“Graeme, I’m serious. She was crying and sounded so scared. I can barely breathe right now, I’m that worried for her. She took a very bad job and now she needs my help. You should know what that’s like. You were a police officer once. You used to help people in need.”

He considered my words, sighing every few moments. “I’m not going to ask how you know about my previous employment, Emma, but if you cared at all for my current employment, you would not ask me to do this. Borden would have my head.”

“Would you stop caring about Borden for just one second?”

He muttered an inaudible curse and stood up, turning to me with those tired eyes. “Easy for you to say. I’m not the one in bed with the man. Now I’m going to call him and ask him about this, and if he says we’re good to go then we’ll go. If not, it’s not my fault your friend decided to be stupid.”

I watched him dig into his phone and call Borden. He frowned shortly after before attempting to call him again. “No one is picking up,” he told me. “It’s just ringing. It must mean he’s busy.”

I turned to my phone and tried calling him as well. Like Graeme said, he didn’t pick up. We tried for several minutes with no luck. I fumed, wanting to smash the phone. “We have to go,” I told him. “Borden will understand. Hell, we’ll probably be back before he is.”

Graeme frowned. “I can’t just go with you, Emma. It’s not that simple. You need to be protected.”

“Aren’t there other men around? I saw three outside the goddamn apartment building, Graeme. You can’t tell me that’s not enough. You guys are being too damn paranoid about this shit.”

He didn’t respond for a moment, and I was tired of feeling like a caged animal.

“How about the cops?” I asked. “We can send some over to pick her up, right?”

He rolled his eyes at me. “Christ, Emma, why do you think I left the police station? They’re useless here. They won’t get to her for a very long time, and by then she could be stupid enough to try and walk out. Women.”

“So what are we supposed to do?”

“Give me the address.” I handed him the paper and he stared down at it, that frown of his deepening. “This is a very bad area, very isolated. What the hell is the idiot girl doing there?”

“It’s a bar.”

“Idiot girl,” he repeated, shoving the paper in his pocket before levelling me with a deep stare. “Now listen here, Emma, if I lose my job over this, you go to the ends of the earth to find somebody as perfect as me. Someone a little younger. A little buffer. Not a pretty boy like Gerry, or too harsh like Hawke. Somebody just right.”

I couldn’t help my smile. What the hell was wrong with this guy? “Graeme, you are irreplaceable.”

He smiled back and ran his fingers over his bushy moustache, neatening it up like it mattered all of a sudden. “Perfect answer. Let’s get this done and fast.”

Fourteen

Emma

We had four men with us: two in the car behind us, and two in the car in front of us. Graeme was working with what he had, and I had to roll my eyes at this. I felt like some overpriced china doll, undeserving of all this over the top protection. I grew up in the ghetto, taking care of myself when I went out. And the crazy thing was, I knew if all of Borden’s men had been available, there would have been ten more guys in half a dozen cars nearby.

We rode to the east side of New Raven, where the city began to meet with the dense pine bush of numerous untouched nature reserves. Gone were the skyscrapers and luxury high rises and congested traffic the heart of the city was known for. We ventured into the outskirts, where homes were far and few, where random streets held a random convenient store and pub and the parking lots were filled with suspicious looking weather-beaten RVs. Everything appeared all the more eerie as the sky darkened and the sun disappeared over the horizon. The GPS was telling us we were fifteen minutes away to the destination along the winding road in the middle of Hicksville. The forest looked ominous, and the only source of light were our car lights and full moon.

“Why would your friend be working this far out?” Graeme wondered, shaking his head.

“Because she’s desperate,” I replied numbly. “I have to admit, it’s very far away from where she lives.”

“This map is taking us to a very old bar. I remember taking these very roads, chasing drunk and irresponsible people who didn’t give a rat’s ass about my police sirens. There are a lot of drugs up here. A lot of violence too. I’m glad she has you for a friend, Emma. I don’t think anyone else would have done this for her.”

“You are,” I said quietly.

“I don’t count.”

“You do. You count a lot.”

He looked away from the steering wheel and at me for a brief moment, seeing my sincerity. “And you count too, Emma. The first time I saw you I knew you would be something good for Borden. You have a lot of fight in you. I knew you’d be the only person who could bring that stubborn man back to earth and give him life again. He was broken, and you not only healed him, but you’ve changed him too.”

“Changed him how?”

“If somebody told me before you that he had a soft side, I would have bet my life they were full of shit.”

“And now?”

He smiled broadly. “And now I see a man that looks at you like you’re his light in the dark.” I couldn’t help smile back as he added quietly, “He’s in love with you. He never wants to let you go, and you have stayed by him, even when the threat came to light. That takes a lot of courage, and all the men respect you for it. You’re a great woman. Your love is true, and take it from me – a man who has been burned in the past – a woman like you is difficult to find.”

“Thank you, Graeme, but being burned doesn’t mean you’ll never find the right person again.” When he gave me a questioning look, I shyly admitted, “Hawke told me about your marriage.”

“Ah,” he grumbled, “of course he did. It’s water under the bridge now. I’m well over it. Sometimes you have to realize people aren’t who they say they are, and no matter how deeply you love them, the truth won’t change. It’s hard to accept, but I did make amends with it.”