Chapter Thirty-Four
Somewhere in the State Forest
The hikers hadfinally stopped, which allowed Sam to catch up and get a pretty good vantage point from a rock.They were talking, and from where she had positioned herself, she could even hear what was being said.
She didn’t understand it.How all of this connected.How Cal and Glenda and Hayes were somehow connected to this old event.She figured it didn’t matter when she heard Daryl Everly say, “So, let’s see which one of you ends up dead.”
She didn’t think.She didn’t pause.She shot her own weapon.
*
Glenda heard thesound explode around them at the same time Daryl’s body jerked, stumbled, fell.The gun he’d been holding clattered onto the ground in the process.
Glenda looked at it more than him.Without fully thinking the move through, she moved forward, reached out and picked it up.
Then, she looked at Daryl Everly.Blood poured out of the wound at his stomach.
She watched it, trying not to think of the way Gerald had bled, and bled, and bled, when Daryl had shot him.
He was coming after me.He was going to kill me.I did the only thing I could do.It was just like Charles.He’s crazy!He’d kill us all.
Her husband hadn’t been crazy.He’d been traumatized.A young boy sent into a warzone where he didn’t belong.
He hadn’t deserved what greeted him at home.He hadn’t deserved what that war had done to him.
He hadn’t deserved Daryl Everly.
She didn’t know where the shot came from.She found she didn’t even really concern herself with anything.Except the gun in her hand.
And the man at her feet.
I never told anyone anything, she wanted to scream at him, but her voice was gone again.
Because she existed in two places.The now.The faint murmur of voices she didn’t recognize.And a past she tried not to think about, but it was right here in this moment.
“Come on, we’ve got to hurry.” She knew the boy was hurting.Benjamin had done something to him.Marie always claimed Benjamin only hurt her, but Glenda could see it in the way the boy held his arm.
He was hurt.Marie hadn’t done it.An accident hadn’t done it.Benjamin Bennet had hurt his oldest son.If Glenda had to guess, the boy’s shoulder was strained.Didn’t seem to be reacting bad enough for it to be dislocated.
But it was still an injury.Maybe not one as glaring as the black eye Marie had been sporting—hidden haphazardly under makeup, though not well enough for Glenda to miss—but still an injury.
Glenda considered stopping.Going against everything she’d promised Marie and taking the boy to the police.If Cal would tell the police who’d hurt him…
But the last time Glenda had tried to interfere, get the police involved, they’d dismissed Marie’s claims and had a good laugh with Benjamin Bennet.Marie had paid.
Glenda wouldn’t make her pay again.
No, there was no one to help.And she’d promised Marie to get the boy out.
Apparently, he had quite a mouth on him when he wanted to—one Benjamin didn’t appreciate.Glenda had been watching after Cal since he’d been a wee little thing, and he’d never so much as forgotten to saythank youto her.
It made Glenda wonder just how much worse things were at the Bennet Ranch than Marie let on.
Marie was desperate—rushing back to the ranch so the little boys she’d had to leave behind to get Cal out of Benjamin’s crosshairs could be protected.
Glenda wished she’d been able to convince Marie to come with her.She’d help them both disappear.But she understood the woman couldn’t leave her babies behind.
Glenda tried not to think of Benjamin Bennet, or how worthless that little police station was in protecting a poor, manipulated, and abused woman and her boys.How little Glenda could do herself.
