Chapter 38
Kace
Sully and I head back to the house around six a.m. the following morning. We searched the island from top to bottom but didn't see them.
The cops are on the lookout for them, but since Madi left on her own with her mother, they said there was little they could do.
"Hey, look. Is that her?" Sully asks in an incredulous tone.
Pam gets out the moment Sully's truck tires hit the gravel, and I stare at the stranger my sister's become.
Always the wild child, the years of hard living are carved into her face.
The drinking, smoking. The endless rotation of cheating men who never stick around long because, even if they do, she winds up cheating on them.
"Where is she?" Pam demands.
For a half second, I can't hear anything past the rush in my ears.
Madi is missing, Dani is terrified, and now the woman who trained that fear into her is standing in my driveway acting as though she's the injured party.
"I can't believe you have the nerve to show up here. You threatened to take Dani?"
"You're trying to take my kid!"
"I'm trying to give her a stable home—something you've never done! Don't you think Mads deserves that for once in her life?"
"Where is she?"
I pull back, blinking at the question. "She left with you. How about you tell me where she is?"
Pam crosses her arms over her chest and glares at me and Sully.
"She left."
"What do you mean?"
"I stopped for gas and cigarettes, and that ungrateful little brat took off!"
"Took off where?" I demand.
"With you? I figured she called you to come get her."
I feel the blood drain from my face and curse. "She didn't."
"She's been out there somewhere all night by herself?" Sully asks, glaring at Pam. "Doesn't that give you a hint about your mothering skills that she'd prefer that to you?"
I pull out my phone and fire off a text, letting the guys and our cop friends know Madi ran away from her mom after making sure Dani was safe. When I look back up, Pam is wiping tears from her face.
"Don't. You can't treat Mads this way and then act like you care. Not after dumping her like you did."
"I needed some space."
"What's his name?" I ask.
The expression that crosses her face tells me it doesn't matter. He's just a guy, like all the others. "If you want to do something to prove you love Madi, sign over guardianship. Give her to me."
"She's my kid."
"She is. But she needs more than you can give her, and you know it," I say softly, trying to appeal to something, anything, inside of her that will see truth.
"Sign the guardianship papers so we can get the word out that she can come back here and stay for good.
It doesn't mean you lose contact," I stress when she immediately opens her mouth as though to protest. "It means she stays here and goes to school and has stability.
If you force Madi to go with you again, she's just going to keep running away.
And in a year's time? You won't have control over her anyway, and she'll hold even more animosity toward you than she has now. "
Pam's lips and chin tremble, and she looks everywhere but at me.
"It's just so hard, being single and having a kid."
"I know."
"I've tried to be a good mom. It's just hard."
I understand. I really do. The emotional weight and toll of being a single parent feels too much to bear at times.
"You can be a good mom now by letting her go.
That girl has so much potential, and a lot of it is because of how you've raised her, Pam.
" I leave it at that. It's not quite a compliment, but it is the truth.
"A good mom will do what's best for her kid.
Even if it means giving the kid some distance.
You know she'll be safe here. Can you say the same when she has to deal with the men you have coming into her life? "
"I stop seeing anyone who makes moves on her. Did she say I don't? Because I do."
My heart breaks a little more. Nobody deserved that kind of treatment.
"She didn't say anything about that to me.
But come on, Pam. Think about what you just said.
You both deserve better. Madi definitely deserves better.
Let me help. Let me have Mads while you get yourself together and back on track. "
"How is she better off with you? You nearly got yourself killed," she says, waving a hand at my leg.
"Not anymore. I'm changing jobs," I say, deciding right at that moment that I am taking the position of deputy chief. I'm all in. It's the least I can do for my girls. And my future with them. "I'll be training new recruits, doing admin stuff. No more fires."
"But you love that stuff. You said you'd never give it up. Mom begged you, remember?"
"I remember," I say, recalling the time when I was about twenty and so hyped on adrenaline after my first real fire; I'd run my mouth until my poor mom was fighting off tears.
"I guess it's taken me a while to realize there are some things that are more important.
The girls are more important. I don't have to fight fires to prove my worth or what kind of man I am.
But I do have to be here for Dani. And I can be here for Mads, too. "
I stand there, waiting for her answer. Watching the play of emotions cross her face. Pain and sadness, regret and worry. Fear. But is it fear of letting Madi go? Or fear of being alone and having to face herself in the mirror? "Pam…"
"Okay," she says in a low voice. "Fine."
"You'll sign the papers?"
"She'll still always be my kid."
I nod. "I know."
"She shouldn't have run away," she says, throat thick with tears. "Where is she?"
Her tears might be real, but so is the fact Madi is still missing.