It had been real.She’d done it.Panic tickled at the base of his throat.What thehell?
She chose that time to pick up the pen, balanced the pad in her lap.She made thathummingnoise she’d made this summer.Not the same lullaby that had haunted him since, thank God, but humming nonetheless.
Cal wanted to get up and run, hard and fast.Far, far, far away.But he was rooted to the spot.She’d saidwords.All this time, all these years… she’d never…
She held up her paper.In shaky handwriting, she’d printedComes and goes.
Comes and goes.Her speech?Her humming?Only choosing to do those things aroundhimrather than the granddaughter she presumably loved?He didn’t buy it.Wouldn’t.
“My ass, Glenda.”
She sent him another disapproving look but put the pad back in her lap and began to write.She took her time, no doubt her shaky writing was aftereffects from the stroke, but it made everything she wrote feel that much more threatening.
She held up the writing this time, and it took Cal a minute to decipher it.The detective asked about a man Sam’s helping.
Cal was still floored by Glendasaying words, but themanSam was helping could only be the case Nate was concerned was going to connect to the Bennets.To Dad.A man who looked like… them.
“Why was he asking you about that?”Cal demanded.
What would Glenda have to do with it?How did the detective know about it?Had Sam told him?
Glenda shook her head.Wrote her next sentence slowly.He didn’t breathe, just listened to the uneven scratching of pen on paper.Until she held it up.
You need to get him far away from here.
Him.The guy Nate said looked like them.Cal started to see spots, realized he wasn’t breathing right.So focused on that.
Over her speaking.Over saying the guy Sam was helping needed to go.Over Detective Hayes being involved in this.
“Christ, Glenda, what do youknow?”
She shook her head and got to her feet.She started to walk away, leaving him breathless and speechless.Lost.Another twist and turn to this interminable hell of a year.
But he heard her odd, faint, scratchy voice again.Like a ghost.“Don’t tell.”
An old memory skittered across his consciousness.The flash of something.Those words and Glenda’s voice.Here then gone.His mind rejecting it.Everything in him rejecting it.
His stomach roiled, threatened to revolt.
Glenda turned, stared at him.Then she walked over to him.He could only stare at her right back, maybe like shewasthat ghost in all those stories people liked to tell about her.
She put her hand on his head, gently.Maternally even.She didn’t say anything else.Didn’t write anything else.Just let the touch linger.
Then walked away.
Chapter Fourteen
Honor’s Edge Investigations Office
Sam hovered somewherebetween asleep and awake.It was just so warm, so comfortable.But it was bright in her room, brighter than it should be.Had she set her alarm last night?Was she going to be late…
Last… night.
She felt the bed move, dip, then go back to the way it was.Like someone—someone not her—had gotten out of it.
For a moment, she just lay very still, eyes remaining closed.Because in this very bright light of day, she was going to have to faceallthose choices she’d made last night.She had no idea how.
Maybe you should have thought of that last night?
