Page 15

CHAPTER 15

JANE DOE

“A nd that’s how I broke my nose,” Lani announces as she leans back against the couch. “Elliot, a rock, and an old refrigerator.”

“It just bounced right off of it?” Kennedy asks, tears in her eyes from laughing so hard.

“Like the old metal was a trampoline. Mom was furious. It’s the one and only time I thought something might slip from her mouth she’d regret.” Lani plucks a chip from the bowl in front of us. “Elliot was grounded for two weeks after that.”

I smile off into the distance. Do I have any stories like that? Any siblings who accidentally broke my nose? This night should have been relaxing and wonderful, but instead, I’m feeling even more down than before.

Kennedy has shared stories about her life when she was growing up. And Emma, Dylan’s ex-high school sweetheart, has had her own fair share of tales from childhood. Yet, here I am, storyless. The only tales I can tell are ones from the last couple of weeks.

“How you doing?” Lani asks. “Have we successfully distracted you yet?”

“Absolutely,” I lie. I hate that I do. I just can’t bear any of them feeling guilty for something that’s not even their fault.

“You sure?” Emma asks. “Maybe we should change the subject? Or watch another movie?” She’s absolutely adorable, a petite blonde with pale freckles and bright blue eyes.

“I am totally sure,” I reply.

“Okay, good.” Lani turns to Kennedy. “How goes the wedding plans?”

The front door opens, and Elliot strolls in with Echo at his side. The dog runs happily toward me and rubs against my legs, so I reach down and pat his head.

“Hey, you weren’t given the all-clear yet,” Lani says.

Elliot smiles, but it’s forced and doesn’t reach his eyes. “Sorry, something came up. Jane, can I have a few words?”

“Sure.” Nerves forming a pit in my stomach, I get to my feet and slip into a pair of shoes as I follow him toward the door.

“ Bleib, Echo,” he orders the dog, who lies down in place.

“Let’s talk wedding,” Lani says as Elliot closes the front door behind us.

We make our way down the porch steps in silence and toward the barn where Elliot worked on the tractor earlier. The air around us is heavy, weighted down by whatever is on his mind. Even as I want to ask if he learned something about me or if something happened, I keep my mouth shut.

He’ll talk when he’s ready.

I hope.

After stepping into the barn, he turns on the light then slides the door closed behind us. It’s only then that he faces me. Arms crossed, his expression is all frustration. “I need to know if you’re being honest with me.”

“About what?”

His nostrils flare as he inhales sharply. “About all of it, Jane. Gena. Whatever you want to be called. I need to know if you really can’t remember your past or if you’re just hiding. If you are hiding, if that’s the truth, then tell me what happened, and I’ll protect you.”

Elliot’s accusation hits me square in the chest. Lying? He thinks I’m lying? “You think I’d make up the fact that I can’t even remember my own name? Or whether or not I have parents and siblings out there?” I step forward, tears stinging the corners of my eyes.

“No. I don’t. I just—” He closes his eyes and takes another sharp breath. “I need to know the truth, and every time we turn around, it’s just more questions. Victor told us your name was Gena, but you’re insisting it’s not. That you should be called Jane Doe instead.”

“Because I don’t think Gena is my name!”

“Is it really that?” he demands, stepping closer. His gaze darkens. “Or is it because you know something about your past you’d rather pretend doesn’t exist?”

Once again, his words land like a blow, and I step back. “I don’t remember anything,” I tell him, doing what I can to keep my tone low. “Being called Gena feels like I’m admitting to that being my life.” I swallow hard. “And until we have all the facts, I need hope that there’s more to my story than a woman who drags other women out of their safe, comfortable lives, only to have them be murdered.”

His expression shifts slightly, and that frustration turns to something else entirely.

“What is it?” I demand. “You know something.” I take a step forward. “What do you know, Elliot?”

He doesn’t answer.

“What happened to ‘we’ll figure it out’?” I demand. “Hours ago, you told me that, no matter what it is, we’d get through it. Has something changed since then?”

“Of course not.”

“Then what is it?”

He chews on his bottom lip then removes his baseball cap and runs a hand through his hair. “Tucker found a surveillance video.”

“Of me?”

He nods.

“I want to see it.”

“Jane, it’s?—”

“I don’t want you to tell me anything else about it. I want to see it. Now.”

He reaches into his pocket and withdraws his cell phone. I’m waiting for him to show it to me, but he fires off a text then shoves it back into his pocket.

“Aren’t you going to show it to me?”

“We have to go to Tucker’s. I don’t want it getting out, so I had him bury it. He’s the only one with access.”

I push past him toward the door. “Then let’s go.”

Elliot’s large hand closes around my arm, and I freeze. He holds me gently, but my skin heats to his touch. “I meant what I said, Jane. As long as you’re honest with me, we’ll get through this together.”

I tilt my face up to look at him, our gazes holding. “I have been honest with you. And if I were to remember anything, you’d be the first person I’d tell.”

His gaze drops to my mouth, and my lips part, heat traveling through my abdomen. Is he going to kiss me? Do I want him to?

Elliot forces his attention away and releases my arm. “Let’s get to Tuck’s. He’s waiting for us.”

* * *

I could have watched this video another hundred times, and I’d still be just as horrified as the first. Watching me take that man down only to have him kidnapped and thrown into the back of a dark SUV will haunt me. Of that, I’m sure.

“You said he’s dead now?” I ask, turning to face the brothers. They were all here when Elliot and I arrived, and they’d all watched the video twice through.

“Yes,” Bradyn replies.

“Two days after the timestamp of this video,” Tucker adds.

“And when was that?”

“Five months ago.” Elliot crosses his arms. He’s been standing in the far corner of Tucker’s office, not saying a word ever since we got here thirty minutes ago.

“Do they know who killed him?” Was it me? is what I really want to ask, but I can’t stomach the likely truth that it was.

“No leads.” Tucker clicks a button, and a mug shot shows up on the screen. “He was a drug dealer trying to expand his territory. The case was handed over to the DEA since they’ve been working the area for a couple of years now.”

I turn back toward the image. “We need to have Gibson call them. Give them this video.”

“Absolutely not,” Elliot growls.

“They have to know that I was there,” I insist. “That I had something to do with it.”

“Except you can’t remember a thing,” he retorts. “They’ll stick you in a cage and consider you guilty.”

I gesture to the screen. “It certainly looks that way, doesn’t it? You promised me, Elliot. You promised that you’d let me turn myself in.”

He moves so fast I don’t even have time to react as he eats up the distance between us in two furious strides. He leans in so close I can smell the pine-scented body wash still clinging to his skin. “We do not have all the answers yet,” he growls. “Turning yourself in before we have the full story might ease the guilt you’re carrying over what happened, but it’s not a fast track to the truth.”

I glare back at him, tension snapping between us like lightning.

“Before my office spontaneously combusts,” Tucker starts, “with all the anger and tension between you two, I feel as though I should say that I agree with Elliot. This is just one video. I’m still looking for more. There’s no telling what really went on in that alley. And it’s not as though you abducted a kindergarten teacher,” he says. “The man was a violent drug dealer. Wanted for murder and assault.”

“It was still a life,” I reply. Did I kill him? Did I pull that trigger?

“Tucker’s not denying that,” Dylan adds, speaking up for the first time since Elliot and I arrived. “But there could be more to this story. More to why you were grabbing him in the first place.”

“Let’s get the answers first.” Riley rolls his shoulders. “After that, we’ll let you do whatever you want with the information.”

“Will you?” I ask, my glare focused intently on the warrior standing in front of me. His handsome features are hardened in anger, his jaw set.

“I promised I would.” He pulls away, and I don’t miss how those words really aren’t a pointed answer.

After all, promises can be broken. And yet, how do I know that with this strong conviction?