Jennie glanced at Max. Did he want her to leave? His expression remained unreadable. Then something flashed in his eyes—vulnerability?—but it was gone so quickly she wasn’t sure if she’d imagined it or not.
“No,” Jennie whispered, her gaze never leaving Max’s. “I promised Max I’d help him find Emily. I can’t leave until we do.”
The sheriff’s radio went off. He rose from the table, turning away as he responded. Jennie heard part of the deputies’ response: No leads. No one knew anything. No one home at several houses.
“We’ll come back out tomorrow to check with the others,” the sheriff said into the radio. He turned back to them. “They didn’t find anything suspicious. Several houses were empty. No one home at a few others. No one saw anything out of the ordinary.”
Jennie watched the frustration flash across Max’s face. The despair. “Did they find anyone who matched the description Jennie gave us?”
The sheriff spoke into the radio again.
Jennie wasn’t surprised by the response.
Negative.
Don’t give up, Max. We’ll find her.
Everyone stood.
“I only live about ten miles south of here,” Agent Miller said. “If anything happens, call me, and I’ll hurry over. Now that the roads are plowed, you two won’t be so isolated. Are you sure you’ll be okay out here? I can stay if you want.”
Max’s gaze locked on Jennie’s. She saw the question in his eyes. Was she sure she wanted to stay when that creep was out there somewhere? Waiting to strike?
Did Max want her to stay? His expression gave nothing away.
Her father stepped up behind her and squeezed her arm. “You don’t have to stay here, Jennie. Let’s go home. You’re not safe here. Besides, I think you’ll remember everything better if you’re around familiar things.”
Jennie glanced up at her father. At his red-rimmed eyes.
Familiar things?
Sadly, her father wasn’t familiar. The only thing familiar in her life right now was Max. The only person who made her feel safe right now was Max. Her father was a stranger to her. She couldn’t go with him.
“No.”
Jennie didn’t realize she’d spoken aloud until everyone stared at her wide-eyed. Obviously everyone had expected her to go home with her father.
“Like I said…” she cleared her throat, “I promised Max I’d stay here until we found Emily. I’m the only link to her, other than Gray, and Gray’s not talking right now.”
Her gaze shifted to Max’s. Gratitude filled his eyes. And…was that relief?
Max had been afraid she would leave. But would he want her to stay after they found Emily? Did he only want her to stay to help him find Emily? How did Max truly feel about her?
She glanced back at her father.
“If you want to go home, Dad, then go. But I’m not leaving.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Jennie tried to ignore the hurt that entered her father’s eyes. She just wanted him to leave. She wanted them all to leave.
Guilt slithered through her. She didn’t want to hurt her father. She just couldn’t deal with him right now. Her number one priority was finding Emily. If she left with her father, how would she do that? She couldn’t abandon Max when he needed her most.
She gave her father a hug. “I’m sorry, Dad. I’ll come home soon. I have to help find Emily first, okay?”
He dragged her against him and whispered, “When you do come home, we’ll talk about that argument. It’s time I got it off my chest.”
Jennie stepped back and searched his gaze. “Why can’t you tell me now?”
“No.” He shook his head. “That’s a conversation we need to have in private. When you’re ready to come home, call me, and I’ll come and get you.” He turned to Agent Miller. “I’m ready now.”
Emotion clogged her throat as she watched everyone head for the door. Her father was leaving. Though she was dying to learn about that argument they’d had just before she was abducted, her father wasn’t going to tell her about it unless she came home.
That stung. Had he been using that as a way to get her to come home?
Right now Max needed her. And she wasn’t leaving him.
After the cops left with her father, Jennie turned to find Glenda and Max the Second eyeing her curiously.
“As much as we’d like to stay,” Glenda said, glancing at Max, “Your father and I are both on call at the hospital tomorrow, so we should be heading home. You were right. It’s obvious you don’t need us here.”
She glanced at her husband, then looked at Max again. “Anyone can see you and Jennie were meant for each other. Stay away from the booze, Max. Don’t screw this up.”
Max flushed. “I haven’t had a drink in over a year. And I did it without your help. Without anyone’s help.”
Glenda smiled. She patted his arm. “That’s good. That’s why we left, you know. Not because you told us to. But because we knew you needed to do it on your own. You needed to know you could do it by yourself. And you did. We always believed in you, Max, even when you didn’t.” There was pride in her voice. She stepped forward and pulled Max into an embrace he obviously didn’t want. His arms hung loosely at his sides. Glenda stepped back.
She glanced at Jennie. “Come here, girl.”
Jennie stepped forward. The older woman drew her into her arms. “Don’t give up on him,” she whispered in Jennie’s ear. “As the youngest, Max has always held a special place in my heart. There will be times when he pushes you away, times when the temptation to drink is so overwhelming that it will consume him. But you have to be there for him, always. He’s been through so much. He needs you more than he realizes.”
Jennie’s heart constricted. She hugged Glenda back and nodded. She would never abandon Max. Never.
So Max was the youngest. That meant he had siblings. Jennie wanted to ask him about his family, but would he tell her?
Max the Second shook Max’s hand. “Take care, son. Call us if you need anything.”
Jennie could see from the uncomfortable expression on Max’s face that he was wondering what Glenda had whispered to her.
Max walked them to the door. He handed them their coats.
“You know I won’t be calling.”
Max the Second held Glenda’s coat while she slipped it on.
“Maybe not tomorrow or the next day,” Glenda said. “We understand. You need time. But someday you’ll call. We expect you to.”
She smiled at Jennie. “Take care of our boy. We hope to see you again soon. Very soon.”
Max closed the door behind them. He turned to Jennie.
“I promised I’d take you to the doctor. You ready to head into town now? There’s an urgent care clinic that’s open until six. I can drop you off, go get some groceries and things, and come back and get you.”
Jennie nodded. “That’s fine.”
He started to turn away. Jennie grabbed his arm.
“Thank you, Max. You’ve done so much for me. I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you.”
He cleared his throat. “You’re welcome. Let’s go.”
* * *
Jennie stared out the window at the snow-covered landscape as they headed into town in Max’s Toyota 4Runner. Neither one of them spoke. There was something familiar and peaceful about the scenery and Jennie relaxed back in her seat. Majestic pines shot up into the sky, their branches weighed down with heavy snow. She glanced at Max out of the corner of her eye. His hand gripped the steering wheel loosely, which told her he was more at ease than he’d been earlier. Max had said he lived about twenty miles out of Sandpoint. Which meant they’d be in the vehicle for at least twenty or thirty minutes. Jennie viewed this as an opportunity to ask him a few questions. He could either answer or…ignore her.
She decided to take the plunge. She turned in her seat and faced him. Tried to figure out how to ask him without offending him.
Max glanced at her with
a quirked brow. “What do you want to know, Jennie?”
She met his gaze. “Honestly? Everything. But I’m not sure how to ask without offending you.”
He glanced back at the road. “Just ask, Jennie. I can see your curiosity is killing you.”
“I don’t want to pry,” she whispered as she studied his profile. But his jaw didn’t clench like she expected.
“What?” He kept his eyes on the road.
Instead of asking him about his past, she blurted out, “My father’s an alcoholic.”
He turned to her in surprise.
Jennie went on before she lost her nerve. “He said he started drinking after my mother died, that he blamed himself, that a part of him died with her. He also said that I blamed him for her death. That I was only thirteen at the time.”
Max studied her for a moment, then glanced back at the road. “What do you want to know, Jennie?”
“How did you stop?” she whispered. “I have a pretty good idea what made you start, but what convinced you to give it up?”
Max cleared his throat. “I did a stupid thing. A terribly stupid thing.” He stared out at the road. “Lucky had sensed an injured deer that had been hit by a car. He led me down the road to it. Its front legs were broken. It was just lying there on the side of the road in obvious pain. I probably should have just shot the thing and put it out of its misery. But I wanted to save it. So I wrapped a rope around its neck and through its front legs and back over its shoulders. Then I dragged it back to the clinic. I’d been passed out in the chair when Lucky woke me. My alcohol-fogged brain wasn’t thinking clearly or I would have thought to bring the tranquilizer gun.” He stared out at the road for several seconds, obviously lost in the memory. “I brought it inside and administered what I thought was an anesthetic so I could operate on its broken legs.”
He sighed, glanced at her, then away. “But when it stopped breathing and went still, I realized I’d screwed up and given it the euthanasia drug instead. I’d killed it.”
Jennie sucked in a breath. The Max she’d come to know in the past few days would be traumatized by such a mistake. Her heart went out to him.
His jaw hardened. “That’s when I realized what a screw up I’d become. I kept wondering what would happen if Emily escaped and came back, and I was passed out somewhere, unable to help her. I sat in my chair the rest of that day and all that night, thinking about what I’d done. I told myself that if Emily came back, she would need me, her father, not me, the drunk. So I emptied all the alcohol I had, dumped it all down the drain.” He paused. “Except for that one bottle. I don’t know why I kept it. I guess it was a safety net, you know, just in case. But I never touched it. Never had another drop after I killed that deer.”
“And you dumped that last bottle of Tequila out yesterday,” Jennie said softly. “Removing all temptation from the house. That had to have been difficult for you.”
He swallowed hard, the sound audible in the small space of the vehicle. “The day after I killed that deer, I started a rigorous workout routine to keep my mind off drinking. Every time I had the urge to drink, every time the pain become too much, I’d go lift weights. At first I did it for several hours a day. Then, gradually my addiction faded away. Now I only workout about an hour a day, sometimes less. It keeps me focused. Sometimes a few days will go by that I don’t work out at all.”
Jennie smiled at him. He had to be commended for quitting on his own. Not many people could do that. She patted his arm. “Good for you,” she whispered. “That means you learned how to control it.”
Color crept up his neck and into his face. “Glenda was right,” he said after a moment of silence. “I told them to leave, told them all to go to hell and leave me alone. I never thought they’d actually leave, though. I thought they’d refuse, that they’d stick around and say I needed them.” He huffed out a breath. “My sisters are as nosy as Glenda. They’d been hounding me for months, saying I needed to get help. But when I told them to leave me alone, they did. Even my dad. No one called to check up on me. No one came to see me. They all just disappeared. I felt abandoned, betrayed. I didn’t think anyone loved me anymore. I didn’t think I was loveable anymore.”
Jennie knew he still felt that way. That was why he was so guarded. She knew he was terrified she would leave him. Afraid he wasn’t good enough for her.
Another silence stretched. Jennie waited, sensing he would say more if she just patiently waited him out.
“Glenda’s words today right before they left took me by surprise. I realize now that what she said was true. If they had stuck around, fussing over me, hounding me to quit, I probably wouldn’t have stopped drinking. I needed everyone to abandon me before I was able discover and come to terms with the fact that only I could make me quit.”
He stared out at the road for a long moment. Then he turned and met her gaze. “It’s okay to be worried about your father, Jennie. Okay to let him know you care. But don’t hound him about his problem. It will only drive him to drink more. He’s the only one who can make himself quit.”
Jennie’s chest grew so tight, it felt like her lungs had shrunk to the size of a radish seed. She sucked in air, trying to breathe. She nodded. Then she reached over and touched his arm.
“Thank you, Max, for sharing that with me.”
He turned back to the road.
Neither of them spoke for the next several minutes. Then Max said, “I’m sorry about your mother. I lost my mother when I was just a kid too.”
Max’s father had mentioned that to her, but Jennie hadn’t dared ask Max about it. He’d been more open with her in the past few minutes than he’d been the entire time she’d known him. He was giving her the opportunity to ask him about it now. Encouraging her, even. Max was finally letting down his guard.
“Glenda said you were special to her,” Jennie said quietly. “That you’re the youngest. I can tell she really loves you.”
He closed his eyes briefly as guilt flickered across his face. “Yes, Glenda was wonderful. She tried so hard to replace my mother, but I kept pushing her away. I kept telling her she wasn’t my mother and never would be. But she never gave up. My sisters babied me after Mom died. My dad was always at work, so he wasn’t there to comfort me. Just three naggy women.” A smile touched his lips as he remembered. “But none of them were my mother. And I missed her terribly.”
“How old were you when she died?”
“Eight.” He sighed. “Way too young to be without a mother, yet too stubborn to accept Glenda as my stepmom. I wasn’t very nice to her at first. But she never gave up on me. I think she was trying to make up for neglecting her own son.”
His fingers tightened around the steering wheel. Jennie sensed the sudden tension radiating off him.
“Who’s her son?” she asked cautiously.
He stiffened even more, his fingers growing so tight around the steering wheel that his skin turned white. He didn’t answer.
“Is he the one you don’t get along with? The one she mentioned? Ian?”
He clenched his jaw, jerked his head in a stiff nod. “Yep.”
Jennie turned to face him, watching him closely. “Why?”
Max hissed out a breath. He lifted a hand, pointed. “See that little town up ahead? That’s Sandpoint. We’re here. I’ll drop you off at the urgent care clinic and come back for you later.”
And just like that, he shut her out.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
He saw the cops coming even before they arrived at his door. He’d seen them heading down the road, going from house to house, obviously questioning each of the residents. But he was smart enough not to open his door. If Jennie had given his description to them—what little she’d seen anyway—then they might have his eye color and possibly his hair color. Maybe even his height and build. It might be enough for them to question him. Possibly even enough for them to get a search warrant for his house. So he’d remained still and quiet, hiding behind the door, until
the deputies left. He knew they’d be back soon. He had to end this before they returned. Either that or dramatically alter his appearance again. He liked that idea. He hadn’t looked like his true self since he’d abducted Emily. But he’d have to take a trip into Walmart if he wanted to take on a new identity. He only had one color of contacts here and the same hair dye he’d been using for years.
Or maybe he’d just become himself again. Now there was an idea.
He also had another dilemma now, since he’d sent Max those pictures of “dead” Emily. If Max thought Emily was truly dead, how would he lure him over here? He’d done it to throw Max off and stop him from searching for Emily. Now he wondered if it had been such a good idea.
Jennie was the one he needed, he decided. He might have to sneak in and snatch her back. But there was still that damn wolf he had to worry about. He didn’t want to risk getting his leg sawed off by the beast’s razor sharp jaws. Or, even worse, his jugular ripped out. He’d have to take out the wolf first. Then snatch Jennie.
Then Max would come.
He was sure of it.
He just had to figure out how to do all of this before the cops came back and figured out he’d been hiding Emily right underneath their noses all this time.
He snickered. They’d never figure it out. He was too smart for all of them. Once he had Max and Jennie under his roof, he could finish this.
Anticipation scorched through him, singeing him clear to the bone. He couldn’t wait to see Max suffer.
He chuckled.
And suffer Max would.
When he got done with Max, Max would be less than nothing.
* * *
Max dropped Jennie off at the clinic and sped off. He’d never opened himself up so completely before, made himself so vulnerable. It made him uncomfortable. He still couldn’t believe she hadn’t left with her father. That she’d wanted to stay with him. He supposed that was one of the reasons why he’d let down his guard and opened up to her. Because she genuinely cared. But as soon as she’d mentioned his stepbrother, he’d become anxious to get rid of her. He and Ian had issues that no one knew about. Issues that could never be fixed.
Abducted (Unlikely Heroes Book 2) Page 19