“I can’t wait,” his mother said. “Rene made it sound like you were conflicted. I figured it had to do with Gale. I said it before and I’ll say it again. This is about you now, not Rene. She won’t be upset about that either. You and I have to move on.”
“Dad sure the hell did.”
“You’re only going to cause a fight bringing him up. He wiped our child from his life and then did the same with us. His way of moving on isn’t ours.”
“Nope. Neither one of us is a coward.”
“That’s right. Do what you need for you, Rory. No one else, but you. Even Gale. I don’t know her. I know and love you, and your corner is the one I’m in and always will be.”
“Thanks, Mom. The same.”
He hung up after that and put the phone down, then kept his eyes shut hoping his sister came back to him so he could give her hell for throwing him under the bus.
Though he supposed it could have been worse.
32
LIVED IN FEAR
“He’s coming for you next.”
“What?” Gale asked.
She heard the voice again. “Can you see me? Can you hear me? I’m not sure. I haven’t tried this before.”
“Yes. Who is there?”
“It was so hard to get to you. I don’t have time. You don’t have time. You’re the next target. He’ll try to hurt you to get to Rory.”
It was only a voice and no face. “Rene? Is that you?”
“Watch yourself.” It was just a light in her dream. A voice and no face.
“Show me who you are?”
A teenage girl came into the light as if she were struggling to be seen and heard. “You know who I am. I can’t hold this long. You were a girl the same as me when it happened.”
Gale felt tears gathering in her eyes. She didn’t know that she could cry in a dream but seeing Rory’s sister standing there like a typical teen from fifteen years ago and knowing she wasn’t alive just broke her.
It was a picture of her that had been in the paper at some point. That was the only way she’d know what Rene looked like.
“I was. It’s haunted me for years. We all lived in fear of it happening again.”
“It sucks to live like that,” Rene said. “I know. I’ve watched it with my mother and brother. The fear that they had failed me. The guilt too. I’m ready for it to be done.”
“I want to help,” she said. Rene’s image seemed to fade, but the girl gritted her teeth as if she was battling to hold herself here for this talk. “You won’t tell Rory who it is, tell me. Describe him to me.”
“A big liar,” Rene said. “Believe no one. And watch yourself. You’re next.”
Gale sat up with a start in bed, her fingers going to her face and coming away wet. She’d been crying talking to Rene.
She reached for her phone next to her to check the time. Her alarm would go off in three minutes, so she got up and shut it off.
As much as she’d wanted to stay another night with Rory, she left when she saw how tired he was.
Maybe she shouldn’t have woken him up so much the night before, but she’d been nervous about the concussion. Then she’d been uncomfortable in the small bed and moved around waking him more.
When her brothers showed up to talk last night about Rene’s case, she’d made them leave when Rory looked too tired to focus. They had nothing all that important in her eyes that couldn’t wait.
