She lifted her arm. “Here.”
He motioned for her to follow. Maia licked her lips. “This will be interesting.” She put her palms on the sides of the seat and pushed up. Her bottom lifted quickly, but her thighs and the fabric painted on them, peeled slowly off the chair. She turned around to find a perfect outline of her backside in red and blue crusted sugar. “Sorry about your chair.” She hobbled to the open door, her injured leg more sore than the rest of her. The fall into the back of the limo didn’t do her tight muscles anyfavors.
The snowy officer paused. “You okay,miss?”
She gritted out a smile. “As good as can beexpected.”
“Can I call someone foryou?”
Maia shook her head, feeling crunchy sections of her hair scrape across her back. Ew. “Thank you, I’ll befine.”
He nodded and continued down the hall, going slower than before. At a nondescript brown door, he paused. “You’ll be able to see them, but they won’t be able to see you.” His voice was paternal in nature. “He may react to thinking you’re in here, though, and could becomeagitated.”
She lifted her chin. “I’m notscared.”
“That’s right.” He swept open the door, and Maia entered the darkened room. The officer pushed a button on the wall and a buzzer sounded. Maia stepped closer to the window and watched the men file in. She searched their faces, looking for something familiar. The attack happened so quickly she didn’t have time to get a look at the man. “I’m sorry. I don’t …” She stopped. “Can you, can you have them each say something? Maybe I can remember hisvoice.”
“We don’t usually dothat.”
“I know, but voices and music are my thing. I’m more likely to remember a voice than a face. And he seemed familiar when he yelled at me.” She shuddered to think she’d known anyone who would actinsane.
The officer picked up a phone on the wall and gave instructions to the men standing against the white wall with black lines indicatingheight.
The first man stepped forward and said, “You’re not good enough for him.” He stepped back in his place, an uninterested expression on his paleface.
Maia shook herhead.
The second man stepped forward. He was tall but not large and wore several layers of clothing. His whole being was wrinkled and stained as if he’d slept outside in them for several nights. He glared at thewindow.
“Go ahead,” the officer said into thephone.
He continued to glare. Maia searched his face. Her eyes carved over his square, whisker-covered jaw, and the lines framing his mouth. She finally stared into his eyes and gasped. Molasses black. Like London’s. Her stomach turned to acid and ran into her legs, making them turn to jelly. She stumbled back, raising her hands over her face. “No.” Reed’s cruel stare came at her full force, backed by all the horrible things he’d said to her face and as she walked away from the few times she’d run into him at thestadium.
As if he could feel her recognition, he charged the window and slammed both hands flat against the glass. Officers barreled in, ready to restrain him. “You’re not good enough for him!” hescreamed.
Of all the whispers, the name-calling, the people who looked down their nose at her, Reed was the worst. She hated him above all others because he didn’t have the small shred of decency it took to talk behind her back; he said all the things she never wanted to hear right to her face. Maia had thought he was trying to intimidate her into breaking things off with London, but London was the best thing that happened to her up to that point in her life—and maybe up to this one too. She still wasn’t sure about things betweenthem.
Staring at Reed as he foamed at the mouth in anger, a new light fell on high school London. Like a spotlight on a stage, she saw their whole relationship through different eyes—saw him through different eyes. Her hand pressed against her forehead, the force of the new information shooting like electricity through her memories. Growing up under this man’s thumb was—unthinkable.
She moved her hand to her throat as her mind opened up to look at the past again. “That’s him,” she rasped out. “I’d know his voiceanywhere.”
“Yeah—he’s pretty agitated thinking you are in here.” He picked up the phone again. “Take ’emout.”
Maia gathered herself and got to her feet. “Sorry about thechair.”
The officer waved off her concern. “Don’t be. It’s seenworse.”
Maia wrinkled her nose. “Great.” She brushed off her backside and then wrinkled her nose at her hand, wondering if she’d ever get to washagain.
The officer lifted a shoulder and showed her back out to the waiting room. April was awake, chewing her fingernail. Maia wanted to scream at her to keep her fingers away from her mouth. This place was worse than a hospital when it came togerms.
She was still shocked Reed had attacked her—in such a weird way. The man was clearly missing a few tacos in his food truck. Lights of understanding began to flip on. Karen divorced Reed because he was violent, and London was reluctant to discuss his relationship with his dad. He should have told her, though—especially if he knew this was apossibility.
He had mentioned she should get a security guard, but he’d never explained why. Well, he was going to do a lot of explaining as soon as she washed the sugar out of herhair.
“You are free to go. We’ll call you if we need you to come backin.”
The hours of waiting pulled on Maia’s eyelids. All she wanted was a shower and a bed. She’d take a warm bath she could fall asleep in if it would speed up the process. April turned her phone back on, and it began to ding over and over again like a possessed slotmachine.
