Finally, he turns, taking a deep breath and planting a palm on his knee. “Finishing the job I started.”
His eyes roam over me, irritatingly adept as he takes in my hair, my clothes, my ruched pant leg. My cheeks heat, hating that he’s seeing me like this. And then they heat even more when a flash of me drooling on his chest sweeps into my memory, triggered by his dark gaze. Oh, God. Did he carry me all the way to the car last night? I scramble in my mind, trying to find a memory of the descent, but I come up blank.
His lips quirk in amusement, as if realizing I now remember, and I narrow my eyes.
“Finishingwhatjob?” I pull my shoulders back and bury the shame of being carried. It’s not like I asked to be helped. He could have left me up there. I would have made it down on my own… eventually.
“The job that keeps you and your sister out of prison.” He lifts up a discarded floorboard and waves it around, the bloodstain that Nix and I haphazardly tried to clean darkening the finish.
“I was going to get to that.” I click my tongue.
“Yeah? When? Before or after the search warrant?” He sneers and shakes his head, focusing back on the floor. “Not that anyone would need a search warrant,” he mutters, “seeing as how you left the front door unlocked.”
I grimace. Fuck. I would think that Nix would remember to lock it after everything that’s happened, but apparently I’m going to have to beat it into her. Where is she anyway? I crane my neck down the hallway, hard-pressed to let Jax out of my sight. For all I know, he’s collecting evidence to use against us in case things go sideways.
“They’re asleep,” Jax says, and I whip my head back.
“They?”
“Your sister and my brother.”
Of course.Of courseNix would be sound asleep with Caleb. Why wouldn’t she? What, with bonding over a dead body and all. I rub my temple, not sure what to do in this scenario.
I would never tell her who she can and can’t be interested in. I always expected her to date some douche on a motorcycle with a face tattoo anyway. Her choice of music—metal with lots of screaming—and her obsession with chokers and black nail polish, prepared me for something like that. But Caleb? While he’s outwardly harmless in appearance, there is somethingwrongwith the Landon family. I would much rather her with a dropout who spends his days smoking weed. At least stoners are content playing video games and eating snacks—not burying bodies or creating theneedfor bodies to be buried, like Jax. God, why couldn’t she just date a pothead?
I can feel Jax gazing at me from under his brow, eyeing me like he knows what I’m thinking. But he knows nothing. And I straighten, avoiding his stare.
Nix’s room is a collection of discarded nightstands, painted deep purple with the acrylic chipping, and windchimes—wood ones, metal ones, ones made of beads. She collects them,hanging them off any lip she can find. She says she gets them from the thrift store, but a small part of me thinks she steals them from people’s yards. I mean, there’s just so many. I can’t see the thrift store always having windchimes in stock. But even if she is stealing them, I can’t really blame her. I used to steal street signs for crying out loud. And I grew out of it. I don’t doubt she will do the same. It should probably be the least of my worries anyway, considering her missing comforter.
Frowning, I take in the rumpled gray sheets, and now the hole in the floor.
“Strangulation works best,” Jax interrupts my thoughts. “Less mess. You know, for next time.”
“There isn’t going to be a next time,” I snap, trying to hide how horrifying it is that he knows that.
“That’s what they all say.” He goes back to tearing up the floor.
“You know, no one asked for your help. This is my mess. I’ll be the one to clean it up.”
“Your mess?” He raises a brow as he peers into the hole, making no effort to stop. “I thought this was your sister’s mess.”
“Donotsay that out loud.” I cross the room. Jesus, I wish he didn’t know it was Nix. “And her messismy mess.” I snatch up the crowbar. “Just like it’s always been.” I grab the hammer. “Just like it always will be.” I kick the bloody planks away from him. “So you can go now.”
Slowly rising to his full height, he works his jaw back and forth with a sigh. “You don’t know how to take some help when it’s offered, do you?”
He’s so close that I can feel the heat radiating off him, and I have to look up to meet his stare. “Well, seeing as how the last guy I let help us tried to assault my sister, forgive me for not wanting any more.”
Over the years, Marshal would bring bags of groceries—mostly tasty junk we wouldn’t otherwise buy because we didn’t have the money, and even patched a hole in the roof. He’s the one who showed both Nix and me how to use a taser, giving us each one from the Cloverwick Police Department’s discarded equipment. He stepped in like an uncle, and I let him, despite the fact that I should have known better. I should have known better that someone who didn’t call Child Services on a sixteen-year-old taking care of an eight-year-old when they arrested their father didn’t have our best interests at heart.
A look of disgust crosses Jax’s face, and he somehow steps further into my space. “I would never put my hands on a girl.”
Refusing to back up, I raise my chin. “Well,” I give him a tight smile, “cops aren’t supposed to either, but one did.”
I should be angry at sixteen-year-old me for only being relieved that Marshal didn’t turn us in and not suspicious. But he was acop. He wasn’t supposed to be suspicious.
Jax scoffs. “You really think because he upheld the law, he was supposed to abide by it?” He folds his arms. “Wake up, buttercup—those who enforce it are the most likely to break it.”
A flush of rage shoots through me at his condescension. “I know that now!” I throw the tools at his feet. “You think I don’t know that?!” My chest tightens painfully around my heart, and I rub the skin, pushing past him in haste.
