Page 18 of Scarred Trust

“Me? How are there memories of me in here?”

“I told you that you studied with me. Sometimes the only way my brother and I could study in the same room together was to have our headphones on, and your music was with me. I even listened to it going to sleep sometimes if I was too revved up from a game or something and needed to quiet down.”

“No pictures of naked girls all over your walls? I'm surprised. Or did your mom redo everything?”

“Nope, my brother and I were never into that. We did a lot of the sports stuff. I guess Mom and Dad thought it was disrespectful of women, and my brother and I believed the same thing.”

“Did you just have pictures up of all the girls you dated?”

“Have you ever heard this story of someone trying a lot of things because they couldn't find the one thing that they wanted or that they couldn't have the one thing they really wanted?”

“I think a lot of people do that.”

“It was no different for me.”

“Did you ever find that person?”

“Yeah. And she's pretty amazing.”

“Come on down, you two. Dinner's ready.”

“Aww, Mom,” they laughed at some memory they shared.

“Mmm, what smells so good?” I asked, entering the dining room with Wes.

"Ooh, I like her. You can bring her back,” Jackie told Wes. “It's just a simple chicken dish, sweetie. My mama taught me, and her mama taught her and so on and so forth.”

“I can't wait to try it,” I said, helping to carry dishes and platters of food into the dining room. Wes filled glasses with water and wine. He pulled a chair out for me across from his mom and then sat next to me.

“Wes tells me you do a fair share of cooking too.”

“Only for the pub, really. I don't have a kitchen of my own, but I help whenever they need me, or I can't sleep, since I live over the pub. I make bread for the day or some broths for the stews.

“Yeah, but she's not so good at roasting the meat.”

“That was one time! Are you going to hold that over my head forever?”

“Oh absolutely! That was a joy to see you standing on that table, so I had to scoop you off of it. Best day of my life!”

“You're incorrigible.”

“I think it might be more than that.” Jackie’s gaze shifted from Wes to me, like she knew something that we didn't. “Wes also said you were helping with some of his research.” I bit my lip, not knowing exactly how to proceed.

“Mama, you remember I told you that Cate's working at ABS?”

“Right. That's got to be risky for you, working there and doing research on these cases. Why would you gamble such a high-profile job like that?”

“I became a lawyer to help people like my parents, but it might turn out that I'm working for the very people who are trying to get rid of places like the pub. I need to know the truth.”

“You know you can walk away from this at any time.”

“What? From you? From the case? I don't think so.”

“I told you that it is always your choice and I’ll support you in whatever it is.”

“What about you, Wes? You could walk away too. Aren't you taking a huge risk? Probably just as much as me.”

“That's true, Wes. Your boss said that he keeps asking you to drop this before you anger the wrong people. It's not gonna bring anybody back.”