After the Storm (KGI #8)(59)

“I was numb. I didn’t care about what happened to me. But it made me ill to know that he was beating my mother and I was supposed to knuckle under to his threats and go on as if I didn’t know what was going on behind closed doors in that house.”

She closed her eyes as more tears slipped soundlessly down her cheeks.

“He beat her to get back at me. He admitted it when I saw her next. When I saw what he’d done to her, he stood there and told me it was my fault. That I’d done this to her. That if I’d kept my mouth shut and minded my business that this wouldn’t have happened to her. And he did and said all of this right in front of my mother. Blamed me as she stood there, bruises on her face and around her neck. Her hand was swollen and bruised. I think he’d broken several of her fingers, but of course he’d done nothing to help her. Hadn’t taken her to a doctor. Hadn’t put them in a cast. And I had to watch my mother stand there, eyes dull, all the life taken right out of her while he blamed me for the fact that she was in pain. I’ll never forget the way she looked at me. Not with blame, but begging. She was begging me to let it go. Not to make him angry again.”

“God,” Donovan breathed. “I’m so sorry, honey. You know it wasn’t your fault, right?”

She hesitated just long enough for Donovan to realize that no matter what she said, she did blame herself. It enraged him. He sucked in steadying breaths because he wanted to explode and that was the last thing she needed.

“I know whose fault it was,” she said in an unconvincing tone. “It wasn’t mine and it damn sure wasn’t my mother’s. I think he thought I’d let it go. That he’d bullied her—and me—into accepting it all. But it only made me that much more determined. I was furious. I’ve never been so filled with rage in my life. I honest to God could have killed him in that moment. If I’d had any sort of a weapon, I would have killed him on the spot and gladly gone to prison if it meant my mother and Travis and Cammie would finally be safe and free of him.”

Donovan had a very good idea of where this was leading. “You went back to the police, didn’t you?”

She nodded numbly, her eyes glazing over, her gaze going vacant and distant. So much pain crowded into those beautiful amber eyes. And guilt. That was what tore Donovan to pieces. The guilt and sorrow in her expression.

“I went straight to the police. I told them everything that had happened. How he controlled everyone around him. The lengths he’d gone to subjugate everyone under his authority. I told them he admitted to my face that he’d beaten her. That he’d said it was my fault. I begged them to go immediately. To look at my mother’s bruises and to do something about it. I told them there was no way to know if he abused Travis and Cammie, that they were all so frightened of him that they wouldn’t dare go against his dictates.”

“Did they believe you? Did they investigate?” Donovan queried.

“I don’t know if they believed me. I think they thought I was a hysterical female. But yes, they took me with them and went to Walt’s house. What happened next . . .” She shook her head, disbelief still evident in her features. “I had no idea just how prepared he was for something like that. When I think of all the foreplanning he had to do to mastermind it, I’m just blown away. I mean, I knew he was a controlling ass**le. I knew he had money and power. But I never imagined just how far he’d go to discredit me. How long he had to have planned to set into motion what he did. It sounds so farfetched, and yet he made it happen.”

“What did he do? Donovan asked, dread centering in his chest.

She sent him a look filled with bewilderment. “When the police showed up, Walt actually looked pained. All of a sudden he adopted the look of a concerned ‘parent.’ He looked grief-stricken, as laughable as it sounds. He told the officers I had a history of mental illness and paranoid delusions. That he hadn’t wanted to hospitalize me because he hoped I could lead a normal life. He told them he’d always considered me his daughter even though I wasn’t his blood. That he was paying for me to go to school. Paying my expenses. Bought me an apartment. Which all sounds fishy as hell and like crap, right? Only, he produced medical records documenting a long history of mental illnesses, a list of medications that I’d refused to take. And this was from a reputable hospital that specialized in mental health. He had a letter from a well-known psychiatrist! I was so dumbfounded that I didn’t even know what to say. Walt poured on the charm. Said his wife was accident prone, and with a toddler, who could blame her? That Cammie was an active three-year-old who kept my mother busy and that the bruises were from a fall down the stairs trying to prevent Cammie from taking a tumble. He had the police eating out of his hand, and he made me look like some deranged lunatic off her meds. There was honest-to-God sympathy and admiration for Walt in the policemen’s eyes. Like he was such a good person for taking in a daughter from his wife’s previous marriage and getting me the help I needed. I wanted to vomit because he’d covered himself so well that I would have believed him. There was an entire fake medical file on me dating back to when I was just a child. It appeared as though I’d been in and out of this facility for years. So of course the police took him at his word and then were all stern with me about filing false police reports and wasting department resources when their police had far more important, real matters to attend to.”