Page 33 of Honest Neglect

I heard footsteps outside the door and looked up, thinking it was Warren—but then saw Silver standing there, giving me that big, goofy grin I couldn’t resist.

“All right, come on up,” I whispered to her, patting the bed. I would need the company until Warren got here. He would probably be up for a little longer, planning what to do next.

And I guessed I should do the same thing. There was so much I had to think about, so much I had to consider, and I knew the sooner I started work, the sooner this would be over.

But it wasn’t like I could look at all of this logically from the outside. Beyond even just what had happened to me, I had met so many women who had been victim to this man over the years. So many women who had similarly struggled under his iron grip. So many of those women who were now relying on me to keep them safe.

I didn’t know if I could do that. I had known, on some level, that Mark and his father were capable of something like this, but at the same time, being faced with the reality was something else entirely. They had killed a woman and used her body as part of their sick, twisted games. I couldn’t promise any of the women who had so bravely come to me that I could save them from the same fate.

Perhaps Leroy was right—we couldn’t take prisoners when it came to bringing this man to justice. Even if it was hard, even if it would flip our entire lives upside down, we had to be willing to see this through. I thought of Marcy in her new life, who probably had no idea any of this was going on. She’d likely changed her name, started over, and left it all behind. She had no idea that there was a body lying in a morgue somewhere that was supposed to be her—and that if Tony and Mark had found her, she might well have been the one who had replaced her. We were about to walk in and throw her world into chaos, and I hoped she was ready for it.

I hoped I was ready for it, too. But then, when had I ever been ready for any of this? Meeting Tony had thrown me into the deep end, and I’d had no choice but to just keep up as best I could. This was no different.

I heard Warren coming up the stairs and smiled and sat up. He grinned at me from the doorway.

“You still up?”

“Mm-hmm,” I replied, reaching out my arms for him. As he came toward me, I could feel the tension leaking from my body. When I was around him, I could just relax.

And get the rest I so desperately needed.

Chapter Nineteen

Warren

––––––––

“I DON’T KNOW IF THIS is a good idea,” Lily muttered to me, her eyes wide as we sat in the car in front of the store. I reached over to give her hand a squeeze.

“You belong here as much as anyone else does,” I told her firmly. “This is your town. Don’t let whatever lies they’ve spread about us get in the way of that.”

She took a deep breath, but it was a shaky one. Much as she might have wanted to put forward the idea that she was fine with this, I could tell from the way she carried herself that she was terrified. It was just a trip to the grocery store to pick up some stuff for her mom, and I had insisted that Lily and I do it together. I wanted us to show our faces and let everyone see that the twisted games the McCarthy family had been playing with us weren’t going to stick.

We climbed out of the car, and Lily took hold of my hand, clinging to it like it was the only thing keeping her above ground. Inside, the store seemed to go quiet as soon as we stepped into it, as though everyone knew what was going on—and they weren’t afraid to let us know.

“We should just leave,” Lily muttered, lowering her gaze to the ground. “We shouldn’t be here. It’s too much...”

“No, it isn’t,” I promised her. “It’s going to be fine. Come on, we need to pick up that stuff for your mom. She’s going to be pissed if we don’t get it back to her.”

She managed to smile. “I guess you’re right,” she agreed as though she wished she didn’t have to come out and say it out loud. We made our way through the store, filling up the cart, and I felt the hairs on the back of my neck prickling as people stared at us. I was sure they had a million questions and had jumped to all kinds of conclusions about what we were doing here, just why we had come out, and what we were trying to prove.

We paid and stepped outside, and Lily hurried back to the car, her head down and her shoulders hunched up to her ears. I couldn’t let her go around like this. I needed to do something to help, to try and show her she had nothing to worry about.

I took the wheel, and instead of steering the car back toward her mom’s place, I took a turn and began down the road to a diner at the other side of town. She glanced at me in confusion.

“Where are we going?”

“I thought we could get something to eat,” I explained. She shook her head at once.

“We’re already pushing it staying out this long,” she replied. “I can’t go out to the diner. People will talk...”

“People are going to talk anyway,” I pointed out, cocking an eyebrow at her. “You might as well get some good pancakes in the meantime.”

She chewed her lip, clearly doubtful about the proposal, but then, finally, she let out a breath and nodded.

“Okay,” she replied. “I’ll do it. But if there’s any trouble...”

“Then I’ll kick its ass,” I promised her, bringing her hand to my lips to plant a kiss on it. I needed her to know I was completely on her side here, and I wasn’t going to let anything get in the way of what we had – not what anyone thought of us, not what they had to say about us, none of it. It was only a matter of time before the truth was truly exposed, anyway, and I couldn’t wait to see the look on everyone’s faces when they realized how wrong they had been to judge us.