Free Apprehended (Amber Alert Series Book 3) by Sara Schoen

with pain, annoyance, anger, or some strange mixture of the three. Maybe it was better that he hadn't looked at me, it would have only made me feel worse.
    I stepped out of the car into the cool, crisp autumn air, and shivered. I despised the cold, and hated having to be outside when the temperature dipped below sixty degrees. I wrapped my arms tightly around my body and walked briskly to Audrey's apartment about two blocks from the parking lot. The streetlights shone brightly, giving the allusion that you could see whatever was coming toward you in the night, but you wouldn't know until it was too late. There was a cop car parked in the green area across the street, sitting empty, again just a placebo to make the students and faculty feel a little bit safer. With some subjects, it didn't matter the measures that were taken to improve safety. They would do anything to get the release they required or the person of their obsessions. It was a waiting game for them, and sometimes they could wait years to do it.
    I knocked on the door until my hands hurt from the cold air letting the knock reverberate through my bones. There was yelling as someone said they were coming, from the high pitch I assumed it was Audrey, but Damien opened the door. He was covered in what looked like flour and chocolate. It coated his clothing and the flour was dusting over the black color of his hair. He reminded me of Jack Frost from a children's story when I was little.
    "What happened?"
    "Audrey's cooking," was the only explanation he gave before he moved from the doorway to allow me to enter. "She was trying to make you dinner before you left, but she burnt the chicken and her dessert is now all over me." He gestured to the chocolate and when his hand went toward his head he said, "This was the second attempt. Clearly it didn't make it that far."
    "That's fine, I already ate. Thought I would try a local restaurant at least once before I left. I think it was called Native Foods, the café a little uptown from here."
    Damien offered a nod as an approval of my choice, but before he could answer Audrey piped up from the kitchen.
    "You already ate?"
    "Yes she did," Damien said as he pointed out a seat for me to sit in. "So let's give the kitchen a break before we have to clean up and come talk to Jessi, since she probably isn't going to visit us again after this."
    "I will visit, I promise!"
    "You said that two years ago," Audrey said, emerging from the kitchen covered in what I only imaged was the dessert she had attempted to make. There were chocolate smears over her clothes, as Damien had, except hers looked like she had dropped a whole chocolate cake and attempted to catch it with her shirt.
    "My job is just so busy, it's hard to come out here to visit," I pointed out. It wasn't a lie, it was hard to visit, but to be honest I also didn't put a lot of effort into to visiting either because by the time I got home I was too exhausted to plan a trip. I never really knew my holidays until the week of, and even sometimes I was called in when I was supposed to be off. It was a hard job, but only someone in the profession would really understand.
    "And now you don't even have a guy to come out here to visit. So I don't expect to see much of you after this case is done," Audrey stated with a smirk.
    "It wouldn't have worked out anyway. We were too different." Even as the words left my mouth I could taste the displeasure in my own words. I had wanted it to work for a while, but there was just no way it could work between Callum and me. We were polar opposites, poles apart from each other.
    "I think it's because of the case," Damien stated. "Look at Anna and Garrett, they made it through. We made it through, and hell, I was the one that took her." Audrey playfully slapped his chest, and offered a soft giggle at the reminder of their own kidnapping scenario. "It takes time, and sometimes it just falls into place."
    "You guys were on the other side though. Anna