Desperately Devastated (Addicted To You, Book Nine) by Lucy Covington Read Free Book Online Page B

nasty from Quarry demanding I come back to the gym right away. Maybe there would be something from my friends from the government, threatening to put me in jail if I didn’t cooperate immediately.
    But I also wanted to know if Lindsay had tried to contact me. In my drunken state, I’d lost my willpower to resist her. As I watched the other people around me drinking, laughing, talking, I couldn’t help but feel that there was nothing there for me.
    The nights of being happy to spend my hours alone in a bar, looking for the next easy girl to take home, were over. Lindsay had ruined all of that for me, and I had to admit it.
    I turned on my cell phone, determined to call her no matter what. Even if she hadn’t texted or called me first—I had to tell her how stupid I’d been.
    I’d let my pride get in the way once again. It was as though I was determined to sabotage every good thing in my life.
    When I turned the phone on, the first thing I saw was voicemail from an unknown number.
    Maybe she called and left a message from the hotel room, I thought, knowing full well she hadn’t.
    I clicked on the voicemail and listened to it, pressing the phone against my left ear and holding my free hand tightly over my right ear to block out all of the bar noise.
    “Justin, this is Agent Driscoll. Please contact me as soon as possible. If you’ve been watching the news, then you’re aware of what’s happened to James Ashbrook. We need to discuss this with you immediately, Justin. Immediately.” Agent Driscoll left his cell phone number and then the message ended.
    I sat there, my already slowing brain working as fast as it could under the circumstances. For a few seconds, I scrambled to remember who James Ashbrook was, and then I suddenly recalled. Jimbo. James Ashbrook was Jimbo’s real name.
    I pulled up my internet browser and went to Boston.com to see if there was anything about him. My stomach was sick, and I sensed that whatever it was—the news had to be very bad for the FBI to contact me the way they had.
    And right on the first screen of the website, my eyes were greeted by a headline that made my stomach drop as if I’d fallen off a cliff.
    LOCAL MAN’S BODY FOUND IN WALDEN WOODS: FOUL

PLAY SUSPECTED
    Next to the headline was a picture of Jimbo, looking a couple of years younger and more clean-cut than he really was. Jimbo in the picture was smiling, with a full head of normally styled hair and clean-shaven.
    I couldn’t believe what I was seeing as I strained to read the article through my beer-fogged vision.
    The article said that a jogger had been trail running in the woods near Walden Pond when he’d come across a body thrown into a nearby ditch. The police were investigating, but apparently there was enough damage to the body to indicate that it was a homicide. It also mentioned that Jimbo was a professional fighter but didn’t say anything about The Slaughterhouse gym.
    I stared at Jimbo’s picture and thought about the first time I’d met him, being forced to fight him in that sweaty, blood soaked cage of Quarry’s gym. Since that day, we’d become friends, and I thought of him as someone that I’d know for the rest of our lives. As it turned out, that had been true—but not in the way I’d imagined.
    Suddenly, a retching sickness overcame me and I ran to the small bathroom of the bar, pushing my way into a stall and falling to my knees, sick as I’d ever been.
    After I was done, I sat there on the floor of the stall, dazed and dizzy.
    Someone murdered Jimbo and now the FBI wanted to talk to me about it.
    Could things possibly get any worse?
    The answer was obvious: yes. They could get worse, and based on how my life seemed to be going, they would get worse. It was only a matter of time.
    I got off the floor and slowly left the bathroom. Everything around me was spinning, blurry and unfocused. My mind was swirling and thoughts were scattered.
    For some reason, I decided to call Agent Driscoll back.