“Is that right?” Denver drawled. “What happened to that one time where she found out she wasn’t going to be valedictorian and went and stabbed the principal’s tires, then got arrested for it, and sat in a jail cell for two days rather than call any of us?”
My lips pursed and I narrowed my eyes on Denver. “That was between you and me!”
“You did what?”
Denver grinned at me and winked.
Boone looked between Denver and me, narrow-eyed and calculating.
He was wondering what else he didn’t know.
“We were broken up,” I grumbled. “And like your mother needed another reason to hate me.”
Six
I don’t get offered drugs nearly as much as D.A.R.E. said I would.
—Nettie to Boone
Boone
She was right.
I had no right to demand something of her when my own fucking mother would’ve used that information to bury her.
“She moves in with you,” Denver said. “But you also need to find someone to be with her whenever she’s alone outside your house. After what happened last time…”
Denver didn’t need to go into further detail.
What happened last time my mother had gotten her claws into Nettie, I’d lost my daughter.
There wouldn’t be a second time.
I wasn’t a seventeen-year-old kid anymore.
“Is there an end date to this?” Weaver asked. “I mean, you’ve been working on this for how long?”
“Years,” I grumbled.
“Longer,” Sawyer admitted.
“I have a solution, but you’re not going to like it,” Denver offered.
We all looked at him.
“You let me take her out like I offered to a year ago,” he said. “Now there’s something a little more on the line than you and Boone.”
He was right.
It wasn’t just Dad and me who needed to be worried about anymore. There was an innocent life that was protected by her mother, but wouldn’t be forever. And having an innocent child around that was utterly helpless?
“Do it.” Dad surprised me. “Wish we hadn’t gotten the FBI involved.”
“Fuckin’ Gail.” Denver shook his head. “You’re right, this would’ve been a lot easier a few months ago, but it’s still doable now. No one said that it had to be an execution. Maybe it’s just…natural causes.”
“We give it until the baby is born,” Sawyer commanded. “After that, we’re not taking any more chances.”
I couldn’t believe I was sitting there plotting my mother’s murder.
