Free If You See Her by Shiloh Walker Page A

down?
    Come closer?
    A breeze kicked up, and long, gleaming brown hair blew back from her face.
    He closed his eyes, imagined wrapping those long, long strands around his wrists, seeing her on her knees.
    Lust, hunger, rage mingled and mixed inside him. Saliva pooled in his mouth and he rested a hand against a tree trunk, had to fight to keep from moving closer.
    Now wasn’t the time—
    Not now.
    He really wishes I was dead
.
    Swiping the back of his hand under his nose, Brody shoved past the bushes, past the low-hanging branches.
    Tears burned in his eyes, blinded him, but he didn’t stop walking.
    He’d run forever, until the burning in his lungs made him quit, and now he just walked.
    He wasn’t very sure where he was, either. Somewherein the woods near the Ohlman property, he thought. Maybe close to Lena’s. Too close to home, that was sure.
    He wanted to just keep running, too.
    Pushing a hand into his pocket, he checked again, half hoping somehow something miraculous would have happened. Maybe the seventeen lousy dollars he had would turn into more money and he could just disappear. He really, really wanted to just disappear.
    Wasn’t like his dad would miss him.
    Remy might have, but after what he’d done, Remy probably hated him.
    A sob tore free and Brody stumbled, fell against a tree. “I didn’t mean to do it,” he whispered. “I didn’t mean to …”
    But it was too late to think about that, now. He’d done it. He’d fucked it up, royally, and now, not only did his dad despise him, Uncle Remy probably did, too. Up until now, at least Remy had still loved him, but now he didn’t even have that.
    Shoving away from the tree, once more, he started to walk.
    He’d just keep walking for now.
    Sooner or later, he’d figure out what he should do.
    He didn’t want to go home, and Dad definitely didn’t want him around.
    Hours passed and he found himself standing off in the distance, too far away to clearly see the King house, but close enough to see the ruin of it. He’d done that.
    Man, Mom
would
be ashamed. Tears burned his eyes, but he blinked them away. He’d done enough crying now. He needed to figure out what he should do.
    A shudder wracked him as he thought about the way his dad had looked at him. Go home …? Could he do that?
    Maybe what he should do was just go to Remy’s place.
    “What would you want, Mom?” he whispered.
    He’d done something really, really wrong … and she always told him when he made a mistake, he had to own up to it. That’s what decent people did—that was what she would want from him.
    Swallowing, he turned away.
    He needed to go to Remy. That was what he needed to do. His gut clenched, knotted. He’d gotten in enough trouble lately to know it wasn’t going to be pretty, but …
    “Don’t think about it,” he told himself.
    “Just don’t think about it. Do it, get it over with, but don’t think about it.”
    Just as he was turning into Lena’s driveway, his phone rang. Ezra grabbed it, hoped it was good news, even though he already knew it wasn’t.
    “Any sign of him?”
    “Shit, no,” Remy said.
    Ezra rubbed his eyes and wished he had a beer. And a chair. Definitely a chair. His leg was killing him.
    They’d spent the past three hours trying to find Brody Jennings, with no luck. Night was coming on, too. It left a bad, bad feeling in his gut to think of that kid out there in the dark right now, especially with the crazy-ass shit they had going on around here right now.
    If they didn’t find the kid soon …
    Shit. What could they do?
    “Has your brother cooled down any?”
    “Yes.” There was a strange tension in Remy’s voice and Ezra decided the two brothers had some issues they needed to work out—badly. Hank Jennings needed to get
over
his issues, whatever in the hell they were. He’d lost his wife, and Ezra felt bad for him, but it looked like he’d been neglecting his kid and the bastard needed to wake the hell up.
    That kid