Page 109 of Temptation
Preston had stopped about a foot away from her. “One day, I was walking near the train tracks at the edge of town. I could hear that train, hear the whistle, feel the vibration on the tracks. It was coming, barreling closer and closer and I thought…why not?”
“Preston.” Shock exploded through her body. A fist seemed to squeeze her heart.
“My mother had died. The mother who accepted me, knowing what I’d done. The only one who accepted me. My father—hell, my birth father tried to kill me. My adoptive father paid people to protect me. Pretty much paid the town to accept me. But he was getting sick. Sicker and weaker every single day. I knew it. I’d heard the doctors. He wasn’t going to be around long. He was going to die, just like my mother. They were my ties, and I would lose them both.”
“Ties? I-I don’t understand.” Make me understand.
“The Last Breath Killer said they were ties. They helped me to keep my control because I cared about them. He wanted to kill them. Did I tell you that part? Did I mention that he had a side plan to kill by adoptive parents?”
“No.”
“Yeah, well, that was his goal. Eliminate them. If you cut the ties, then there is nothing to hold you back.” His eyelids flickered. “I wasn’t going to let him kill them. Whatever it took, he was not going to hurt them. They helped me.”
In return, he’d protected them. Again…He is nothing like Cody Crenshaw.
“I stood by those train tracks that day…” No emotion entered his voice. “And I knew that once my adoptive father was gone, there would be no ties. I didn’t care about anyone else. No one else really cared about me. With my last tie gone, what would I become? Would I hurt people, like the Last Breath Killer had? Was I born just to be bad? Was that all I had in store? Death? Pain? I didn’t want to turn out like him. The tracks were there. They were vibrating. All I had to do was step on them. It would be over so fast.”
“No.” Tears poured down her cheeks. She didn’t even try to wipe them away. “No.”
“I don’t know if I would have done it. I will never know. Because Noble came out of nowhere. He grabbed me. Threw my ass away from the tracks and the train. Never said a word. Just walked away.” He lifted his left hand. His right still gripped his phone. Gently, carefully, he wiped away her tears. “You shouldn’t cry for me.”
“Yes, I should.”
The phone in his hand rang.
“That’s probably Josie.” She wet her lips and tasted the salt of her tears. “She’s usually very prompt.”
“Noble isn’t out to kill me. If he wanted me dead, he wouldn’t have saved my life all those years ago. He would have just stood there and watched me step onto the tracks.”
Preston sounded so certain. He was also making her heart ache. “He saved you. So you saved him? Is that how it worked?”
“He didn’t have anyone else when he came back.” A roll of his shoulder. “We understand each other. Better now than we did as kids.”
The phone rang again. This time, Preston swiped his finger across the screen. He put the phone on speaker.
“Noble’s phone was in Charlotte,” Josie revealed without a greeting. “It pinged from a cell tower near his place. Not saying the man didn’t leave the phone and drive to your area and put you in the ground but, uh, his phone wasn’t with him. So there’s that.” The tapping of fingers on a keyboard. “What else can I do? Want me to sneak into the FBI’s classified files? It’s a slow morning, and I could use some amusement.”
“That’s all for now, Josie,” Sloane spoke quickly so Josie would not hack those files. “But thanks.”
“Preston’s text said FBI agents had visited.” Josie’s voice was bland. “Anyone I know?”
“Gage Emerick.”
“Such a dick.”
“And Dom.”
Silence. Then, “He doesn’t know where I am?”
“I haven’t told him,” Sloane assured her. But that doesn’t mean Dominic hasn’t figured things out on his own.
“I’m here if you need me.” Josie went back to tapping. The line clicked as she ended the call.
Preston shoved the phone into his pocket. “It’s not Noble.”
“And Frankie?” The man who’d gone to jail for five years.
“His sister worked for me. She got a job with my company six months before he was released. She wanted her brother to have a fresh start.”
