“And when you love like that, that person becomes a part of you. Like your skin. And you know them better than you know yourself. I swear I know your mother. And she didn’t do this. She didn’t. I know my child.”
I let that moment sit. It calmed us all. A little.
Dylan nodded. So did I. A slow, tired nod between two people who had nothing left to give but love.
“And you want to know something else?” I added in a soft voice. “I was blessed with that special kind of love all over again when your mom had you. When I became a grandma.”
I squeezed them tighter, Ethan still buried in my side.
“I felt that same endless, bright, terrifying love consume me all over again when each of you was born. Every time. All three of you. It justswallowed me whole.”
My chest burned with a mix of everything—grief, love, panic, hope. It hurt to breathe.
We just sat there. The four of us. Sniffling. Holding on to each other like the world might break apart if we didn’t.
But despite everything I’d just said, despite the warmth in my voice and my arms around them, this was still rock bottom.
I wondered if Lacey was crying right now too. In that cold cell. All alone. Dying of cancer. Innocent.
I had to get her out.
The kids needed her.
By God, Brian needed her.
And even if we only got a few more years with her, at least we’d be together again for a little while.
It wouldn’t be perfect. But nothing would be worse than her dying in jail for a murder she didn’t commit. The kids never getting to see her again. Never getting to say good-bye. Never getting to know the truth. That their mom wasn’t a murderer.
I had to find this man.
He had something to do with all this. I knew it.
I just had to prove it.
* * *
It was two thirty in the morning when the back door to the kitchen rattled.
I sat on the couch, the TV flickering in front of me. My gaze had been empty, staring straight through the screen.
Keys scraped the lock. A clumsy pause. Then the lock finally clicked, and the door opened.
Brian stumbled in.
His boots dragged over the floor like he was a zombie. That alone already told me enough. His unsteady steps as he wandered into the living room sealed it.
Brian was completely hammered.
He made his way toward me, slow and swaying, as if the floor was uneven. Then he stopped in front of me and pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his pants. It smelled like cigarettes and cheap booze. He held it out like it was a diamond.
I took it without a word.
A name and address were scrawled in smeared ink:
Billy Dustin
36556 Moonlight Drive
