Fractured (Galloway Ranch #3)

Chapter Thirty

Brandy

Closing up the shop took for freaking ever. The camera crew dragged their feet about every single shot, wanting to repeat as many of them as possible, and Grandma ended up repeating herself because she forgot she’d already told one story a dozen times, and changing it ever so slightly each time. I kept her away from the kitchen and sharp implements, letting her build sandwiches and tie twine, but otherwise she was relegated to talking to customers and bugging the crew. She seemed okay with it.

Meanwhile, Phil stayed on my peripherals, knowing I was ten seconds from throwing things at people at any point.

My nerves were absolutely on edge. The impending doom of what I had to do tonight was weighing on me the entire time, and the overwhelming chaos of the crew, Grandma, and the line of customers that seemed to have remembered suddenly that we were open tonight of all nights, the firemen that had to come in and verify we were okay, all of it was getting to me. It was even seemingly getting to Basil, who was normally unflappable.

Of course, she didn’t know about the camera yet. Or the mission I was going to go do.

“I think,” Basil said, about nine as we closed the doors for the last time, leaving just us and a barebones crew, “I need to go home.”

“Are you feeling all right?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “I got really worked up over the grease fire. The firemen were really nice, but it was just so much. I ended up kind of tuning out the rest of the evening.”

“I noticed,” I said. “It was like you were on another planet.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Sorry about that. I’ll be better tomorrow.”

“Good,” I said, wondering silently if I would even see tomorrow.

“So is this”—she motioned toward Grandma, who was still holding court with the crew—“our new thing? Your granny spinning tall tales and repeating herself every five minutes while we run a stupidly busy shop?”

“I don’t know,” I said as truthfully as I could. “I honestly do not know what the future holds.”

“Well, I’m game if you are. I just need a good night’s rest. I did most of the cleaning while we were closing up, so there really isn’t anything left to do.”

“Thank you, Basil,” I said. “Good night.”

“Good night,” she said, giving me a hug.

It took everything I had left in my soul not to break down crying and hold my best friend as tightly as I could. Was this the last time I was going to see her?

With Basil gone, I finished up what little cleanup there was to do, prepped the food in the freezer and refrigerator for the next day, and kicked the crew out so I could bring Grandma home. Only one of the crew stuck around, apparently wanting to make sure we were safe, which I appreciated, and then he left as I closed the door of the house.

“That was a good day,” Grandma said as she made her way to her bedroom. “A very good day.”

I waited until she was in her room with the door closed to open my phone and text the emergency caregiver I sometimes called. I told her in the text that I would need the number of her agency, that I was going to need someone full-time. Then I gave them Basil’s number as a backup to mine.

Just in case.

Immediately, I got a call, and when I answered it, I was surprised to hear a very energetic and awake young woman on the other end.

“Hello, this is Tanya from Care for Mom,” she said. “We received your text message and would like to confirm an appointment.”

“I would like one, yes, but I can’t set it right now. I just need a full-time caregiver in the next week or two.”

“Perfect, I’ll just confirm some details…”

“No, I really can’t right now. Why are you calling so late anyway?”

“We have exceptional twenty-four-hour customer and client service,” the overly cheerful woman said, as if I had just triggered a script in her robot brain.

“Great, that’s fantastic to know. I need to go now, though. Call me tomorrow.”

I hung up before she could argue and turned to see my grandmother standing in the hallway, looking at me with an expression I hadn’t seen since I was a small child.

“What the hell have you done?” she said. “I don’t need a full-time caretaker. I’m just fine.”

“No, Grandma, you aren’t,” I said, tears threatening to spill onto my cheeks already and my voice shaking. “You definitely are not.”

“You saw me today,” she said. “I was running the shop. I was fine. So we had a grease fire. It happens!”

“No!” I shouted. “You almost burned the shop to the ground, Grandma!”

“I wish I had!” she shot back, an anger in her voice that I’d never heard. “It’d be better than knowing I couldn’t run it anymore! For years, for years , I’ve sat in this house and regretted shutting it down. I was happy. I was successful. So I was forgetful sometimes, who cares? I could have hired people to work with me and I’d have been fine! But sitting here, day after day, rotting away, I can feel it. I can feel my brain deteriorating. I have no purpose. It’s just sit here until I die. Do you have any idea how terrible that is?”

“I… I thought I was taking care of you,” I said. “I was doing what Mama couldn’t.”

“Your mother…” she began, then her face screwed up in an awful expression, almost like shock and then utter sadness hitting her at once, “your mother…”

“She’s dead, Grammy.”

“I remember,” she said. “I remember. Oh God. I forget it, don’t I? That she’s gone?”

I nodded.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t believe I would forget that.”

“You have Alzheimer’s, Grammy,” I said. “You forget things. Lots of things. Sometimes you remember, but a lot of times you don’t. The person standing here talking to me right now… you haven’t been this person in a long time.”

“Because today I had purpose, Brandy. I had meaning again. I was useful. I was good at something. I need that. Or else I will sit here and die. I will be dead long, long before my heart stops beating. Do you understand?”

I nodded, and she pulled me in tightly for a hug. I sobbed on her shoulder, and she rubbed my back, then kissed my forehead.

“I’m going to go to bed now,” she said. “And if I am remotely as with things tomorrow as I am right now, I want to come with you to the shop. I won’t cook. I’ll just make boxes and tie twine and talk. But I want to be there. Okay?”

“Okay,” I said wretchedly. I couldn’t tell her. I didn’t have the heart.

After she had gone back into her room and the light had gone off, I went into my own room and lay down on the floor. I felt like my brain and my heart had cracked open. I had nothing left. Everything I’d done was wrong. Everything I thought I was doing right was only hurting people. I was alone.

Before he left, Phil had pulled me aside and shown me what he had seen. The clip on his cloud device was short, only a few seconds long, but it was clearly me, and I was clearly naked, though you couldn’t see any nudity. And there was clearly someone with me, in the act.

Then there was a message at the end. As the clip ended and went to a black screen, words appeared.

Make Brandy stay with the show. Or else.

Those words swirled in my mind. Someone was manipulating me. Torturing me. Blackmailing me over the one bit of happiness I’d had in years. The first time I felt like I might be able to love again. The first time I felt like I might have some worth outside of food. Outside of being a caregiver or the friend with the big ideas that needed to be looked after.

That I was somebody.

This bastard, or bastards, were going to drive me insane if I let them. But I couldn’t let them. Not without trying first.

Peeling myself off the floor, I found a duffel bag and threw it on the bed. If I was going to do this, I was going to prepare for every scenario. Including surviving but needing to go on the run.

I threw in three changes of clothes, one for cold weather, one for medium, and one for hot, then added in several pieces of functional underwear and socks. Then toiletries. A travel toothbrush and toothpaste I had still in the packaging. A first aid kit. A backup pair of sneakers. A towel. A bar of soap from a fancy soap place in Dallas, wrapped in plastic wrap. A box of granola bars.

My engagement ring.

I’d only kept it in the event that I might need to sell it to survive one day. It would probably get me a couple hundred dollars at least, and in the event that I needed that to survive, I could do it. It was in a little ring box, where it had been since the day I’d gotten the e-mail that my wedding was off, that he was on a plane heading to Thailand. I tucked it into the corner of the bag.

I packed two more bags with less necessary things. They would be helpful to have, but if I could only bring one bag as I ran away, all the essentials were in it.

Taking the bags outside, I threw the main one in the passenger’s seat and the others in the back. Everything else in there would be given to Basil. I’d written that will a long time ago, but I left a note on my bed, just in case. She would know what to keep and what to give away.

She would also get Madie’s. Whatever she did with it was up to her, but it was the least I could do to repay her.

There were three outcomes for tonight. I could get the camera and the footage and destroy them. I could run away. I could die.

I checked my phone’s time. It was almost eleven. A text appeared in my inbox with an address.

It was time to go.