Chapter 18
Clint picked up the pieces of the porcelain trinket his mother had cherished.
His chest felt ready to explode. Damned cowards.
They should have taken up their beef directly with him.
Doing this, he thought as he surveyed the carnage, was not right—not fair.
But since when had his life been fair? The magnitude of emotions he hadn’t been able to suppress all channeled into one—fury.
Someone would pay for this.
“I’ll take these to a fellow I know who might be able to reconstruct them for you.”
Clint glanced at Ray, resisted the impulse to lash out at him.
The man was only trying to help. He’d worked diligently to gather the torn pieces of photographs into several plastic bags.
The knowledge that Clint should be grateful didn’t alleviate the rage quaking inside him.
He placed the remnants of shattered porcelain on the mantel. He had to get out of here.
He strode out onto the porch, sucked in as much air as his cramped chest would accommodate.
Emotion burned in his eyes and he closed them tight.
What the hell had he been thinking, coming back here?
He couldn’t make these people see how wrong they had been.
Ray had warned him that digging around in the past wouldn’t help. Maybe he’d been right.
But how could Clint go on with his life without setting the record straight?
He’d paid big-time for someone else’s crime; he could live with that.
His mother had gone to her grave with this ugliness hanging over her head.
She’d called herself a failure. Had told Clint over and over that this wasn’t his fault . . . it was hers.
That he couldn’t live with.
Goddamn it! He clenched his fists at his sides, and it was all he could do to restrain the desire to get in his car and drive straight to Troy Baker’s house. Then Keith Turner’s. Then, one by one, to each of their friends’ homes.
Ray joined him on the porch, but Clint refused to look at him.
Clint just wanted the man to go. He didn’t want to talk right now.
He didn’t even want to think. What he really wanted, considering pounding heads was not a viable option, was to get drunker than hell and escape this whole shitty reality.
But that would only shatter his control and right now control was everything.
“Emily didn’t have anything to do with this, Clint,” Ray urged. “I hope you believe that. She’s just doing the only thing she can to assuage the hurt driving her. She doesn’t mean any real harm.”
Clint laughed out loud. Like hell she didn’t mean any harm. She’d made her intentions abundantly clear. She wanted him back in Holman or dead, whichever came first.
“That’s the one thing,” Clint countered, “that’s perfectly clear in all this.” He turned to Ray, looked him dead in the eye. “I know exactly what Emily Wallace wants from me.”