Page 121 of Girl Between (Dana Gray FBI Mystery Thriller #5)

Back in her room, Dana paced, trying to release her restless energy. She was exhausted in every sense of the word, but sleep remained out of reach. She’d tried twice, only to end up tangled in her sheets from her relentless tossing and turning.

She blamed Jake. Maybe George, too. His words were the ones rattling around in her head. Because he was right, Jake always showed up.

So where is he?

Dana couldn’t stop the question from assaulting her mind. She didn’t like the dark answers that came to her. All of them pointed to something being wrong.

She padded barefoot to the vanity, glancing at her reflection in the mirror. Her eyes were shadowed again, haunted by the ghosts of sleepless nights. And there would be more in store if she didn’t hear back from Jake.

After a futile attempt to bring her lifeless skin back from the dead with her skincare routine, she gave up and returned to her bed. She sank onto the edge of her mattress and tried to block out her unrealized fears.

The silence was deafening. She picked up her phone again. The unanswered text was a stark reminder that even the most dependable people could falter.

Her parents, Meredith, Claire … so many whom she’d counted on were gone.

If Jake met that same fate?—

Dana refused to finish that thought. Instead, she opened her text app. By this time, she knew it was a fruitless exercise. He hadn’t replied, but that didn’t stop her from reading the timestamp on his last message.

He had a few more hours until he owed her proof of life.

Jake had been the one to initiate the rule, but Dana found herself grateful as she stared at the last message he’d sent. One word. That’s all he’d given her.

Good.

Dana tossed her phone on the bed and continued pacing.

She knew why Jake had chosen the word. And she knew she deserved it. It was what she’d sent him every day after leaving his bed. The thing that worried her was that she had most definitely not been good , but she’d said so anyway.

If she hadn’t met George, who Jake had put in her path, Dana might still be drowning her pain in the bottom of a glass on Bourbon Street.

But George had lifted her out of that pit of despair, distracted her, pulled her into a case that made her face her demons, and reminded her that there was still more to do. More wrongs to right, more monsters to slay. He reminded her that she was capable—no, more than capable—good at it.

She knew she owed that to Jake. He’d been the one to set her on this path.

It always came back to Jake.

And right now, he was the only one she wanted to talk to. About the case, about the torment it was resurrecting, about the way she couldn’t stop missing him.

Somehow, his absence was even more intense than his presence.

That meant something .

She was too tired to sort out what, but that didn’t stop her from picking up her phone one more time. The empty space after her last message to Jake glared back at her. She swallowed her pride and started typing.

Dana: Where are you?

Dana: I thought I asked you to stay.

Dana: In case I wasn’t clear, this is me officially asking. I need you.

Still no response.

She waited a few agonizing minutes longer, but there was nothing. Not even the confirmation that her message had been read, or the hopeful bubbles of a tentative response.

Dana didn’t know what she’d expected. It was a cellphone, not a magic lamp that granted wishes. Jake wasn’t going to miraculously appear at her bedside.

Accepting defeat, she poured herself a large glass of bourbon and climbed into bed.