17. Willa
SEVENTEEN
Willa
I hadn’t told Forrest everything.
Maybe it was out of shame…maybe because it was just too painful to revisit, because I didn’t want it all out there. But now it felt like other people were depending on me—the other women on the Daley homestead, the children, maybe even my family back home.
This could be the end of the whole endeavor, if I was honest and open. If I reclaimed my own future.
So I told Sheriff Braddock everything.
“I um…” I started, immediately second guessing myself. Everyone was watching—waiting.
Haven cleared her throat. “We can leave—” she started.
“No,” I shook my head. “You can stay. I’m not ashamed. I was never the one to blame.”
Forrest’s fists clenched around the edge of the countertop, and he heaved a deep breath.
“Alright,” Sheriff Braddock said. “I’m listening.”
I nodded. “I was brought to the Daley homestead by my father, Mr. Pruitt—I don’t know his first name, was never told—about four years ago. I was sixteen, specifically given to Shepherd Daley to be his wife. His fourth wife, specifically.”
Sheriff Braddock looked sick to his stomach already.
He had no idea how much worse it was going to get.
“As far as I’m aware, I don’t have any documentation,” I said.
“No birth certificate because my family always delivered on the property; I wasn’t allowed to use public restrooms on the drive down from Oklahoma, wasn’t even allowed to leave the van.
I didn’t see any of this town until I got free roughly a month ago. ”
“Until you ‘got free’?” he asked.
I nodded. “I ran away with forty-three dollars to my name—just ran into the night hoping to get as far away as possible and figure it out from there. I was lucky enough to end up on the Holts’ land, but I’d never seen or met any of them before.
I slept in hunting blind that night and Stetson and Forrest found me out in the woods. ”
Sheriff Braddock let out a long breath. “Jesus…”
“First thing she said to us was that she wasn’t goin’ back,” Stetson murmured to Sheriff Braddock.
“So you were there against your will,” Sheriff Braddock said, scribbling something in a little notebook he pulled from his pocket.
“Yes,” I said. “I was Shepherd Daley’s prisoner.”
Sheriff Braddock wrote that down and underlined it.
"And today at the gate," he said. "Walk me through what happened."
I did. All of it—the trucks blocking the entrance, Daley telling me I needed to come home, the door yanking open, the hands on me. I kept my voice even and my chin up and I didn't look away from him once.
When I got to the part where Daley grabbed my hair Sheriff Braddock's jaw tightened.
"You want to press charges on the assault today?" he asked.
"Yes," I said. "All of them. Daley and his men."
He nodded. "That's your right." He glanced at Forrest, then back at me.
"I also want you to know that what you're describing—being transported across state lines as a minor for the purposes of marriage—that's a federal matter.
Human trafficking. That's not something my office handles alone.
" He paused. "If you're willing to make a formal statement and cooperate with a federal investigation, I can make some calls today. "
The kitchen was very quiet.
I thought about the other wives. About the girls younger than me still on that property…about my sisters back in Oklahoma who might be next if nobody stepped in to stop it.
That was on me.
I’d run away because I couldn’t take it anymore…but I realized now that I’d just been the first escape, that I had an opportunity to help the rest of them.
“Yes,” I said. “I’ll cooperate with whatever you need.”
Sheriff Braddock nodded, writing something else in his little book, then he looked over at Stetson. “You said you had something else?”
Stetson pulled a battered folder out from under his arm—I hadn’t even noticed he was holding it—and set it on the table between me and Sheriff Braddock. It was packed full of papers and newspaper clippings and pictures. I frowned at it, then looked up at him.
“Been buildin’ this for a few years,” he muttered under his breath.
“Started when I saw my father’s truck leavin’ the Daley property about two in the morning one night.
” He glanced up at me, and it seemed like there was an apology in his eyes.
“Arlo Holt and Shepherd Daley—whose real name is Gerald Atchison—did eighteen months together in Beaumont federal in 2001. Fraud and identity theft. Atchison’s been operating under the Daley name since he got out.
” He tapped the folder. “In there you’ve got copies of his original conviction record, the name change, the property deed discrepancies, and statements from two women who left the compound in 2017 and 2019.
” He paused. “They were too scared to go on the record at the time. My mother reached out to them this past month and they offered more information.”
I stared at the folder.
“Stetson,” I whispered. “You…this whole time?”
He shook his head—not a no, more regret. “I’ve been walkin’ that property line long enough that I knew something was wrong a long time ago, and that somebody had to do something. Should’ve acted sooner.”
Sheriff Braddock had already opened the folder, sifting through its contents…and I could see that it was bad from the look on his face, the lines between his brows getting deeper, his head shaking every so often.
He shut it with a heavy sigh, then he grabbed his radio off his lapel and held the call button.
“Hey Caulfield, this is Braddock—need you to get on the phone with the police department down in San Antonio to see if they can send some SWAT to assist with an arrest tonight…we’re gonna need to head over to the Daley property this evening and place four men under arrest.”
A voice came back—maybe a dispatcher back at the office. “About time.”
“Yep.” He shook his head, eyes darting to me like he was ashamed. “Yep, about damn time. Let me know what they say.”
He put his radio back and looked at me.
“Miss—” he started, then stopped—because even I hadn’t known what to call me.
“Just Willa is fine,” I said softly.
“Willa,” he said. “You were very brave to do what you did. We’re gonna handle it, but we’ll make sure to keep some folks in the area just in case.”
I swallowed hard. “Okay.”
“Can’t make any promises, but this’ll be sorted out.”
Braddock shook hands with Stetson, then with Gage, and let himself out. The deputy's car started up in the drive and then it was quiet.
Nobody moved for a moment.
Then Haven went to the stove to put on a kettle…voices came from outside—Gage talking to Millie, I think, who hadn’t been home for the whole thing. Wyatt was talking to Forrest, while I just sat there…shellshocked, unsure of what to do next.
Stetson was standing close to the table, still as stone.
“Stetson,” I said.
He looked up.
“Thank you,” I said. “I don’t even know how to—I can’t even—”
“Don’t,” he said quietly.
“I want to.”
“I know.” He took off his hat and turned it in his hands, frowning down at it.
“But I watched that fence line for two years and I didn’t do anything sooner.
Those women in ‘17 and ‘19…they came to my mother and I told myself I needed more before I went to Braddock. Kept telling myself that.” His jaw tightened. “You had to run away and sleep in a hunting blind because I hadn’t been ready. You don’t owe me anything. ”
I sighed. “You were ready when it mattered.”
“Maybe,” he said. “But don’t thank me. Just—be okay. Be happy. That’s enough for me.”
I nodded.
He put his hat back on and went out the back door, and through the window I watched him cross the yard toward the fence line—probably so he could keep watching the Daley property, like he’d been doing for years without anyone knowing.
Then I felt Forrest’s hand on my shoulder…looked up into his warm brown eyes, winced at the cut on his cheek, the eye that was already getting bruised.
“Let me take you home,” he murmured.
“Please,” I breathed. “Please.”