The Lover’s Promise (No Exceptions #3)(7)
Author: J.C. Reed

The police thought Jett was a killer.

And I had just lied to them. I didn’t even know why I didn’t just reveal that I knew him. Why was I protecting him? Maybe because I couldn’t believe Jett was a killer.

But what if he was?

What if he was…the thought was too horrible, too depressing, too shocking to continue. It broke my heart to think that the man I loved could be capable of killing innocents, so I decided to push it to the back of my mind instead of dealing with the consequent implications.

My mind reeled as I said goodbye to Grayson, then called a taxi and gave the driver Sylvie’s address. Snuggled in the backseat, I rested my head against the window, the coldness intensifying the icy shudders that had been circling through my body ever since I saw Jett’s face on the snapshot inside the detective’s folder.

I felt physically sick. From all the possible things in life, this was what I had expected the least. It had to be a mistake—a stupid, silly mistake—because Jett was a lot of things, but most certainly not a killer. But what if I was blindly in love and not seeing him for who he truly was?

As much as I had hoped the detective had confused him with his brother, I knew it was impossible. Even though Nate was not his biological brother, the two of them looked alike. But Nate had only recently been released from jail, and the first murder victim had been killed two weeks before.

I closed my eyes, swallowing the bitter taste of the nausea rising inside me, and tried to ignore the severe warning bells ringing in my head as I thought back to the detective’s words.

I will contact you once I have more questions. With your help, I’ll get him.

It all would have sounded harmless—if it just weren’t for his hard glare and the way his smile tightened, freezing his features in place. Back in there, when he had uttered those words, I had been sure he recognized me from the hotel, and yet he didn’t mention seeing me before.

I knew I shouldn’t have lied to him. Sooner or later he’d find out that Jett and I had been together. All he needed was to dig deeper into the night at the club to discover that we had been sitting together, talking, flirting with each other. He might not have seen me and Jett together at the hotel, but he only had to ask the hotel’s staff to figure out Jett and I had spent the night together. Worse yet, he only had to check Grayson’s files to find out that I had given him my deceased sister’s name and address—wrong details. If he unraveled my lies, what would happen next? Would that make me an accessory to murder, even though I was drugged at the club, and hence unable to recognize Jett? Who would believe me?

So many questions, among them: what had Jett been doing at the club, anyway? And how come the detective had a picture of him talking with the first victim? Why had he been meeting with her in the first place?

The last question sent my brain into a freezing ball.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

My mantra didn’t help. The mere thought that Jett was a murderer was crazy but I couldn’t banish the images of Gina’s dead face from my head and the thought that she must have been scared lying there, alone and hurt on the street. Sylvie’s home drug test kit showed my drink was spiked. What were the odds that Gina’s drink had been spiked too, rendering her unable to defend herself from her attacker when he stabbed her?

Breathe out. Breathe out.

But I couldn’t. The air remained stuck inside my lungs, threatening to burst. It was painful. A balloon of negativity. Like all the other things I had kept bottled up inside: things I knew but wished I had never found out. Secrets I wanted to share but would never be able to. Rare emotions that twisted inside me like worms that couldn’t be controlled.

Breathe out  Breathe out.

My nails bore into my delicate skin. Forcing the air out at last, I counted to three, then took another slow breath.

If the police had a picture of Jett with the first victim along with solid evidence, at some point he was probably called in for questioning, which meant he had kept yet another secret from me.

Maybe he didn’t tell you because he is guilty.

I swallowed, not liking the new truth. There were too many lies now. How I wished that, for once, everyone could just tell the truth. The world would have been a better place if we couldn’t lie to other people’s face. I smirked. Maybe, but to be honest, I didn’t care. Even if I had the answers to my questions and Jett could only tell the truth, there was no doubt that our fundamental problems would remain.

“Are you okay, miss?” the taxi driver asked when the car stopped in front of Sylvie’s apartment building. He was an exotic-looking guy in his fifties with a friendly face, and hands so big he probably engaged in heavy lifting on his weekends.

“Yeah,” I said quietly, averting my eyes.  

I had been a great day—except my friend had been killed and my boyfriend…no, make it ex…was the main suspect. With my sister dead, make that two people I had been friends with that had suffered a horrific fate.

I handed the driver his fee, muttering, “Keep the change.” Grabbing my bag, I exited the vehicle, hurried my pace, eager to get home. I needed to talk to Jett as soon as I could.

It was dark now, the streets dark and abandoned, but compared to the things happening in my mind, the solitude felt almost blissful. As I ascended the stairs, my skin began to prickle. I turned my head a few times, but there was no one. And yet I couldn’t shake off the feeling that someone was watching me. My stomach lurched in fear at the thought of Jett’s brother lurking around, waiting for me behind the shadows. I looked over my shoulder once more, scanning the street in dread, then cursed quietly.

It was stupid paranoia caused by fear and the knowledge that someone had stalked Gina before killing her, and the fact that Nate was a free man again. But the knowledge didn’t stop my heartbeat from spiking as I rummaged for the keys in my handbag and I quickly let myself in, all the while hoping Sylvie was home. The last thing I wanted was to be alone.

“Sylvie?” I threw my jacket over the back of a chair, kicked off my shoes, and then peeked into each room in search of her. The apartment was quiet, and judging from her missing handbag and her made bed, she was still with her blind date.

Disappointed, I sighed. In that instant, I glimpsed the pink cover of a book lying on the table. I grabbed the yellow sticker note attached to it, my glance sweeping over Sylvie’s hurried handwriting.

I know you always made fun of it, but all that worrying and stress is not good for your baby, so you might as well give affirmations a try. After all, nightmares are only as real as you allow them to be. If you stay positive, everything will work out.