Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 104448 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 522(@200wpm)___ 418(@250wpm)___ 348(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104448 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 522(@200wpm)___ 418(@250wpm)___ 348(@300wpm)
As the officer finalized his notes and shifted his focus to Tully, I took the opportunity to confer with Susanna, who’d followed the officer over and had remained a few feet away where she could listen but not interfere unless warranted.
“Did they admit to planning this?” I asked in a low voice.
“Unfortunately not. And I’ll be honest, Mr. Scott looked upset and surprised. He claimed that his wife was simply overcome and wanted to take a moment alone with Lellie to calm down. Unless he’s a good actor, and I can tell you he’s not, he had no knowledge she was going to do this. Maybe they came here with the car seat fully expecting you’d agree to an overnight visit, and when you didn’t, she panicked.”
Lellie struggled to get out of my arms, so I set her down in the grass nearby. She toddled toward a tiny fallen tree branch and set her horse on top of it. As soon as Tully was finished giving his statement, I wanted to get the hell out of here. Circle the wagons and go. If it hadn’t been for having a toddler with us, I’d want to fly all the way back to Wyoming.
“Devon?”
My mother’s voice was hesitant. I glanced up at her warily but didn’t speak.
“I want you to know we had no idea she was going to try anything like that. We would have never condoned taking her without your permission.”
I glanced at my father, who surprised me by nodding. “Pastor Scott asked us to help persuade you to allow us some time with her, not to do anything hinky.”
“I don’t understand why you went along with him. Why not just contact me directly when you learned I had a daughter? Why not reach out and try to mend fences? You know how badly I tried to talk to you back…” I swallowed hard. “Back then. I would have answered the phone. You had to have known that. I just… don’t understand.”
My mother looked to my father, who sighed. “They told us you were into some bad stuff and that from everything they’d learned, you were living off on your own in the middle of nowhere. They were afraid if we did anything to upset you, you’d just take off with her. We wanted a chance to talk to you in person. To make you understand that we were sorry.”
His words caught me off guard. Was he apologizing for cutting me off? For blaming me for Matt’s death? “Sorry? Sorry for what?”
My father shifted on his feet. “Well… sorry for not realizing you had a family, for one.”
My mother could barely take her eyes off Lellie long enough to look at me, but she spoke, too. “And sorry for you not feeling like you could call us and tell us we had a grandbaby.”
Anger coiled inside of me, white-hot and snapping like oil popping in a hot pan. “Maybe I’m misunderstanding you. You’re sorry because of Lellie. Not because of anything that happened after Matt’s death.”
My father’s face lost any trace of warmth at the mention of my brother’s name, and my mother sucked in a breath. Even after this long, their grief still had sharp edges.
I pushed against them until they cut.
“Are you sorry for blaming me for Matt’s death? Do you still think it’s my fault? Do you still wish I’d died instead of him?” My words rocketed out of me like the rat-tat-tat of a machine gun with deadly aim. I saw Susanna move Lellie farther away in the grass. Tully must have finished his statement because he came and stood beside and a little behind me like a handsome fucking angel perched aggressively in my blind spot.
I didn’t stop. “Are you hoping to reconcile with me, to get to know me again, to see how I live and love, or are you mostly hoping to get access to your granddaughter?”
I felt the warm press of Tully’s fingers as they slid against my lower back. Because of the way he was standing, no one else would know they were there.
But I did.
So when my parents stood there, my father with a firm jaw and my mother with a watery, resentful stare, I knew there was no more need for words.
“Right,” I breathed. “Okay.”
Even Susanna had heard enough to look at me with a face full of kind empathy. I swallowed past the lump in my throat and strode for Lellie. “Come on, sweet girl. Let’s go home, okay?”
I kept my eyes away from Pastor Scott, his abductor wife, their snake attorney, and Tully’s boss as I beelined it to the Range Rover and began buckling Lellie inside. I knew she probably had a wet diaper, but I couldn’t bear the thought of sticking around for one more minute where I could be put upon again by entitled assholes and risk being too fucking nice like always.