennett,” Michael said, standing behind him. “Let’s go. We’ll get home, figure this all out.”
Bennett stood, not looking at anyone, and left without looking back.
My heart ached.
And it really ached when I got to the parking lot to see Bennett gone.
“Shit,” I murmured.
Everyone got on their bikes, or into their prospective cars, and started motoring away, and I was left alone before I even realized that I needed a ride.
So I called a cab and had the driver take me to Bennett’s.
Only when I got there, it was only for Bennett to meet me at the door with a frown.
“I need some time to talk to her. Alone,” he murmured, eyes void of any emotion.
I nodded.
“Okay,” I nodded. “I’ll just leave you alone. Call me when you want me to come back over?”
He nodded. “Thanks, Lennox.”
Not Nox like he’d been calling me for the last couple of weeks.
Lennox.
My heart hurt for him as I watched him close the door on me, and ached even more as I started the long walk home.
I didn’t call a cab this time, instead settling on a long walk in hopes of clearing my brain of the cobwebs and any lingering doubts that my brain was trying to shove upon me.
But I couldn’t shake them.
Had I been the one to bring this all on Bennett?
Would Corrinne have pursued this had I not been in the picture?
She hated me. Seriously hated me.
For something I’d never even done, but she’d thought I’d done, nonetheless.
Did he blame me?
By the time I’d gotten home, I’d worked myself into a major depression.
All the assurances that Bennett didn’t blame me, from his own mouth no less, were now gone.
In their place were disturbed thoughts.
Ones that wouldn’t go anywhere.
That’d stay and fester if Bennett didn’t banish them.
But he didn’t banish them.
He was gone.
And had no plans of ever coming back.
Chapter 18
I’m a right bitch until I have my coffee.
-True Story
Lennox
Four weeks later
“They found a paper trail?” I asked Michael.
He’d found me in the maze of a hospital where I was eating lunch in the break room that nobody used.
Michael nodded. “Yep. The judge’s already put in her resignation, effective immediately. All cases that the judge has heard in the past eighteen months have been put on review.”
I took a deep breath.
“Thank God,” I whispered shakily. “I’ve been racking my brain for the last four weeks. I’ve had my dad using his resources and his PI to help. He had nothing, though.”
I picked at my salad, still unable to eat.
I’d lost fifteen pounds that I really shouldn’t have lost in the four weeks since Bennett had literally dropped off the face of the earth.
I’d had to change phones again, just yesterday. Now I didn’t even bother calling him.
Michael nodded. “Yeah, he’s been delivering information to us. All of it useless, but efficient nonetheless.”
I nodded. “Good.”
“You don’t look good,” he said softly.
I shrugged, avoiding his eye.
“I have to go back to work,” I said, standing and throwing my untouched salad in the trash.
I could see Michael frown as he watched my movements out of the corner of my eye.
“I tried to come by and see you yesterday, but your house was empty,” Michael said.
I grimaced.
“I had a few…people show up. They were looking for me and I felt it prudent to move before it got worse,” I told him.
“What kind of people?” He asked, standing now too.
I shrugged. “Don’t worry about it.”
Michael frowned.
“Did you file a report?” He asked me as my hand met the doorknob to the break room.
How had he found me, anyway? I ate back here so nobody could find me.
Somebody would’ve had to tell him where I was.
Fucking Paxton and Melissa.
Nosy fuckers.
“Nope. What would be the point?” I remarked sadly, letting the door shut softly behind me as I left.
Not looking back, because if I did, he’d see.
He’d know my heart was broken.
***
Using the brand new key I’d just picked up from my landlord, I opened the door to the apartment I’d rented a few days ago, looking at Cola and smiling for the first time since I’d left for work.
She had three balls in her mouth, and she was shaking her big booty to the tune of the commercial playing on the TV.
“Hey baby,” I said, running my fingers through her long fur as I shut the door firmly behind me.
She whined low in her throat at the attention I was giving her, leaning on me enough that I stumbled.
“Oy,” I said laughingly. “Get your butt off me and let’s go outside.”
At the mention of outside, she started to turn around in circles, losing one of the balls from her mouth, and trying frantically to pick it up once again.
Laughing, I walked into the bedroom and slipped my clothes off as I went.
Changing into a pair of short shorts and a tank top, I walked to my closet, slipped my feet into my tennis shoes, sockless, and went back out to the living room.
I didn’t bother walking anywhere else.
Had I, I would’ve seen that I wasn’t alone.
I would’ve seen Corrinne sitting at the table with a gun in her hands.
I’d nearly made it to my front door when the first bullet tore through my belly.
It played out about like the movies.
I instantly placed my hands over my belly.
And blood started to slip between my fingers.
I looked down and moved my hand up to my face, looking at the blood on my hands like it was a delusion.
I’d felt blood before.
Lots of times.
Never my own blood, though.
It felt like warm syrup.
Sticky like it, too.
Then the pain hit me, dropping me to my knees.
Then further to my back.
That’s when I saw Corrinne standing over me, a proverbial smoking gun in her hand.
“Why?” I rasped.
She didn’t answer, instead bending down with a packet of something in her hand, and pouring it over my wound.
“Don’t want you to die on me too fast. That wouldn’t work out well for either of us. I’m gonna need you,” she said cheerfully.
I blinked. Then blinked again.
“What?” I rasped, belly stinging from whatever she’d poured on it.
Then I was unceremoniously kicked to my belly where the same burning sensation started on my back.
What was she pouring on my wound, salt?
It wouldn’t surprise me if she had.
Cola whined, licking my face, and the tears I hadn’t been aware I was shedding.
I turned my face to see her pace away from me, only able to see the bottom half of her body as she made what I assumed was a phone call.
I was proven right in the next moment when she started to frantically speak into the phone about ‘gunshots’ and ‘a crazy lady shooting.’
She dropped the phone, which I distantly realized was my house phone, and went down on one knee beside my head.
She looked down at me with hate-filled eyes.
“Why?” I asked tiredly.
My mind was sluggish from what I guessed was blood loss, but I wanted to know. No, needed to know.
She smiled savagely.
“You nearly talked him out of it,” she said. “You had him telling me he was leaving me. Had I not convinced him otherwise, you would’ve ruined my life.”
I shook my head in denial. “How is it ruining your life to help someone get away from a psycho like you? You’d have just found another poor soul to do your bidding.”