Page 16 of Honest Neglect

“I don’t want you to start planning anything without me there,” I told him.

“We won’t,” he promised. “We just have some catching up to do. Okay?”

He planted a kiss on my temple, and I swallowed down a lump in my throat. It was times like this I found the hardest, when we shared these little moments of tenderness and I saw everything we could have had if Tony hadn’t forced his way back into my life. We could have just shared this, this closeness, without the threat of something terrible happening every time we turned around.

But we would get there. I had to believe that we would get there because, if I didn’t, I felt like I might fall apart entirely. I just wanted to be with him, but that had to be motivation enough to keep me pushing on.

“You go,” I told him. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

He nodded, and he and Leroy headed to the other room so they could talk. I stared at the door as Leroy closed it behind him, and wished I could have followed them in there.

“Here, I made a cup for you, too,” Grace told me as she pushed a mug of tea at me. I swore, this woman would try to fix anything with tea. But hey, it wasn’t the worst idea. I reached for the mug and smiled at her in thanks.

Mom was still trembling in the seat next to me. I put my hand on her shoulder gently.

“Mom, are you okay?”

“No,” she replied. “I just had to sit in that courtroom and listen to them read off these charges against Warren.”

“He had a court date today?” I gasped. “How did it go?”

“Well, they didn’t send him down,” she replied. “But the whole case was a farce, and everyone could see it. They just had to entertain it because those awful McCarthy men force them to.” She shook her head. “I knew there were some dark parts to this place, but I suppose I just didn’t want to see how dark they got.”

“Who did they try to pin on him?” I asked. Mark had mentioned that girl Marcy to me as part of the case, but surely, if the police had the evidence he claimed, Warren would have been in prison right now.

“I don’t know the names of all the girls,” Mom replied, shaking her head. “But there was one, Marcy, I think her name was? That was a case that went back quite a while.”

“Oh, shit,” I gasped, putting my head in my hands. So Mark had been telling the truth about that. He had really tried to convince the world that Warren would have done something so evil and so twisted. But how had Marcy died, and why was her case different from the others?

“What do you mean, a case that went back a while?” I pressed.

“I’m not sure of the details. I just heard local gossip, and you know that’s far from reliable,” she replied. “They said it was a missing person’s case a few years ago, a girl around your age who went missing. Nothing ever came of it, but a few weeks ago, they said they found a body.”

I sucked in a sharp breath. So, that was the body Mark must have planted fingerprints on. The cops hadn’t filed that evidence yet, for whatever reason—probably because it was obviously faked, but I couldn’t be sure—and that was why he had walked.

It was so sick for Tony to bring one of his victims into this and pin it on Warren. I was sure he’d been the one behind the death of that innocent woman, and he wanted to pretend like Warren was the one out of the two of them capable of such evil. I would get justice for this woman. I would make sure of it. After all she had been through, in life and after it, that was the least I could do for her.

“So how did he get off?” I asked. “Why did they let him walk? Those are some big charges to just turn away from.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Mom replied. “But he was overseas, serving at the time, and that’s about as solid an alibi as you can get. They’re probably still looking into him, but hopefully being knocked back once will be enough to get the McCarthys to back off for a while.”

“I hope so,” I sighed. I wondered how many people in Oakville actually believed Warren was capable of such a thing. He was pretty solitary, from what I understood, so they might not know him the way I did. They might not see the same sweetness in him, that same search for justice and truth that I could see him dedicating his life to.

“These men? I just can’t understand why they’re so determined to do this to you,” Grace told us, shaking her head. “It’s evil. The extents they’re willing to go to? I can’t even imagine how hard it must be for you.”

“I’m lucky,” Mom replied, reaching for my hand. “I have her. I wouldn’t be able to do it if I didn’t know I had her to turn to when things were getting difficult.”

I smiled at her. “And I have you,” I murmured back, giving her hand a tight squeeze.

“And Silver,” Mom added, making us all laugh.

“Speaking of,” Grace remarked. “I think I’m going to go out back and see how the patient’s doing. You want to come with me, Diane?”

“I’d love to,” Mom replied.

“You need a hand?” I offered, getting to my feet at once.

“I can manage it,” Mom replied, lifting a hand to stop me in my tracks. “I’m not that bad yet.”