My eyes fall closed as I suck in a deep breath. “You can tell me anything.”
“I’m so sorry. I’ve messed everything up so badly. I wanted to tell you everything, but I didn’t know how. I wasscared for so many reasons. If anything happens to me, I want you to know that you made me believe there was a chance I could be happy.”
Emotion has my face tingling, and I have to clear my throat to respond. “Olive, you’re?—”
She cuts me off. “I have to go.”
“Olive, no?—”
She disconnects.
“Fuck!” I shout as I toss my phone into the cupholder in helpless frustration.
Jack sets his phone down in the other cupholder. “Carlos is running him. He’ll call me back when he has an address. I’m going to go out on a limb and say Marcus already has a record.”
I thread my fingers through my hair. “Let’s hope you’re right.”
“I need to ask… Why is she going to a drug dealer’s house?”
I clench my hand into a fist on my thigh to channel some of the anxious energy before I can relay to him what she told me. “She was distraught. I couldn’t get a lot of information from her, but she said her brother was gone. And that they have him and that they were in her apartment. Her brother has been in rehab for drug addiction.”
“So she thinks he’s with his old drug dealer?”
Shaking my head, I shrug. “I don’t know. She said she thought Marcus could help get Benny. Whatever the fuck that means.”
“Okay, well, we’ll see what Carlos can find for us. Where to?”
“I know she isn’t there, but let’s drive by to her apartment while we wait. Maybe by some miracle, Benny will bethere.” I tell him where her apartment complex is, and he quickly takes the next exit.
My heart is racing so fast, it’s hard to take a full breath. I’ve never felt this out of control before in my life. And then it hits me… How many times has Olive had to feel like this in the years she has had to manage Benny’s addiction? How many times has she spent watching him spiral into his addiction while she did everything she could to help, to no avail?
Those thoughts bring a new perspective to me as we speed through the city.
We arrive at Olive’s apartment complex, and I direct Jack to her building. Once we’re parked, I turn to him. “I’m going to run upstairs and knock. Be right back.”
He gives me a terse nod, and I’m out of the car, jogging up the stairs. Despite knowing this would be pointless, my shoulders drop in disappointment after knocking on the door multiple times without an answer. I’m back in the SUV with Jack just a few minutes after I left.
Jack holds up his phone. “I have an address. Carlos is going to meet us there with a few uniforms.”
“Let’s go.”
Without another word, we peel out of the parking lot. All I can hope now is we get there beforetheycan hurt Olive.
I don’t know what I’ll do if something happens to her. I’m already partially blaming myself. If I hadn’t reacted the way I had, maybe she would have opened up to me, and I would’ve been here to help her. I could’ve flown back with her, and she wouldn’t be dealing with this alone.
I push those thoughts out of my head. I’ll find a way to make it up to her.
I just need to get her back to me safely.
36
Olive
Itoss my phone on my passenger seat. Hearing Nate’s voice does something to me. It’s exactly what I need, but it also makes what I’m about to do even scarier. I just have to accept that there’s no winning in any decision I make right now.
And I don’t even have time to figure out what Nate meant when he said he was on the way. Like, back to Nashville? Is he flying back? I wanted to ask, but the longer I talked to him, the more likely he was to talk me into not going to Marcus’s.
I have to see if Marcus can help me.
