5. This Doesn’t Make Sense
THIS DOESN’T MAKE SENSE
August
Over a month has passed since I saw Bear. Circumstances are definitely on edge with the staff at Hale Manor. For a week now, the family’s security team has been questioning employees individually.
The staff was told something horrible had happened to the earl’s son. His son! That sent my head spinning and me down an internet rabbit hole. The guy I saved has a name. Wesley Alexander Theo Hale. He has a face too. A beautiful one like I’d suspected.
Pictures of the family appear first. His hair is dark blonde.
Based on his childhood family photos, he was tall from a young age.
His sister, Katessa, looks a bit younger than him and more like the mom with her chestnut hair.
She’s pretty and pristine. They both are.
His dad seems to have aged significantly since these pictures.
There aren’t any new ones of the family.
I did a Google face search on Wesley and found one social media account.
The posts are of him at Eton playing polo, then at college in Cambridge and Harvard.
That was surprising to me, though it shouldn’t be.
His family has a summer estate on Martha’s Vineyard after all.
He’s often with another handsome guy who has bright aqua eyes.
His best friend? Maybe the guy who rescued him?
I wish I’d kept his number so I could warn him about what’s going on.
But I deleted it like Bear—er—Wesley said.
No one knows any facts or details, only that something happened on the property, and if anyone witnessed anything unusual, they need to report it or else risk their job. I didn’t breathe a word about what I did to Mom. When they questioned her, she truly knew nothing.
I pace the floor in my bedroom, biting my nails as I wait for her to come back from a second round of questioning, hating that this is happening to her. If they find out I’m involved, Mom could get in serious trouble, demoted even.
Because of me.
I can’t bring myself to regret saving Wesley though. No one should be left to that fate. But if Mom gets punished for something I did, I will regret being the cause of her suffering—our suffering.
To make matters worse, we’ve been getting letters in our mailbox for the last two weeks, claiming Mom won money from an anonymous charity donor.
All she has to do is sign to accept the winnings, and the money will be transferred to her bank account.
It’s super sketch, like they want access to our accounts.
To drain them? Ha! Even though Mom makes more money here, we still have nothing for them to take.
She thinks it’s a big scam. The timing is suspicious.
What if this is another way to weed out who helped the abandoned heir?
I told her not to talk about it to anyone, but someone saw a strange man in the early morning, too early for the mailman, slip a letter into our mailbox.
The metal bin is with a bunch of others in the carriage house, built into the wall at the entrance of our apartment-like complex.
The next day, Mom was brought in for a second time.
This is bad, so bad. Horribly bad. Mom is the only person to get a second interrogation, which means she’s at the top of the security team’s list. Word is they’re looking to blame Wesley’s attack on anyone they think is involved.
I have no idea what that means and can only pray there won’t be criminal charges.
Don’t they need proof for that? Video, pictures, DNA?
I gasp. What if someone saw me? It would still be hearsay, right? Mom told me the manor has cameras everywhere. I’d seen plenty of them in corners, but none in the back of the property where no one ventures other than me.
My stomach churns with nausea for my mom, who is truly innocent. If she has no knowledge about their son or his condition or even where he was left, which she doesn’t, they’ll have to believe her. They’ll have to.
I find it interesting that the family knows something happened to their son. To me, that says someone—the family, staff, or security—either saw Wesley beaten, getting dumped over the wall, or found him when I wasn’t around.
Now, I’m worried Wesley didn’t escape with his friend’s help. What if whoever did this to him found him first and finished the job, or caught him being rescued and stopped it?
An hour later, Mom walks through the apartment door in tears. She leaves it open, and one of the security guards appears in the entrance, his expression stern.
“You have fifteen minutes,” he says in a cold tone.
I rush over to Mom and grab her hands. “What’s wrong? What is it?”
“We have to leave. Pack everything as fast as you can.”
“Why?”
“I’ll tell you later. Just go pack. Now.” Mom grabs trash bags from the kitchen cabinet.
“But why? What happened?”
“Do as I say, Fable,” she snaps and hands me a few bags. “I’ll explain later. Pack everything you can and hurry!”
She starts collecting anything of importance to her, stuffing it into a trash bag.
I race to my room and do the same. My hands shake from not knowing what’s going on.
“Five minutes,” the man calls out from the doorway.
Is he seriously going to kick us out in five minutes? I don’t even have half of my stuff packed yet.
I get another trash bag and throw everything I can grab in it—clothes, makeup, toiletries, trinkets, shoes, jackets. I don’t have a lot. Neither does Mom. We came here with barely anything, but in this rush to pack, it seems like a lot.
Fifteen minutes isn’t enough to even think, let alone pack up our lives.
“Time’s up,” the man says and walks into the apartment. “I need to escort you from the property.”
Mom’s eyes are puffy, tears streaking her red cheeks. She wipes her nose and nods.
The three large bags she carries engulf her petite frame. I hold two trash bags in one hand and a filled tote from the closet slung over my shoulder, but my other hand is free. To help, I grab one of the overstuffed bags from her.
The security guard doesn’t help us carry anything as he walks with us to a large golf cart parked outside the carriage house.
Mom piles into the second row while I sit in the back, our bags secured around us.
“Mom?” I ask hesitantly as the golf cart lurches forward towards the long driveway that leads to the entrance of the estate.
“Just wait, Fable,” she says, her brown eyes filled with torment.
I bite my tongue as the cart bumps over the gravel road and stops about ten minutes later.
We climb out, bags in our hands.
The guard gives Mom a hard glare. “If you don’t want to suffer legal consequences, I suggest you don’t linger.”
She nods, looking on the verge of tears again.
I could kick gravel at him for talking to her like she’s trespassing. Mom earned her position here and has done nothing wrong. This man doesn’t care one bit that he just ripped us from our home and dropped us on the side of the road with a threat to leave. Where does he expect us to go?
Mom sets the bags on the ground and gets out her phone, typing on it.
“What are we going to do?” I whisper, even though no one is around us.
“I’m getting us a ride to a cheap hotel.”
“Why?”
She doesn’t look up, just keeps typing on her phone and wiping away stray tears.
When she’s done, I ask again. “Why were we kicked out? I don’t understand.”
She doesn’t look at me as if she can’t. Her sad gaze focuses on the long, lonely road surrounded by countryside. “Wesley Hale, the son of the Earl, says you kept him trapped in a garden on the property when he was hurt instead of getting help.”
The bags slip from my hands, landing with a loud thump. “That’s not true. I would never do that. Why would I do that, Mom? You know I wouldn’t.”
She hugs her arms around her chest. “It doesn’t matter. It’s what they believe.”
“Who? Did Wesley say this? Did you see him?”
“His father told me. Apparently, his son was so severely injured he’s in the hospital and will remain there for some time. Had you got him the help he needed, his condition wouldn’t be as bad as it is. They fear for his life.”
Oh god. Was he worse than he let on? Did I miss an injury, or did something new happen after I left? Did his friend even rescue him?
“This doesn’t make sense.”
Finally, she looks at me, eyes guarded. “Did you know him?”
“No,” I answer honestly. I didn’t know who he was.
“Did you find someone hurt in that abandoned garden? I know you go there, Fable. Tell me the truth.”
I hate lying to her, but continuing to do so won’t protect us anymore. My gaze locks on the largest trash bag near my feet until it blurs. I whisper, “I didn’t know who he was.”
Mom lets out a pained breath that borders on a sob.
My head jerks up. “I didn’t do anything to hurt him, I swear. I helped him. He was savagely beaten. I didn’t know who he was. I swear all I did was help him. I tried calling for help, but he stopped me. He made me promise not to tell anyone he was there. He said no one could know.”
Her eyes squeeze tighter, and she shakes her head, looking even more upset. “How many times have I told you not to trust the rich? You know from your dad and his family how different people with this kind of wealth are. The noble class are even worse.”
I take her free hand, tears blurring my vision, as I grapple to make this right and make her understand. “Please, Mom. You have to believe me. I didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t. I helped him, that’s all.”
She opens her eyes and meets my gaze. “Whatever you thought you did cost us this job and the protection of living an ocean away from your father.”
My stomach twists with sick knots. “What do you mean?”
“We’ve been ordered to leave Dorset, and my work visa is being revoked.”
“No!” I glance at the manor in the distance.
How could the young man who seemed so grateful and understanding do this to us?
Was it all a game? A lie? Is this family so messed up this is what they do to innocent people?
Mom was right. After everything that happened to us with Dad’s family, I should know better.
Anyone beneath the blue bloods is just a pawn.
The help is always expendable, even if they marry into the family.
A big part of me can’t believe this is happening, as if I’m sleeping and when I wake up tomorrow, Mom will still be a housekeeper, and we’ll still live in our apartment here—because this can’t be real.
“I’m so sorry, Mom. What can I do? There has to be something I can do.”
She doesn’t look at me, just stares down the road again. “I think you’ve done enough.”
I glare at the historical manor and the evil family who live inside. Afternoon sunlight gleams across the windows as if nothing has happened, as if the family inside didn’t just destroy our lives.
Anger swallows my heartache for Mom—for us. I hate myself for believing I was doing something good to help Wesley. I hate myself for being so naive. How could I have known that one small act of kindness would cost us everything?
Mostly, I hate Wesley for painting me as the villain and for lying about me when all I did was try to help. And I did help him. In return, he ruined my mom’s life.
He had to have known she would be fired. He knows how dangerous my dad is and why we came here, and yet he lied about me to his father. Maybe to protect himself from getting in trouble in a way I wouldn’t understand. Whatever his reason, it was a selfish, heartless act—one I can never forgive.
I wish I could see him again just so I could spit in his face.