“Your daughter is lying, Nicole!” he called after me. “She comes from a line of liars and whores!”
I ran to my car. Resisted turning around. If I looked at him, I knew I wouldn’t be able to hold back. And how would that help Lacey and the kids? They needed me to be strong.
My hands had a hard time holding on to the steering wheel. That’s how hard they shook. For a moment, I was worried they might make a sharp turn and try to run over Thomas Harlow. As if they didn’t belong to me anymore. But somehow I managed to leave the parking lot, not looking back once.
I had to talk to Lacey’s doctor to get her weight loss under control. I needed one less thing to worry about, now that the fight to get her out had just turned from hard to total disaster.
And there was literally nothing I could do about this other than beat Harlow in court. Jack said that an AG was an elected official with broad prosecutorial discretion, meaning no judge could simply order him off our case. On top of that, courts set a very high bar for conflict of interest, so a personal grudge likely wouldn't be enough.
To get Harlow removed from Lacey’s case, we would have to file a complaint with the governor, but that was as good as hopeless. The governor was a man in Harlow's own circle, and there was no public pressure to force his hand againstHarlow. The public believed Lacey did it as much as Harlow did. Beyond that, I had no clear evidence of Harlow being partisan. I had no proof in writing, no witnesses, and even a face-to-face confrontation like this would come down to his word against mine in a world in which women who recorded their own rape were arrested for recording the rapist without consent. Where billionaires sex-trafficked women and kids and walked free.
And yet Jack filed the hopeless complaint with the governor anyway. Because in my mind, there wasn’t the slightest doubt about Harlow.
He was settling old scores. And based on the hate I saw sparking in his eyes today, I knew he would fight to the bitter end to win. Just like me.
Chapter 16
Dylan
It was afternoon, and the school’s bell announced that the long day was finally over. Usually, I would stick around a bit in front of school. Talk with some friends about teen stuff—like an old episode ofSouth Parkthat reran late at night again. Or like Nate’s driver’s license struggles. He had literally managed to back into the same car seven times while trying to pull into a parallel parking spot downtown. Seven freaking times!
But today I said my good-byes quickly and fled the school as if I were being chased by one of the zombies out ofDawn of the Dead.
The cool fall air brushed my face as I stepped out and mingled with the students waiting to get picked up by their parents. I was usually one of them, but not today. My high school wasn’t too far from my home by bike, maybe about fifteen minutes, and with everything going on, I told Grandma I was biking so she could go visit Mom in jail.
I didn’t like riding my bike. But this wasn’t the time to complain. This was the time to survive in whatever way possible. As crazy as it all was, considering we’d been just a normal family not too long ago, my life had turned into utter horror overnight. One day, I was a normal kid with school sweethearts and soccer practice, the next, my mom was in jail for murder. All while my grandma was trying everything she could to get her out. She barely ate or slept anymore. My mom was on her mind constantly, like an imaginary clock going on and on and on.Tick-tock, tick-tock, endlessly without the slightest break in sight.
I walked along the brick wall to the back of the school. Past the overgrown landscaping and dirty windows that screamed budget cuts at every corner. I knelt next to my bike to unlock it.
I was about to get on it, when my eyes locked with Benny’s. He was lingering behind the school with two friends, and he instantly focused on me. His thin lips curled into a provoking grin, then he just stared. Like some alpha dog trying to warn me to look away.
I knew what this was about. My friends had told me he was talking shit about my mom behind my back. My misery and pain had drawn him to me like a bloodhound to a wounded fox. And why not? That’s what piece-of-shit bullies like him did. Live off others’ pain and struggles to make themselves feel powerful and important.
“Not with me, bitch,” I mumbled and leaned my bike against the brick wall. My arms stretched wide open, and I waved him over for the whole school to see. “Come on, bitch. Come on. Make my day.”
Little coward prick looked away instantly. Pretended he was in some deep conversation with his loser friends all of a sudden.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought, coward!” I yelled over to him.
Six foot two at sixteen. Number one wrestler on my team. I would wipe the toilets with their ugly-ass faces.
When nothing else came from the loser trio, I got on my bike in one smooth motion and rode off.
I usually took the sidewalks and back streets home, but today I decided to take the longer way so I could stop at the gas station and get some chips and a soda. The good thing about all this mess with Mom was that I ate what I wanted when I wanted without an adult’s eagle eyes scanning my world for sugar and artificial colors.
The gas station was only a short ride down the street, and I could already see its bright neon sign glowing in the distance as I approached Bubbles and Brews—the local dive bar—to my left. But there was nothing bubbly about it. The concrete in front of it was cracked, and some of the windows were boarded up. Faded posters from decades of this and that hung half-torn on its walls. Drunks were coming in and out to blasting rock music, smoking and vaping, stumbling and laughing too loudly about shit that most likely wasn’t funny.
My bike rolled by, then I hit the brakes so hard it almost sent me flying over the handlebars.
I completely froze when I saw a man stumble out.
All six foot four of him.
Broad shoulders. Huge arms and muscular build. A baseball cap pulled into his face, like that would do the trick.
This man could just as well have been wearing a full biohazard suit. I still would’ve recognized him.
It was my freaking dad!
