“Technically, both of those are one and the same. Both government,” I pointed out. “Why aren’t you freaking out?”
“I’m assuming that I only know half of the story, and I’m reserving judgment until I know the whole thing.” She paused. “If you want to share that with me.”
I studied her face, and her broken arm, and the gauze bandages that were poking out of her tank top.
I thought about all that she’d gone through in the last few days, and the strength she had inside of her. I thought about what it would be like to have a woman that strong, that never gave up. A woman that had asked for me when she barely knew me during the worst moments of her life.
I thought about what I wanted out of a future, and whether or not I wanted to be alone for the rest of my life, or spend it with someone that I could truly share everything with.
And I made a decision.
“I’ll tell you everything,” I said. “But first, I need to get a hold of a friend who can get me an untraceable airline ticket.”
“It needs to be untraceable?” she asked softly.
I nodded.
“Then maybe she doesn’t need to be seen getting onto a domestic flight at all. Maybe she needs to fly private,” Eddy suggested.
I nodded and got on the phone.
“What’s up?” Apollo asked.
I gave him the rundown.
“Your sister is a mess, but according to all of her search history and everything that I could find, getting custody of your daughter isn’t even on her radar.” He paused. “She’s pretty involved in an online gaming group, though. She’s racking up the debt.”
“That should be impossible seeing as Stanton left her his entire estate,” I pointed out.
“One would think,” he said. “But I haven’t done a deep dive into her finances. I will now, though.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“I’ll get the flight information to you as soon as possible,” he said. “And we’ll get Eddy’s sister on it, too.”
Apollo hung up, but just as I started to explain, the door was pushed open and Eddy’s parents arrived, killing any and all possibility of a discussion.
“Oh, my baby,” Minnie Wheeler, Eddy’s mother, said. “We came as soon as we heard.”
Fat fuckin’ lies.
They both damn well knew.
Everyone and their brother knew.
You didn’t have a bear attack in your town and not hear about it immediately.
You especially didn’t have a woman survive a bear attack and it not make even bigger news.
I’d been dodging news people all week wanting to talk to the ‘miracle woman that survived a bear attack.’
Hell, even a few social media influencers had shown up.
It’d made getting to and from the hospital damn near impossible to do and not get seen.
Luckily, it was still cold as fuck outside and you had to bundle up or freeze to death.
The only thing they ever saw of me was some of my eyes as I left and arrived.
