Page 77 of Dark ’N’ Deadly

“I already told you,” she began, “my father—my real father—disappeared without a trace. That was fifteen years ago. We thought he loved us. I guess we were wrong.”

Who was she to know what love was? There’d been a time when she’d thought that was what had been sizzling between her and Eric. A quick glance at the detached expression on his face now told her the only thing he truly cared about was revenge against Harley. Ironically, she was beginning to have more than a passing commiseration.

“Less than a year later, Harley came into our lives. All polished and refined. Little did we know what lurked beneath all that shiny polish.” She made a disgusted sound. “Eventually, he and my mother married. Jesse and I were never sure if she loved him, but she needed the financial support he could provide. We didn’t really know where his money came from, but he got us what we needed. Food. Clothes. Toys for Jesse. Things were okay for a while, until my mother got sick. Six months after being diagnosed with cancer, she was gone.” And with it, the now-obvious pretenses Harley had displayed while she’d been alive.

“The day after we laid her to rest, things changed. I was thirteen and Jesse was only three. He seemed to take Jesse under his wing, but he pulled me out of school and told my teachers he was homeschooling me.” Her laugh sounded more like a sob. “He wasn’t. His idea of homeschooling was ordering me to clean the house and cook for him and his friends, including Mark Pritchard. He taught me to shoot, so I could go out and get food for the table. One day, I told him I was going out to hunt rabbits. I left the rifle in the woods behind our house then snuck off to see one of my friends. He caught me coming out of her house. When we got home, he punched me in the face. I fell and hit my head.” She touched the scar. The same one Eric had questioned her about.

A muscle in Eric’s cheek ticked.

“That was the last time he let me leave the property. I never graduated from high school. I had to get a GED online.”

“Couldn’t you have found a way to sneak off and go to the sheriff’s office for help, or at least tell one of your friends’ parents what was going on?”

She smacked her hand on the armrest. “I did go to the sheriff’s office. You know what they did to help? They called Harley and told him I was there. The deputy was in Harley’s pocket, so forgive me if I didn’t implicitly trust you. As for going to my friends’ parents for help, Harley said if I ever tried to leave the property again, he’d hunt down every one of my friends and kill them. I was only a kid. I believed him.” Knowing Harley, he might have meant it.

“Sonofabitch.” Eric pressed a hand to his forehead. “What drove you to leave?”

Before continuing, she could already taste the bile in her throat. She didn’t want to relive it, but maybe it was time. Like so many other things I’ve put off.

“When I turned sixteen, one of my stepfather’s friends—Pritchard—began hanging around our house. A lot. Then, he started touching me. At first, it was only on my arm and my shoulder. I tried avoiding him, but that only made him more determined. He started groping me. My breasts, then my ass, and when he tried to kiss me, I screamed. Harley came running and started yelling at Pritchard, threatening him. I thought that meant I would be safe.”

She’d been wrong.

Unable to bear Eric’s intense scrutiny, she squeezed her eyes shut, but that only brought the horrible memories to life, making her shudder with revulsion. When she opened them, she stared at the clock on the far wall. It was the only way she could keep going.

“Harley told Pritchard he understood the lure and attraction, but that he wouldn’t let him touch me until I turned eighteen. Then, he could have me.”

Eric’s expression hadn’t changed, but he’d uncrossed his arms and was now gripping the armrests of the chair so tightly the muscles in his forearms and biceps flexed.

A loud crack shattered the silence, and she flinched.

One of the armrests Eric had been gripping split in two, the pieces falling to the carpet. So much rage burned in his eyes, he looked as if he wanted to kill someone. “So you left home before your eighteenth birthday,” he said in a choked voice.

She nodded, remembering that moment as clearly as if it had happened only yesterday. “Jesse was only eight at the time, but even at that age he understood what Pritchard was, and what he would do to me if I stayed. I wanted to take Jesse with me, but I had nothing. No money, no place to go. I didn’t know how I could support myself, let alone a little boy.”

Fresh, hot tears trickled down her cheeks. Her voice trembled, but she couldn’t stop. Venting her story for the first time was oddly cathartic. “Jesse told me I should go. It was his courage and sacrifice that gave me the strength to leave, and I swore that as soon as I got set up somewhere, I’d find a way to get him back. With a friend’s help, I managed to get a message to him, and we started communicating through email that he could access at school or the library. A couple of years later, when I could afford a cell phone, I sent him my number, but he never used it. After that, I sent him money, begging him to let me help him leave Harley.”

Eric’s tone softened. “Why didn’t he?”

“Over time, the tone of his emails changed, and I could read between the lines. He’d essentially been brainwashed.” She stared at her hands in her lap, feeling cowardly and kicking herself for not dragging Jesse with her the night she’d left. “You said it. Living with Harley was like being in a cult, and no self-respecting cult lets anyone leave without a fight. Until he called me last week, I hadn’t spoken to Jesse in ten years. We were talking on the phone for the first time that day when you”—she lifted her gaze to find his countenance was still as hard as stone, but his eyes held a new emotion, one she couldn’t identify—“pulled him over and arrested him. He said he wanted out, that he wanted to come live with me.”

“What changed that he wanted out all of a sudden?”

“A dog.” Tess uttered a laugh. “Jesse found a stray dog in the woods behind the house. He started feeding it and even built a small shelter for it. Harley hated dogs, so he couldn’t bring it home. One day, when he went to feed the dog, it was gone. My brother thinks Harley killed the animal because Jesse loved it. That was his wakeup call. Harley would kill anything or anyone that my brother loved. That dog had no way of knowing it, but its sacrifice saved Jesse’s life.”

In a way that I never did.

The room was so silent she could hear the ticking of the clock on the wall. A reminder that time was running out.

“Don’t you see?” Fresh tears streamed down her face. He reached for the box of tissues on the table that she hadn’t even realized was there. When he held it in front of her, she grabbed one and wiped her face, but it couldn’t wipe away the pain in her heart. “I ran away and left my little brother behind. Do you have any idea of the guilt I’ve been living with? I owe him so much, and I’d do anything to protect him. Including lying for him. I’m sorry I lied, but I’d do it again if I thought it would help my brother.”

Eric took a deep breath, stretching the black polo shirt across his broad chest and calling attention to the large embroidered gold badge. It was over between them, but he was a federal officer, therefore he had to help her.

“I’m sorry.” She crumpled the tissue in her hand. “I never wanted to deceive you. Please, believe that. I’ll do anything you ask of me to help you get to Gant. But I need your help, too.”

“My help?” He uttered a sarcastic laugh. “With what?”

Sniffing back the tears, she called on every ounce of emotional fortitude she could harness. I won’t take no for an answer. “He’s taken Jesse. Harley showed up at the hospital and forced my brother to leave with him.”