Page 25 of Honest Neglect

“Okay,” I murmured, and I backed out of the room as quickly as I had entered it, my cheeks burning. I wasn’t sure why, but feeling myself under the gaze of that many people had kind of freaked me out. I had just gotten used to being around Leroy and Grace, after all, and seeing so many men I didn’t know in the house spooked me slightly.

But at least it explained why Grace was making so much food. I came back to the kitchen to find Silver gnawing happily on a sausage on the floor while Grace started to serve up the food.

“They’re friends of Leroy’s,” she explained. “I think they’re here to help.”

“Right,” I replied, eyeing the plates already covering the dining room table. “You need some help with that? Seems like you’re dealing with a lot...”

“That would be great,” she agreed as she dried off her hands on her apron. “I can’t remember the last time I cooked for so many people. Can you get the coffee pot on? That would be a big help...”

I gave her a hand as she finished off this huge breakfast, and soon everyone had come out of the office to eat, the smell of bacon and eggs tempting them through to the kitchen. Warren slipped down beside me, reaching under the table to give Silver a pat, but he didn’t say anything about what had been happening in there.

We ate, and the men took their leave. Once they were gone, I turned to Leroy and Warren expectantly.

“So? What were you guys talking about in there?” I demanded. I needed to know. I hated being left out of the loop.

“The most important thing for you to know is that we’re going back to Oakville,” Warren replied, and my eyebrows nearly shot off the top of my head as he spoke.

“I’m sorry, what did you just say?” I demanded. He reached for my hand, wrapping his fingers around mine.

“We’ve been doing some talking, trying to figure out the best approach to all of this,” he explained. “And I think—we all think—that we need to go and show face back in Oakville again to make sure that Tony and his father know they’re not going to get away with intimidating us. People are already starting to believe the gossip about us, and I don’t want to give them any reason to think they should.”

“The gossip?” I whispered.

“That I killed all those girls,” he replied, his face darkening. “And with what Mark was going to do to you...I can only imagine he was going to try and pin your murder on me, too.”

I hadn’t even thought of that. It was a chilling thing to consider. Warren, the one man I really cared about, being painted as a killer? When Tony had been the one tormenting me all this time? It made a lot of sense. They had let Warren get close to me, let people see us together, and it would be all too easy for the community to believe that Warren had been the one to get rid of me.

“Hey, hey,” Warren murmured, cupping my chin in his hand when he saw how much that had gotten to me. “Both of us know that would never happen. Right?”

“Right,” I managed, shakily. I wasn’t in their grasp now, and that was all that mattered. No matter how close I might have come to losing my life, they hadn’t actually managed to pull it off, and I would never let them get that near to me again.

“I’m going to leave you to talk,” Leroy told us as he got to his feet and held out his hand to Grace. She took it, and they left the room. Warren stared at me as he waited for me to react.

“I don’t know if I can go back there, Warren,” I whispered, shaking my head. “I don’t know if I would ever feel safe there again...”

“I know,” Warren replied. “I know. I know it’s not easy for you. It’s not easy for me, either, seeing you like this—thinking about what people might believe about me back there. Knowing how easy it was for them to spin those stories about us...”

He shook his head.

“But this is the only way we’re going to be able to make Oakville safe again,” he reminded me. “And I know that’s what you want. For your mom, for Silver, for yourself. You deserve to be able to live there without constantly looking over your shoulder, wondering when the next bad thing is going to happen. I want to take that weight from your shoulders, and this is the best way to do it.”

I was still trembling, but I managed to nod. I couldn’t speak, at least not yet, but I didn’t need to.

“And we have important plans back in Oakville, too,” he continued.

“We do?”

“Marcy’s father agreed to meet with us,” he explained. “One of Leroy’s friends who works in the state his daughter was found in was able to put him in touch with us. He doesn’t live in Oakville anymore, but he’s willing to come down there to see us and figure out if there’s anything he can do to help move his daughter’s case along. He doesn’t believe I did it—he remembered what Tony was like. He said he was the first person he thought of when he found out Marcy had gone missing, but he just didn’t have the evidence to take it to the cops, so he had to let it go.”

The thought stung. I couldn’t imagine how hard it had been for him to just step back and let his daughter’s killer roam free, given what had happened to her. And to have to face up to the reality of her death, with her body turning up the way it had—it must have been a nightmare, every part of it.

“You really think they would have killed me and pinned it on you?” I blurted out before I could stop myself. I just couldn’t stop torturing myself with that horrifying thought, no matter how much it made me want to bring up the breakfast I’d just eaten.

“We don’t have to talk about that—”

“I want to,” I told him. “I want to know exactly what you think might have happened.”

He eyed me for a moment and then nodded.