Page 80 of Trusting Skulls

I slide off the hood as a black Corvette pulls up beside me. Great. Can this day get any worse?

Graham rushes around his car, leaving it running in the middle of the street.

“I’m not interested, Graham.”

“Wait!” he says, pushing my door shut before I can get in.

“I don’t want the job,” I tell him again, the air leaving my lungs as he shoves me against the car.

He pulls something from his pocket and presses it against my mouth and nose. His arm wraps around me like a vice as panic bubbles up my spine. Oh god, he’s really lost his mind this time.

This can’t be happening right now.

Not when I just discovered love.

Chapter Thirty-One

Ash

I’m watching the clock with my feet kicked up on the desk when JD walks in. My boots fall to the floor with a thud.

“Have you seen Lexie?” he asks.

“No.” The hair on the back of my neck stands on end at the look on his face.

He holds his hand up. “I don’t want to worry you, but she told Elizabeth and me something personal and … and I shouldn’t have let her go, but what she said caught me off guard.” He runs a hand through his hair, pulling it in his fist. “She’d only been gone maybe five minutes before I went after her. She said she was going to the ice cream shop to apply for a job, but she’s not there. They haven’t seen her.”

I don’t wait for him to say anything else. I grab my bag from under the desk and rush out the door. “Lock up, will ya?” I yell over my shoulder.

“Wait!”

“I’ll find her!”

He jogs up to me as I’m securing my bag onto my bike. “Ash, listen. She’s really upset.”

“I get it, JD. I’ll find her. It’s all good.”

He grabs me roughly by the front of my shirt and shakes me. “You’re not hearing what I’m saying.”

“You aren’t saying shit!” I yell, spitting in his face. “I’m not going to crack. Just tell me.”

His face falls, and he tears up. “Her dad’s boss has been abusing her since she was fourteen.”

I falter back when he lets go of me. His words hit me square in the stomach.

“She was fine yesterday,” I say. How did everything go to shit in less than twenty-four hours?

“She hasn’t been fine in a very long time, Ash.” He sets his hand on my shoulder. “I’ll go lock up, and then we’ll go look for her.”

I glance at my phone as he hurries back to the shop. The little dot is weaving up a mountain road.

“Jackson just sent me a text. They found her car at her parent’s house. They’re breaking in!” he yells before disappearing into the shop.

But she’s not there now.

A little voice inside my head tells me she’s not running away because of what she told JD and Elizabeth.

That asshole has her.

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