Chapter 21 #2
Brian snapped instantly and responded with a fast, aggressive grab of Dylan’s hoodie, right at the chest. He yanked him forward violently. I got knocked aside in the scuffle, stumbling back into the counter.
“Stop it!” I shouted, but it was too late. Things happened so fast. I couldn’t even tell who moved first. They both slammed into the kitchen counter, arms locked and legs shoving. The toaster crashed to the floor. A mug exploded near my feet.
“Stop it!” I screamed again.
That’s when Dylan dropped low and used some wrestler move from the school wrestling team. He hooked Brian’s leg, twisted hard, and sent him crashing to the floor.
“Don’t ever talk about Mom like that again, you asshole!” he screamed, his face tomato red, tears streaking down his cheeks.
Brian was back up almost immediately. He grabbed Dylan with both hands, then flung him across the kitchen effortlessly. Dylan slammed into the kitchen table, its legs scraping loudly against the floor as it slid and tilted, nearly flipping over.
Brian charged again and got on top of Dylan, both fists gripping his sweater.
“I hate you!” Dylan screamed, not even fighting back anymore. “I fucking hate you so much!” He shouted like the words were burning their way out of his broken heart.
“Get off of him!” I grabbed Brian from behind. I yanked with all I had. It felt like this was all his fault. And none of it, at the same time.
“Daddy, no!” A high-pitched screech echoed through the room like shattering glass. Lila stood in the doorway. Her face was frozen in absolute terror.
Ethan was right next to her, crying already, wide-eyed and shaking. Both of them stared like they didn’t recognize us anymore.
Something clicked, and Brian seemed to come back to himself. The anger drained from his twisted face, replaced by shock and shame. He looked down at Dylan like he hadn’t realized what he was doing until just now. Then he let go and rose to his feet fast.
“Don’t hurt Dylan!” Lila cried.
Ethan ran to me full speed and crashed into my arms. I caught him with one arm and dropped down to my knees beside Dylan, pulling him into the other. Lila came running too.
I held all three of them, trying to pull the broken pieces together.
“I’m so sorry—” Brian started.
“Get out!” I yelled.
Everybody was crying. The kids. Dylan. Brian. Me.
“I’m so sorry.” Brian sniffled again. Then left.
“I hate him,” Dylan sobbed.
“Don’t say that,” I countered gently. Not for Brian’s sake—for the kids. So they wouldn’t lose their father too. So they wouldn’t carry that hate on top of everything else.
“How can he say that about mom?” Dylan cried harder. “I hate him!”
“He’s hurt,” I said, rocking all three of them like they were babies again. “Because he loves her so much. And he’s not as strong as you. And what he said about your mom isn’t true. I know it.”
I nodded, firm. This conviction was rooted deep in my gut.
“And I can tell you why it’s not true,” I added.
A memory surfaced. Lacey when she was little, preparing my birthday breakfast as a surprise. The whole kitchen was a mess. The eggs literally on fire on the stove. A card that said “I love you with all my heart” on the table.
“Before I became a mom,” I said, brushing a tear from Dylan’s cheek, “I thought I understood what love was. Everyone tells you how much you will love your kids. And you think you get it. You think you know.”
I looked down at Dylan, still holding him. “But then you have a child. And that love—it’s … indescribable. It consumes you. It fills every part of you. It’s so much more than you thought it would be. It’s terrifying. You just can’t grasp how it’s even possible to love someone so much.”
I paused, swallowing the knot in my throat.
“And when you love like that, that person becomes a part of you. Like your skin. And you know them better than you know yourself. I swear I know your mother. And she didn’t do this. She didn’t. I know my child.”
I let that moment sit. It calmed us all. A little.
Dylan nodded. So did I. A slow, tired nod between two people who had nothing left to give but love.
“And you want to know something else?” I added in a soft voice. “I was blessed with that special kind of love all over again when your mom had you. When I became a grandma.”
I squeezed them tighter, Ethan still buried in my side.
“I felt that same endless, bright, terrifying love consume me all over again when each of you was born. Every time. All three of you. It just swallowed me whole.”
My chest burned with a mix of everything—grief, love, panic, hope. It hurt to breathe.
We just sat there. The four of us. Sniffling. Holding on to each other like the world might break apart if we didn’t.
But despite everything I’d just said, despite the warmth in my voice and my arms around them, this was still rock bottom.
I wondered if Lacey was crying right now too. In that cold cell. All alone. Dying of cancer. Innocent.
I had to get her out.
The kids needed her.
By God, Brian needed her.
And even if we only got a few more years with her, at least we’d be together again for a little while.
It wouldn’t be perfect. But nothing would be worse than her dying in jail for a murder she didn’t commit. The kids never getting to see her again. Never getting to say good-bye. Never getting to know the truth. That their mom wasn’t a murderer.
I had to find this man.
He had something to do with all this. I knew it.
I just had to prove it.
* * *
It was two thirty in the morning when the back door to the kitchen rattled.
I sat on the couch, the TV flickering in front of me. My gaze had been empty, staring straight through the screen.
Keys scraped the lock. A clumsy pause. Then the lock finally clicked, and the door opened.
Brian stumbled in.
His boots dragged over the floor like he was a zombie. That alone already told me enough. His unsteady steps as he wandered into the living room sealed it.
Brian was completely hammered.
He made his way toward me, slow and swaying, as if the floor was uneven. Then he stopped in front of me and pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his pants. It smelled like cigarettes and cheap booze. He held it out like it was a diamond.
I took it without a word.
A name and address were scrawled in smeared ink:
Billy Dustin
36556 Moonlight Drive
Peabody
The second I read it, my spine straightened. My eyes shot up to meet his, which were now half-lidded and glassy.
“Can …” he slurred, lips heavy, “can you tell Dylan I gave you that? So he knows it was me who helped … you know … getting Lacey back home.”
I nodded. “I will.”
“This could be dangerous, you know.”
I knew that. After everything had calmed down tonight, I’d done nothing but think about that. Turning it over and over in my head.
If this brought me closer to the real killer, there was a chance he’d come for me.
“I won’t do anything unless I know it won’t put the kids in danger,” I promised.
And I meant it.
I had a plan. One with no second chances. And if it didn’t work, then that would be it. The end of the road. I’d give up before putting the kids in danger.
Brian stared at me another long moment. His eyelids closed and opened slowly. Then he turned and made his way toward the stairs—and, of course, fell.
I was up in an instant and grabbed him under the arm.
“Why don’t you take the couch?” I said, hoisting him back upright. He usually took the couch anyway, and I took the bed upstairs. Just not tonight. Tonight, I was sleeping on the couch, waiting for him.
I guided him over, and he collapsed onto the couch like a boulder. Passed out before he’d even taken his shoes off.
I pulled them off, one, then the other, then tucked the blanket around him. He didn’t move.
With a sigh, I turned to go upstairs. But then his voice came low and slurred behind me. Barely more than a mumble.
“I love her,” he said into the pillows. “And a love like that can destroy a man like me.”
I turned back to him.
There he lay, all six foot four of him, sprawled across a couch too short for his body.
His feet dangled over the edge like a child’s.
Even drunk, even wrecked, he still looked like the kind of man women would line up to ruin themselves for.
That jawline. That body. The way he could talk to a stranger like they were already best friends.
When Brian was in a good place, you wanted to be locked in a cave with him. Everyone did.
But when he wasn’t in a good place, which was most of the time …
“I love her,” he muttered again, barely audible now.
“I know,” I said quietly.
I did believe him. But a loving heart can still be a weak and selfish one. That was Brian’s fatal flaw. He couldn’t conquer even the smallest battles in life. Not without Lacey by his side doing everything for him like he was her fourth child.
And a man like that could wreck a family from the inside out.
Then it dawned on me.
If Lacey didn’t make it back—if this whole thing ended the wrong way—it wouldn’t be her who destroyed us.
It’d be him.
And standing here, smelling the booze as it filled the room, I couldn’t help but resent him for that.
“Sleep now,” I said, already walking halfway to the stairs when I heard him mumble one last thing. His voice was warped with alcohol and barely audible, but I thought I heard him say, “I swear … both of them. I love … them both.”