Mindy Sue raked her fingers through her already disheveled hair. “In the hospital…even now…I feel so inadequate to take care of her. Nothing I say or do will make Brooke feel better. She hasn’t slept much. She’s in a lot of pain, but even that doesn’t compare to how much she misses the baby. They wouldn’t let Brooke hold her, or see her. They said it was for the best. My father and I set up the cremation at her request. He got the funeral home to do it immediately, so she could have her baby back. My father and I picked up the ashes today and delivered them to Brooke before she left the hospital. I think it broke her, holding her baby for the first time, only she was in a silver vessel and not a pink blanket.”
Cody wiped away more tears. “Who did this to her? Who killed our baby?”
“She made me promise not to call you or her mom before they loaded her into the ambulance. I wasn’t sure she was goingto make it. Not with that much blood loss. As soon as I got to the hospital, I called my dad. He arrived immediately and shut everyone up. Her name was kept quiet. He made sure she got everything medically necessary. The police weren’t able to see her that first night. In the morning, they tried to talk to her, but her baby was gone, and she only stared into space. She wouldn’t speak. They asked me to go in, and my father thought it was a good idea if I tried to find out what happened, and who attacked her.
“When I went into the room, she had her eyes closed and tears ran down her face and into her hair like a river. She told me her baby was gone and I held her.”
Tears continued to run down her face and she could barely speak anymore. She swiped at them, but more came.
Cody wiped his own face, crying with her. All of this pain because a madman wanted to possess someone.
“She asked my father if he’d help her. He agreed and no one has been allowed to speak to her again. No one, except one man. He came to see her that night, although my father made sure no one saw him come or go.”
“Who came to see her?”
She met his gaze. “The governor.”
It took Cody only a second to realize the implications of that visit. Rage exploded through him in an eruption of fury and heat. That fucking little punk hurt Brooke and killed his baby. “Adam.”
Mindy Sue nodded that she’d come to the same conclusion. “I’ll remind you that Adam was at the Fourth of July picnic and the Christmas party. Right before the fireworks went off at the picnic, Brooke thought she saw someone upstairs in her bedroom window. At the Christmas party, the person she believed was just a follower on her social media left a message about how good she looked in her dress.”
“He was already stalking her.”
“She thinks it started at the picnic. We knew it was someone there, but there were so many people, several of them friends of ours. We knew it could be one of them, but they never gave us any kind of strange vibes.”
“You said Adam showed up that day you went out to eat and she got sick, then took the pregnancy test.”
“Yes. We’d met up with him a few times. But he was always with Jeremiah and Simon. They were all so nice. Shy. Well, not Jeremiah, but Adam and Simon. She was never alone with him. She never got a weird vibe from him. He was so careful. I mean, you could tell he liked her, but he never flirted or anything. He never asked her out." Mindy Sue tilted her head. "Why didn’t he just ask her out?”
Cody didn’t get it either. “I don’t know.”
Brooke was kind. She’d have tried to spare his feelings and let him down easy. She’d have still been his friend.
Fuck!
All this time, Adam had been close to her. Right in front of her.
Cody wanted to hit something. Preferably the asshole responsible for tormenting Brooke.
But he was out of reach, wasn’t he? The governor had already taken care of that. And he had the audacity to sneak into Brooke’s room in the dead of night to…what? What could he possibly say to her after she lost her child?
Had he threatened her? If he had, Cody would put him in the ground.
The governor and his people were working with the police and the hospital to cover up the real story of what happened that night. A man had gotten away with murder and attacking five women all because his father was the governor of the state.
Mindy Sue’s furious voice broke the silence. “No one will ever know the governor’s son attempted suicide because he couldn’t live with what he’d done to Brooke.”
Cody couldn’t believe this was truly happening. No wonder no one was talking. It was a cover-up of monumental proportions. The governor lied and hid his son in a private hospital.
Cody wanted to get his hands on the son of a bitch, so he could kill him. Slowly. Painfully.
If Adam went to trial and got the death penalty, would his own father pardon him?
Unreasonable and selfish things ran through Cody’s mind about what he’d like to happen to the governor’s son. He indulged in them for a moment before realizing there was nothing he could do while Adam was locked away in a mental ward. No one, not even Cody, would ever get to him.
It was futile to try to go after Adam now. But somehow, some way, very soon, he’d get justice for Brooke and his daughter.
Right now Cody needed to protect and take care of Brooke. She needed him.
