Chapter 24 #2
She nodded, relief loosening her shoulders. “Good. That’s good. She deserves that. She really likes you too, you know?”
I smiled at her, my chest feeling almost uncomfortably warm. “Yeah, honey, I know. And I’m thrilled.”
“Dad never did that,” she said strangely, in a voice so quiet I almost missed it.
My brain went on alert. I put my hands on the counter and leaned into them, giving Blythe my full attention. “Never did what, sweetheart?”
Her eyes had been downcast, staring at the counter like it was the most interesting thing she’d ever seen. But when she spoke next, she lifted her head and met my gaze head-on. “Poured a glass of wine for her. Honestly, he never really did much of anything.”
A voice in the back of my head screamed at me that something wasn’t right. According to Nona, Blythe had been back to her normal self the past couple of weeks. I’d seen it myself, so I knew she was right, but what I was witnessing now was more than just unsettling. “Blythe, is something wrong?”
She chewed on her bottom lip in a way I’d seen her mother do a number of times. “Could you, um… do you think you could maybe talk to her? About my dad?”
“What about him?”
“Well, um, I don’t… I don’t want to go back. Like ever.” Christ. “Do you think you could tell her that? That I don’t want to go back?”
That voice turned into blaring warning sirens, and I knew I needed to tread very carefully. “All right, darlin’. I’m not sayin’ no, but I need you to tell me why you want me to talk to her about that first, yeah?”
The anxiety rolled off her and slammed into me with the force of a tidal wave. “It’s… I just… I don’t want to get him in trouble, but—”
“You can trust me, Blythe. I promise.”
Her eyes grew glassy, like she was battling to fight back tears. “You’re a police officer, so you have to protect people, right?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“And i-if I tell you something, it’s your job to, like, investigate it?”
My fingers pressed harder into the marble until my knuckles turned white. “Yes.”
“So, if I told you I saw a man at my dad’s house, and this man gave me a bad feeling, you’d look into it?”
Fuck me. I was suddenly overcome with the desire to wring Christian Fanning’s neck. “Tell me about this guy, and you have my word I’ll look into it. You have nothing to be scared of sweetheart. There’s no way in hell I’ll let anything happen to you, your brother, or your mom.”
That seemed to settle her nerves, and she started from the beginning.
However, the longer she talked, the more my stomach sank.
“Last time we were at Dad’s, he took off, saying he had to handle some business.
I thought it was kinda weird ’cause last I knew, he didn’t even have a job.
But he was gone all night. I was kinda freaked, you know?
I mean, Dad’s place isn’t in the best part of town, and I know I’m old enough to stay home by myself, but I didn’t like doing that there.
And I didn’t like not knowing when he’d be back.
“Anyway, I tried calling him a bunch of times, but he never answered, so Tris and I ordered a pizza and watched some movies. Tris finally passed out, but I wasn’t able to. I heard Dad’s truck pull up really late. And I went to look out the window.”
“And then?” I pushed when she went quiet on me.
“Another car had pulled in behind him,” she whispered, lowering her head and staring at the counter once more.
“I’d never seen the guy before, but he gave me a bad vibe, you know?
Like, he totally creeped me out. He got outta the car and was yelling at Dad.
They were kinda far away, so I couldn’t hear everything, but like I said, he was yelling, so I got bits and pieces. ”
It took an act of God to keep my tone neutral as I asked, “What did you hear?”
“He said Dad owed him,” she admitted. “He said something about vouching for him and it coming back to bite him in the ass—” she finished on a whisper.
“Did you hear anything else?”
“Well, they started arguing, and then he told Dad that he better pay him back what he owes him. He said it just like that. Then the guy punched him in the face. Hard.” She stopped and sniffed back her tears.
“Three times. Dad hit the ground, and the guy got back in his car and took off. That was it.”
Needing a moment to get my anger in check, I pulled in a breath and slowly counted to three before asking, “Did you get a good look at the car?”
She shook her head in defeat. “No. It was really late, so it was super dark. I only saw the guy ’cause he and Dad were standing under one of the only lights in the parking lot that worked.”
“And you say you didn’t recognize him.”
“Not at all,” she confirmed, shaking her head insistently. “He was totally skeevy. Like, none of my friends’ dads look like him. He was a bad guy. I don’t know how I know that. I just do. It was the feeling he gave me.”
“All right, Blythe. So what happened next?”
“Well, that was it. Dad came inside a little while later, and I pretended like I was asleep. I-I didn’t want him to know I’d been awake.
Tris flipped when he saw the bruises the next morning, but Dad lied and told us that he got up in the middle of the night for a glass of water and accidentally walked into the door. ”
Rounding the island, I moved close to Blythe, noticing the way she’d been holding herself tense, and placed my hands on her shoulders just like I would do with Hannah.
“Okay, darlin’, here’s the deal. You trusted me with that, and I don’t take that lightly, but I hope you understand why I can’t keep this from your mom. ”
“I do,” she answered with a nod. “I totally get it, and I know I should have told her myself, but….”
“You know I have the capability of taking care of it, whereas your mom doesn’t, and you didn’t want to risk her doing something that could get her hurt.”
“Exactly,” she whispered, her wide eyes growing watery as she looked up at me.
“I’ll take care of this, Blythe. I don’t want you to give this another thought, all right?”
“O-okay.”
“You trust me?”
She sniffled and rubbed beneath her nose with the back of her hand. “Yeah, Trick. I trust you.”
“So you trust that I’ll handle this? That you’ve got nothing to worry about?”
“Y-yes, sir.”
I wasn’t sure if it was the right move, but I pulled her into my arms, needing to hug her, needing to give her every bit of strength that I could leach from my bones. I quickly discovered that it was the right move when she wrapped her arms tightly around my waist and squeezed with all her might.
“Everything okay in here?”
At the sound of Nona’s voice, Blythe and I broke apart. Nona’s eyes were pinned to her daughter as she wiped a tear away.
“Yeah, beautiful,” I answered on Blythe’s behalf. “But you and I need to talk.”
She kept her gaze on her daughter, those turquoise eyes filling with worry. “Blythe? Honey?”
Blythe whispered, “It’s okay now.” And with that, she grabbed her bottled water and walked out of the kitchen, trusting me to give the story to her mom, and to do it with care.