Hutch couldn’t remain sitting anymore.
He got up, and Hannibal got up with him, eyes locked to his dad’s face, alert.
Worried.
Hannibal was a good dog.
In this case, he knew there was something to worry about.
Hutch paced and Hannibal did it at his side.
“Did the mom get her back?”
“Yeah.The uncle also got a couple of years in prison and his own kids taken away from him.But the good news with that was he was out of her life for good.Mabel went from Tennessee, where the uncle lived, back to LA, where her mom did.The next name change, to Callie Maine.”
“Does this shit even out?”
“It doesn’t get worse than the first part, but, fucks me to say, that’s a low bar, so not really.”
Fuck him.
“Hit me with it, Lee.”
“The mom didn’t have a lot of skills to provide for her and her daughter.She knew partying, endless money, a good time…and drugs.To keep them housed, clothed and fed, she dealt dope and held what she called ‘therapy sessions’ in her apartment, where she’d administer LSD and assist them with whatever enlightenment they were looking for.”
“People do this shit legally now, Lee.”
“Not with dicey street LSD, Hutch.She accidentally killed one of her clients.She went down for negligent homicide.”
“Good fucking Christ,” Hutch bit off.
“By this point, Mabel, an A student, mind you, got hooked up with some Hollywood hotshot’s son.The entire family loved her.She was seventeen, the dad helped her get emancipated, and she lived with them until she got a full ride to study business at USC.”
“Academic full ride?”Hutch asked.
“Yes.Her transcripts are impressive.During college, she interned for a tour company, and they hired her on after she got her degree.She’d broken up with her high school boyfriend by then, but we’ll just say, that family still considers her one of their own.Though, they don’t see her very often.Mabel has never gone back to LA, which is not a shock.The company sent her to their Florida office.She began her adult life in Orlando.”
Hutch chanced sitting down again as he said, “Right.”
“All’s good.She’s moving up in the company.She gets poached by a competitor company, makes more money.She’s got a side business she runs, refurbishing furniture.A hobby she’s making money from.She meets the man of her dreams, he gives her a ring, she says yes.”
It felt like Hutch’s chest hollowed out.
Never in his life had he had that feeling, and he hoped he never would again, because it felt shit.
Lee kept talking.
“They’re out at a romantic dinner, something he won from some business card drop or something, but the man had no idea it was a setup.”
Hutch tensed again.“What kind of setup?”
“You ever heard those ‘to catch a cheater’ things radio shows do?”
Tensing had been good.
“Jesus Christ, seriously?”
“It wasn’t one of those.This was set up by the wife and her friends.But they showed at dinner, phones up, filming.He was engaged to Mabel, but he had a wife and two kids.It’s all over social media.The only good part about it is, those women saw immediately that she had no idea.She was just as shattered as the wife, maybe more so at that moment, because the wife already knew, and Mabel had no clue.When they let it loose on TikTok, they fuzzed out her face.But Brody got hold of the raw footage.I’ve seen it, and brother, seriously, it was gutting.”
