I slid myself into the booth across from him, saying, “Jacob Hall?”
The man was slow to set down the coffee mug, his fingers still curled around its white handle. Our eyes met, and I was momentarily stunned.
He was…he was definitely not what I’d been expecting.
I was expecting someone, uh, older. Much older. Like, grizzled cop veteran with scars and an unkempt beard, not to mention an intimidating face that you’d see in your nightmares.
Or maybe I’d just seen too many movies, because the real Jacob Hall was nothing like that.
He was young. Young as in, maybe ten years older than me. Maybe. No way was this guy thirty. His hair was cut short, a light brown color, his clothes fitting snugly over his body…and his muscles. Because he had them.
Lots of them.
A square jaw lined in stubble, with eyes such a pretty hazel I was momentarily awestruck. He leaned back, giving me a good view of his solid chest beneath a button-up grey shirt, finally releasing his hold on the coffee cup.
Jacob Hall was insanely good-looking—who would’ve known? Certainly not me, otherwise I would’ve prepared myself mentally to be in the presence of such a hunky sculpture. It wasn’t often that a man’s looks rendered me speechless, but Jacob’s definitely did.
God, why’d he have to be so cute?
“Marie?” he asked, his voice low as he studied me.
Marie was the name I’d given him in the email, not wanting to use my real name for whatever reason. Again, I’d probably seen too many movies.
“Yeah,” I said. I was seconds from telling him that my real name was Jaz, because he didn’t seem like a serial killer stalker from first glance, but the man stunned me by what he did next.
After reaching into his pocket and pulling out a few singles, he tossed the money on the table, got up, and started walking away.
What in the hell…did I say something wrong?
I grabbed my bag and went after him.
I mean, what else was I supposed to do?
Chapter Twelve – Jacob
I needed a job. I had rent to make. It was that simple. It’d been a while since I’d had a job that’d taken me more than two days to do—it was not that hard to follow and catch spouses who were having affairs behind their wives’ or husbands’ backs. Those were the usual jobs I did around here.
Why did I stick around Midpark after the shit hit the fan? I didn’t know. Because this…this was the town I grew up wanting to live in. I didn’t grow up in Midpark, didn’t go to its fancy schools, but I did always watch from one town over, wondering what it was like to live like them. The rich and semi-famous.
I graduated the academy almost right after high school, and I got a job being one of Midpark’s police officers. A few years later, I got fucked. Fucked by some rich sociopaths who thought something inappropriate was going on with me and their younger stepsister.
Nothing inappropriate was going on. I wasn’t like that, but they’d somehow put evidence on my laptop, in my saved drive. They got me fired, and so here I was. Most people didn’t want to touch me, let alone look at me in this town, not after that—because, untrue as they were, some people still believed those rumors.
It annoyed the fuck out of me, which was why I spent most of my time not thinking about it, but the moment the girl walked in, somehow I knew. My stomach sank, and I knew. She was Marie, the one who’d reached out to me. She wanted to become a client. I hadn’t seen her around here before, but that was probably because she still waded in the kiddie pool.
Fuck that.
So when I asked if she was Marie, and she said yeah, I did the only thing I could: I got up and walked away. I wouldn’t do it. I’d tried to find them again—Zane and Thorn and Celeste—because a part of me always regretted letting them go, but I couldn’t. I lost sleep over wondering whether they’d change their minds and come back for me. Kill me.
Because that’s what they were. Killers, even if, allegedly, the person they killed deserved it. I wasn’t a judge or a jury. Hell, I wasn’t even an executioner, but in that restroom years ago, when I’d stared into Celeste’s watery eyes and listened to her plead for me to let her go, she made me, forced me into a role I never wanted.
I was not going to let another pretty young face get to me.
I was out of the diner, reaching for my keys in my pocket when I heard her come rushing after me, calling out, “Wait!” I stood near my car, but I stopped and glanced back at her.
A mistake. A mistake because she thought that meant I’d listen to reason and go back in the diner.
“Why are you leaving?” she asked, practically cornering me against my car. She had guts, I’d give her that, but I was not having any of it. She needed to learn to pick up on things like this. “We didn’t even talk about the job yet—” Her cheeks were red, or maybe that was just her natural blush. Her hair, long and black, hung over her shoulders in gentle waves. Her dark, warm eyes were just the type of eyes to lure you in.
She was pretty. Pretty and young, a terrible combination when it came to me.
“I don’t need to hear about the job,” I told her, resisting my urge to unlock my car and hop in, drive off and leave her in the dust. “I don’t work for kids.”
Her full lips formed a frown. “I’m not a kid,” she said, exactly the kind of thing a kid would say.
Yeah. It was best for me to hightail it out of here. My hand reached for the handle, and I was seconds from hitting that unlock button when she spoke again.
“I’m eighteen,” she said, holding her head up high. Her body was slender under her coat, and her face…it was the kind of face that probably got her loads of attention, even when she was little. Smooth, tan skin, not a blemish anywhere to be seen. Big eyes that seemed to stare into your soul and know, in a split-second, what your darkest fears were.
I immediately didn’t like what that gaze made me think of: Celeste, her abuse, and the psycho brothers who took her with them when they left. I had no idea how Oliver Fitzpatrick or his wife could live with what they’d allowed to happen.
“Sorry,” I said, not sorry at all. “The answer is still no.” I hit the button on my keys and climbed into the driver’s seat, about to close the door, but the girl, Marie, blocked it by rushing towards me, standing between the open door and the car.
I could push her out of the way to close it, but that would involve touching her, and I would not touch a barely-legal child—even if it was just to get away.
No. I wouldn’t, lest this whole town echo with I knew that Jacob Hall wasn’t a good man.
The problem, of course? The problem was I already knew I wasn’t a good man, but for others to think that I’d done inappropriate things with a seventeen-year-old girl who’d just survived five years of kidnapping was another story. I was a bad man, but I wasn’t that type of bad. There were different levels of evil in the world.
“Move,” I told her, meeting her defiant stare. In that moment, she hardly looked like an eighteen-year-old. The way she glared at me, she could easily pass for someone older. The way her cheekbones were pronounced, smooth and slender in every way, she held no traces of the typical cherub innocence teenage faces usually did.