Gin Fling (Bootleg Springs, #5)(65)

Despite the heat, the sweat, the hair on my arms stood up.

“This was back when she was fresh out of college. A family Shelby was working with called her one night, late. They had a lot of issues, but the main one was their teenage son. Big sonofabitch, unstable. More than just impulse control shit. He’d taken a shine to Shelby. She could get through to him sometimes when others couldn’t. But he kept going off his meds,” George said, swiping a hand over his face. “He’d show up at her favorite coffee shop. The grocery store in her neighborhood. She made light of it. Like it was no big deal.”

I felt the tension in him as he recalled it.

“She didn’t listen to me. I was the overprotective big brother. She had it all under control. She just wanted to help.”

“That sounds like Shelby,” I said.

He nodded. “She cares too much. Thinks she can fix everything, and there are just some things, some people, you can’t fix.”

He rubbed his palms together slowly as he worked through his memories.

“One night, he showed up at her apartment. She didn’t let him in, and he tried to kick in the door until one of the neighbors called the cops.”

“Shit,” I said, clenching my fists.

“Yeah. Her supervisor reassigned her. They’d seen shit like this before. The kid was obsessing. He’d do things just to get Shelby to show up at his place. Anything for her attention. So they tried to take her out of the equation. Assigned the family to a guy social worker.”

“How did Shelby feel about it?” I asked.

George shrugged. “She keeps stuff private a lot. She doesn’t like people worrying about her. But from what I could gather, she thought she failed him. Like somehow she should have convinced him to stay on his meds. They helped when he took them. But he’d forget, or he’d pretend to take them, and then he’d just lose control.”

He got up and paced restlessly now. A brother who loved his sister.

I wondered how I’d feel if someone tried to hurt Scarlett. The wave of raw anger, fear, was instinctive.

“Anyway, one night, the mother called Shelby in a panic,” he continued. “The son had chased her and the rest of the kids into a bedroom with a kitchen knife. They were locked in, and he was kicking and punching at the door.”

“Why didn’t she call the cops?” I asked, dreading the resolution of the story.

“Didn’t want her son to get taken away. Shelby knew that. She told the mom to hang tight, she’d handle it.”

I closed my eyes, took a breath.

“So she goes over there—”

“Alone?” I interrupted.

He nodded. “Like the innocent do-gooder she was.”

The past tense got me.

“He was waiting for her. His mom told him through the door that Shelby was coming to help him.”

“She knocked on the damn door, but it was already open.” George rubbed a hand over his mouth, taking a moment. “It was dark inside.”

My hands were clenched again. I crossed my arms over my chest and waited for the words he didn’t want to say. The story I didn’t want to hear.

“She walked in. All by herself. He came at her with the knife. They struggled. He got in a lucky swipe or two, the whole time screaming about how he loves her and they’re going to be together. But his grip slipped because of the… the blood.

“She started to run, and she either tripped or he pushed her. But she took a header down the stairs.”

“Jesus,” I muttered.

“You know her,” George said with a ghost of a smile. “Odds are she tripped over her own feet.”

“Yeah, odds are.”

“Anyway, another tenant—because everyone was in the hallway now calling 911—picked her up and carried her into his apartment. Another couple of them confronted the kid, got the knife away from him, held him down, until the cops came.”

“Meanwhile, Shelby’s texting me and my parents all like ‘Don’t freak out, but I’m heading to the hospital.’”

I could picture it.

“What my idiot sister didn’t tell us is that kid nicked her femoral artery and she almost bled out in a stranger’s apartment. By the time I flew in and my parents got there, she’d had a transfusion or two and was all smiles. Looked like that fucking vampire from the Twilight movie. So damn pale. Insisting that she was fine.”

“What happened to the kid?” I asked.

“He was sixteen. He went into a juvie mental facility. I kept an eye on the court proceedings. He was charged as a minor, sealed record.”

“So he’s just out there now?” I was horrified.

“His family moved out of state. When he got out at eighteen, he moved with them. Shelby had moved too by that time. Different apartment. New neighborhood. Better security. She decided to go back to school and get her doctorate. I think she just wanted to find a different way to help people,” he confessed. “Like it scared her bad enough that she couldn’t work one-on-one with clients anymore. Moving into research made us all feel better.”

“Smart girl,” I said.

“That’s why she’s not on social media. You never thought it was weird that our little social scientist isn’t on Facebook or Instagram?”