Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 143842 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 719(@200wpm)___ 575(@250wpm)___ 479(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 143842 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 719(@200wpm)___ 575(@250wpm)___ 479(@300wpm)
That sent my gaze roving, and another bite of unease rolled through me when Hailey still wasn’t standing by my side.
“Do you know where Hailey is?” I asked Lolly.
Her head barely shook. “I just came out of my room to see what the commotion was about.”
Ezra sighed. “I’m not sure what’s going on here, Cody, but Savannah just called as I was pulling up out front. Said Hailey had been at the house and needed to talk to me. She’s on her way back here.”
Trepidation thudded deep. “Why the hell would she leave without telling me?”
I didn’t know who I was asking.
Ezra.
Lolly.
Myself.
The only thing I knew was things weren’t sitting right. The energy this morning felt off.
Our rhythm off beat.
It climbed from the depths of me and into my consciousness, a warning that had started to blare.
“Do you know what it’s about?” I pinned Ezra with the question.
His exhalation was heavy. “I’m not even supposed to be saying anything to you since she asked to talk to me in private, but no, I don’t.”
That trepidation spiked. Daggers of unease.
“Fuck,” I rumbled toward the floor.
“I’m sure it’s about what happened yesterday. Her ex. I’m sure she’s blaming herself right about now,” Ezra surmised.
“None of this is her fault.” Lolly’s voice was haggard, worry flooding out on her raspy voice.
Both Ezra and I swiveled her way.
Terror colored her features, so heavy and distinct. Different than I’d ever seen in her before.
“I knew neither of them would let her go.” She whispered it like a secret.
That alarm blared louder, a siren that screamed in my ears and ricocheted through my being. “What are you saying, Lolly?”
She looked sick. Her skin pallid and green. Fear throttling the overabundance of life she always exuded. “Pruitt and her father.”
Uncertainty pinched my brow, dread gathering fast and overflowing my senses. “Her father? What are you talking about?”
I tried to keep the desperation out of my voice, but there was no stopping the way it whipped from my tongue.
She wrung her frail fingers. “I love him, love him so much, and God knows I tried hard to raise him right, but my son still turned out a bad man. And I was hoping beyond hope that once Hailey came back here, he’d see the error of his ways. Hoped with all of me that he’d changed.”
A wave of foreboding crashed against my spirit. My throat thickened as my mind whirred through her implication. Wrought with the insinuation of her suggestion.
The past spun. A blur through my mind that was becoming too clear. “What do you mean?”
The words were gravel.
A plea.
Lolly blanched, and I stood there staring as horror and grief slashed across her weathered face.
Her chin trembled when she spoke. “Hailey marrying Pruitt wasn’t an accident. I knew what Douglas had in mind the first time I saw that slimy weasel standing in his office. I knew he was going to force them together. Knew what he was planning. Knew they both were crooked. Wicked to the core. Only someone who is truly evil would pull someone that was as sweet and innocent as Hailey into their schemes.”
Sickness coiled in my guts, and awareness hovered like a drone carrying weapons of mass destruction overhead.
“The illegal gambling. Your son was involved?” My question scraped the room.
Lolly tugged her robe tighter as if it could act as a shield. “Involved in it? He’s the mastermind. The ringleader. Always one step ahead at keeping his name clean, pinning the blame on those running his dirty deeds. Pruitt is just another of his minions. He’d told me he’d given it up. That he was going clean. He promised.”
She choked around the new wound that had been inflicted.
“Obviously, it was a lie, but there is no way my son can continue to hide the way it has tarnished his soul. And I won’t pretend like I don’t know the extent of it for a second longer.”
Horror jumped between us when I met Ezra’s eye.
A second later, I was turning on my heel and rushing for the room where I’d left my phone. I snatched it up and dialed Hailey’s number.
It rang four times before her voicemail came on. “It’s Hailey. Leave a message.”
A sinking sensation came over me. One that had me feeling like I was getting dragged to the bottom of the ocean.
Clutching my phone, I rushed back out of the room. “She didn’t answer.”
Ezra was trying her again before I finished the sentence, and he gave a minute shake of his head when she didn’t answer his call, either.
Panic surged, pumping fast with the beat of my blood. “We need to find her. Get to her before someone else does.”
That was the second before a scream reverberated from Maddie’s room.
My eyes blew wide, and I ran around Lolly and down the hall, throwing Maddie’s door open.