Tears spring to her eyes, and she dashes them away quickly. She’s never been good at showing her emotions, raised in that old-style New York way of tamping everything down until there’s no choice but to let it out. But this isn’t one of those things she can ignore, not any longer. We’ve put this on the back burner long enough, and it’s time to be honest about everything that we have allowed to go on around us.
“He’s a grown man now,” I reply. “And he’s out in the world, and he’s hurting people. People who never deserved to be hurt, people who won’t see any justice for it unless we stop protecting him.”
A tear rolls down her cheek, and she sets her glass down, taking a deep breath.
“So—so what exactly are you saying?” she asks. She needs to hear it from me, and I get it—we have both been dodging the obvious for so long, it will take one of us saying it out loud to finally clear the air.
“I’m saying we need to do everything we can to support this woman in getting justice,” I reply firmly. “Even if that meansletting the cops know his history. He has to be stopped. And the way he’s been going, there’s no reason to think he’ll do it of his own accord anytime soon.”
“I don’t know what you want me to do,” she murmurs. “I—he’s my son. You can’t expect me to turn against him just like that…”
“I’m not asking you to do anything like that,” I assure her. “I’m just asking you to tell the truth about everything you’ve seen him do these last few years, since he became an adult. And I know it goes against every instinct that you have as a mother, trust me, but…”
She locks eyes with me, and I can tell that, at last, something has gotten through to her.
“She’s a mother too,” she finishes up. “The girl he went after. I owe it to her. Her children deserve a chance, and they’re not going to get one if we just stand by and let it happen.”
I breathe a sigh of relief, though I don’t let her see it. I wasn’t sure if she was going to take me at my word here, or if this would be too much for her to handle. I can only imagine how painful it is, to even consider the possibility that she might have a part in everything he’s done, but at her heart, she is a good woman. A woman who wants to do the right thing, and a woman who, when she sees that the ship has sailed on her hopes for her son, will stand up and do what needs to be done.
I reach across the table and pat her hand. “You’re really brave for this, Martha,” I tell her. “And I won’t forget it. I promise.”
She smiles slightly, though it doesn’t reach her eyes.
“I’m not sure I believe it yet,” she murmurs. “But…but thank you.”
She sits there for a moment in silence, pondering on what she has just agreed to—then stands up suddenly and takes both of our glasses, topping them up with vodka before she pushes mine back across the table to me. Lifting her chin, she slips back into her usual confident mode.
“So,” she asks me, clasping her hands around the glass. “What happens now?”
23
LILA
It takesme a second to realize that my phone is ringing—in fact, it’s only Matty lifting her head and looking in the direction of the newfound noise that tips me off to the sound at all.
“Wait here, sweetheart,” I tell Ross, dropping a kiss on his head and drying my hands. I’m just finishing up a bath for both of them before bed, and as Matty lies on her playmat and bats at her toys, Ross waits for me to zip up his sleep suit and get them into bed.
It’s been a quiet couple of weeks which, after everything, is very much welcome. For the most part, anyway. Thom hasn’t shown his face around here since his last attempt and, with Sofia’s help, I managed to pull enough CCTV footage from the apartment building to prove that he’s been coming here over and over again. In fact, it was more than even I knew about, the blurry, staticky images showing him lurking outside the front door for hours on end, no doubt hoping he could catch me coming out. It makes me ill to think about how close he was to me, but with all that information with the police, I have to hope it will be enough for them to grant my restraining order.
Hell, if they don’t, I’m pretty sure Sofia will go down there and kick their asses herself. She’s been ultra-protective of me since she got back, all too aware of how vulnerable I am in the face of all that has happened. I’ve been whipped back and forth between the potential of different lives I had never even let myself imagine—first, a single mother raising her children alone, and then a woman who might just have a real relationship that isn’t built on a foundation of abuse for the first time in her life. And now, nothing like it, just a girl trying to get by with her twins. At least my bank account is a little heftier—that has to count for something, doesn’t it?
I pin the phone between my ear and my shoulder as I go to finish getting Ross ready for bed, trying to remember if I’ve actually eaten dinner yet or not. But then, a formal tone comes down the line, and catches me entirely off guard.
“Ms. Lila King?”
“Yes, speaking?”
I lift Ross into my arms and cradle him, more out of a sense of comfort for myself than anything else.
“This is Officer Karen Petrie,” she tells me, her clipped tones making me stand up a little straighter. “Do you have time to speak right now?”
“Uh, yes, for sure,” I reply, my heart sinking. The way she’s speaking, I can’t help but think that I’m about to get shot down, well and truly, whether I like it or not. It shouldn’t surprise me, given how the cops reacted the first time I tried to get something done about this, but it still hurts to know that I’m not going to have the protection, even on paper, that I wanted so badly.
“You came to us to file a complaint against…Thomas Mallory the week before last, is that correct?”
“Yeah, I—I came in looking for some kind of order of protection, but…”
“We have the evidence that you submitted,” she tells me swiftly. “But we need to know, is there anything else you have related to Mallory and your relationship?”
