“—as people like him. So, I don’t know who your mother is, but she isn’t my child.”
“You’re lying. Tell me about my mother.”
But is she? The woman in that bed is a lot of disgusting things, but I don’t get the impression that she’s lying.
“I have no idea who your mother is. Did you bring a crazy child to visit me? Just ask your question and then leave.”
There isn’t anything else to say. “I don’t have any questions for you. Let’s go, Everett.”
“What? No, she has to tell me about my mother. She has to.”
His desperation hurts to watch. I wrap an arm around the boy’s shoulder and lead him out of the room.
Everett turns on me, anger written all over his red face. “No. We can’t go. We have to ask her more. We have to find out about my mother.” He pounds on my chest, crying. “We have to find out. I need to know she mattered to someone.”
Seething rage builds as I comfort the boy who wasn’t given the small piece of his mother that he was looking for.
So many possibilities run through my mind at once. But none of them involves that woman lying…But I can’t trust the hateful words of an evil woman, even though my heart wants her to be lying.
Everett steps back, rubbing the tears off his face with his fist. “She has to be lying.”
“Well then, let’s prove it.” I pull out my phone.
“How?”
“Birth records.”
Everett’s eyes light up. “Race you.”
To take the pain away from the boy, I’d do just about anything. “Sure. Winner buys lunch.”
“I’m going to eat two meals.” Everett’s fingers start flying over the screen.
My battered and bruised fingers don’t stand a chance…even though I know a few shortcuts. Today might be the day I let the boy win.
My phone rings. Dad’s number flashes on the screen. “I gotta take this.”
“No quarter for the old.” Everett doesn’t let that distract him.
I walk over to the other side of the hall and answer. “What’s up?”
“We have a situation,” Dad snaps out.
My stomach clenches. “What?”
“A little kid showed up at her bakery, and Fiona lost her mind. She looks like she saw a ghost and had a gun pulled on her all at the same time.”
What? “Kids show up all the time. That doesn’t bother her.” Even the addicts who should. “Was she afraid they were sent by Micky? You should take her home.”
“No. It was a little girl. Around five years old. Though she looked younger than that.”
A little girl? “That makes no sense.”
“The girl was beaten and branded.”
WHAT?
“Have you ever heard of a spider brand?”
