Deep Waters

Chapter Forty-Two

I hung up the phone and looked at Jay who was staring at me in disbelief. "Really? What the heck was that?"

Wiping my eyes, I tossed his phone back to him. "A background check," I said. It was obvious.

He huffed. "I can't believe you didn't trust me."
I held back the urge to roll my eyes. "Stop being dramatic. I literally met you a couple of hours ago.

He must have realized I was right because he just sighed and nodded. I remained where I was and fiddled with my fingers while Jay disappeared into the bathroom. I just wanted to go home. Just a moment later, Jay entered back into the room holding a first-aid kit in his hand. He opened up the box and set it all out beside me on the bed. I didn't argue or put up a fight when he pulled out a needle and thread. Picking up my arm, he set it on my lap in front of him as he knelt down on the floor. Fortunately, the pain killers had kicked in so the movement of my sore forearm didn't bother me too much. Jay also found a numbing cream in the kit so that helped too.

Not to my surprise, it wasn't even a few minutes before he started asking questions. "So, who kidnapped you? Who'd you escape from?" His bright eyes remained on my wounds as he started stitching me up.

"My dad." There was no point in hiding anything. He already listened to my phone call with Daniel.

His eyes seemed to widen and he paused his actions for just a split second. "Why?"

"He wants to kill me."

"Why?"

I found myself shrugging. "It's a long story, but he hasn't liked me for years," I explained. "I guess I was never the daughter he wanted me to be."

"Wow. So that's your story, huh? You're just a girl on the run from her crazy dad?"

I nodded. "That's the gist of it...What's yours?" I tried to keep my eyes off of the needle going in and out of my skin. It was a small wound but he was taking his good ol time.

"Dang it, Lydia!" he exclaimed. I looked at him, wondering what the heck I did. "You didn't tell me the bullet was still in there."

"I didn't know it was." He just looked at me and shook his head, stopping his movements with the needle and instead, grabbing tweezers out of the kit. "So, your story?" I asked again as he dug the tweezers into my half-stitched wound. "Dang it, Jay, easy."

He just shrugged at my pain. "I don't know. I travel a lot. I'm usually on my own."

"Where are your parents?"

"Home in Georgia," he replied, pulling a bullet out of my arm. He held it close to his face in the tweezers, examining it closely even though it was covered in my blood. This dude was acting as he'd never seen a bullet before. "So what's your plan now?"

I huffed. That was actually a really good question. "I'll go with you as far as you'll take me and let myself heal," I guessed. "Then I'll go after Charles."

"That's your dad, right?" He placed the tweezers and bullet in the trash, apparently not wanting to bother dealing with cleaning the tool up and putting it back in the kit. I just nodded. "Why not let the police handle it?" he asked next.

My head tilted. "Well, they have been handling it. But Charles is smart. I'm the only one he came out of hiding for," I told him. "We had this plan to catch him but this guy gave Charles my location and took me the night before we carried it out."

Jay's dark eyebrows furrowed. "Why not just take care of Charles while you were with him then." I almost rolled my eyes. Did this guy think I was Black Widow or something?