The Stillwater Girls(67)

“I took good care of her,” Davis says, as if that changes anything. “She was fed. Got to watch cartoons all day. Hell, she was living the good life.”

Brant begins to speak but stops, his clenched fist lifting to the air and his lips pursing. He turns to me, shaking his head.

“He’s not worth it,” I say. And he never was. We loaned him thousands upon thousands of dollars, bought him vehicles when he had no other way to get to work, and bailed him out of jail more times than I can count on one hand. Not once did we get a thank-you—and now this . . .

“Why?” Brant asks once more, his voice hardened and edgy.

“Do I really have to answer that?” Davis finally says. “Come on, Brant. You’re not stupid.”

“If it was money you wanted, why didn’t you just ask? Hasn’t stopped you from asking any other time.”

“Shit, haven’t I asked you enough? Gets stale. This way was win-win. You get your daughter back; I get to pad my bank account.” Davis’s attention shifts to me. “And I could tell Nic was starting to get tired of breaking out the old checkbook. You were pulling back, Brant. You were starting to hesitate and make excuses. That well was bound to dry up eventually.”

The last time Davis asked for a loan, Brant put his foot down of his own volition. As difficult as it was sometimes, I always bit my tongue when it came to financial matters between them. As far as I knew, the money Davis had been siphoning from Brant came from Brant’s personal account—never my trust.

“You disgust me.” My husband spits his words. “You’re sick, you know that?”

“I never hurt her. Just so you know. Told her I was her uncle. She got three square meals a day and all-she-could-watch cartoons.”

“I’m done,” Brant says as he gets in Davis’s face one more time. “Done.”

Davis begins to laugh, but it’s cut short the second Brant delivers a swift kick into the side of his stomach. Writhing, he rolls to his side, knees curling in, and I spot the shorter deputy turn toward the commotion.

“We done here?” she asks my husband as she shuffles back. Her pointer finger passes between the two of them.

A black SUV arrives, and out from the driver’s seat climbs a petite brunette with a shield hanging from her neck. Beth, perhaps? A man steps out from the passenger seat. Deputy May makes her way across the gravel the moment they spot one another.

Brant’s chest lifts and sinks, and his hands rest on his hips. A thin sheen of sweat collects across his brow. Sliding my arm into the bend of his elbow, I pull him away from his traitorous flesh and blood and back toward the flesh and blood that’s going to need us from this moment on.

“It’s over,” I say, resting my head against his shoulder as we walk back to May and the girls. “It’s over.”





CHAPTER 47

WREN

“Scoot,” I say to Evie as I return to her hospital room.

She smiles, making room for me in her bed. We’ve been here almost a full day now, doctors and nurses flitting in and out of here asking hundreds of questions and doing dozens of tests.

Evie changes the stations of the TV like she’s done it a million times before.

“How’d you get so good at this?” I ask.

“The Supply Man let me watch cartoons. He gave me my own TV. And he got me toys, too.”

From what I’ve heard her tell the doctors and staff here, he didn’t hurt a single hair on her head—all he did was keep her in a locked room, only letting her out to use the bathroom when he wasn’t at work.

And if that wasn’t mind-boggling enough, he even got her medicine.

“Where’s Mama, Wren?” Evie asks.

No one’s told her yet.

“Do you remember much about that night when you were sick and Mama carried you through the woods?” I ask.

Evie bites her full lower lip and shakes her head. “No. I just remember waking up in the Supply Man’s house.”

I don’t know how to tell her Mama’s gone, and she’s in such good spirits I’m afraid to break it to her right here, right now.

“Wren, he knew everything about us,” Evie says like it’s a good thing. It strikes me now that our entire existence was spent living in a prison of sorts. Keeping her in a locked room probably wasn’t all that traumatic for her. And the toys and cartoons surely helped. “He said he’s known Mama for a long time, and they go way back. Our house, Wren? It was his old hunting cabin. He gave it to Mama so we’d have a place to live. Wasn’t that so kind of him?”

I wonder if he knew all along that Mama took us or if she let it slip, thinking he was an old friend whom she could confide in and trust. Obviously she trusted him for a lot of years if he was always bringing our supplies and selling our products for us.

“Where’s Sage?” Evie asks.

“You’ll see her soon.” Leaning back against the pillow beside her, I roll to my side, brushing wisps of her blonde hair from her face. “So much to tell you, Evie.”

I slip my arm behind her shoulders.

For now, I just want to smell her, feel her, hold her, and never let her go.





CHAPTER 48

NICOLETTE

Dr. Pettigrew takes us to an empty conference room at the end of the hospital hallway. Seated at the end of a long table, she opens a manila folder and flips a piece of white paper toward us.