CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Layla
“What happened?” I set my purse and keys down on our kitchen table. I rushed straight home from the meeting with my high school guidance counselor when I heard my mother was at the hospital. She stands and hugs me, moving her arm in its cast carefully.
“It’s nothing, baby, I tripped. You know how clumsy I am.” She tucks a lock of her dark hair behind her ear. My mom is still very pretty and youthful in her forties, which comes from walking every single day and never sitting still. She’s always involved with something at church or in the community.
A heavy sigh leaves me as I watch her face, because my mom isn’t clumsy at all.
“Tell me how it happened.” My eyes narrow as I wait for her response, because I know somehow it washim.She had a different injury like this the last time my dad came home from the track after having too much to drink, when he was angry at her for donating to the church roast beef dinner without asking him. A fucking double standard, since he throws money away at the track without ever discussing it with her. “Tell me Dad wasn’t there and you weren’t fighting when you ‘tripped.’” I put air quotesaround the last word and she just looks up at me. Her brown eyes are filled with a deep sort of longing. A longing to tellsomeonethe truth that we both know but never say.
“We were … arguing, but it was my fault. He was right, and I should’ve been more communicative with him. It’s my duty as his wife to make sure I run his home the way he needs me to.”
I grit my teeth. My mom was a teacher when she was younger, but now she only works for him. Shecouldwork; there are many women at our church who have day jobs. Something to fulfill them outside of their marriages. But my dad likes her home. I’m sure it’s to keep her vulnerable at all times.
“That’s bullshit!”
“Layla June Monroe!”
“It is, Mom. You don’t deserve to live in fear of cooking the wrong dinner.”
“It wasn’t his fault.” Her eyes plead. “Yes, he was there, but I stumbled backward myself. He had nothing to do with it.”
She would sound sincere to someone who didn’t know better. But I don’t believe her. I know. I know it’s him. It has been for years.
I groan as I look in the bathroom mirror after splashing warm water on my face, reliving the dream I just woke from. Those dreams come less often now, but when they do they’re vivid and heart-wrenching, because every time I think maybe it will end differently. Staring at myself now I can see her eyes staring back at me more clearly than ever. It’s the same vision as always. The woman behind bars, clinging to them and begging to be free.
I sigh and gently pat my face dry before setting the hand towel down. The smell of bacon and coffee and the feeling of my pounding head wash over me. I have a full morning at the clinic before a shift at the club tonight. I think it was sometime after one when we got back here and I know I drank way too much.
I’m not prepared for what greets me when I reach my kitchen.
The man who happens to be my last appointment in the clinic this afternoon, after another spot miraculously opened up, is standing at the stove cooking us breakfast.Sean. I grip the wall and watch, as a new wave of grief smacks me square in the chest from the dream.
I close my eyes and lean against the wall. He’s the first person to stand there, at the same stove my mother used to cook at. We’d have our girls’ brunches almost every weekend, and she’d make us pancakes with fruit and we’d talk about school, boys, our faith. Everything and anything. The kitchen has seemed so empty, and now … it’s not.
I think of her smile. Tears fill my eyes and I try to remember the way her laugh sounded. It doesn’t come to me, and grief washes over me again, making me nauseous. I open my eyes and take a breath. The realization she’s never coming back hits me once more.
Sean’s phone buzzes as he cooks, and he answers it.
“Yeah?”
I wait. Maybe I shouldn’t be eavesdropping but I’m curious to know what he does when I’m not with him. I duck back into the hall so he can’t see me.
“It’s a start. I don’t wanna leave any stone unturned. It won’t be the Disciples.”
What won’t be the Disciples?
“Could be, but I can’t see that either. It doesn’t make sense for them to kill for no reason.”
I wish I could hear the other side of this conversation.
“If you get him, no one touches him. His broken bones are mine, got it?” There’s a pause. “Yep, and keep me posted. We can use the cabin if we need to. If he doesn’t want to talk, we’ll make him.”
Equal shots of fear and desire run through me. Sean is speaking so casually about hurting someone, and the first thing that happens when I hear it is that Iwanthim? There’s no hope for me—
“You’re not as stealthy as you think, little dove. You can come out now.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
