“I mean…something has come to light, and this might be the fastest way to clear this up.”
John stepped forward. “Wherever you’re taking Ren, we’re all coming.”
The officer shook his head. “Sorry. It’s over an eight-hour drive. Mr. Wild has agreed to accompany us, but no others.”
Ren lashed an arm around me, kissing my temple as he turned to face the policeman. “Bring her.”
“What?”
“Please,” Ren said. “She has a right to see it.”
“See what?” Cassie asked.
The officer ignored her, staring at Ren. “I don’t think that would be wise.”
Ren pointed at the manuscript weighing heavily in the cop’s hands. “That is our tale. That is our truth. Della is my truth. And she deserves to know.”
I couldn’t stop shaking, cuddling into his side. My future hung in the balance, and the officer looked at John as a friend rather than a law enforcer. “I can’t take you all. There isn’t enough room.”
John’s chest puffed up. “We’ll drive ourselves.”
“No.” Ren shook his head. “This is something Della and I need to do on our own.”
“Do what?” Cassie asked, finally earning the attention of everyone.
The officer shot a look at Ren then me, before he admitted, “The Mclary’s are dead. Their estate is still untouched, and Mr. Wild has agreed to help us with this investigation.”
Dead?
I shuddered harder.
Parents who gave me life.
Parents I hated more than anything.
Gone.
“She’s coming.” Ren straightened. “Or I’m not.”
How were they dead?
How long had they been dead?
All this time they’d been a dark, devilish stain chasing us across the country.
Before I could ask what any of this meant, the officer slowly nodded. “Okay. She comes.”
Marching toward the cop car with my words in his hands, and the second officer who’d arrested Ren last night sitting patiently behind the wheel, he added, “Let’s go. We have a long drive ahead of us.”
*
I can’t explain the feeling of being chauffeured in the back of a police car for eight hours.
Every traffic light we stopped at, people peered inside, sneering at us, believing we were criminals. Every bathroom break and snack grab were met with leery stares and confused looks as to why we weren’t handcuffed.
Six hours into the trip, we found a diner on a lonely stretch of road and shared an awkward dinner. As we ate our meals, the waitress couldn’t take her eyes off Ren as if he were some infamous outlaw that only made him all the more attractive.
I don’t want to mention how jealous that made me. How petty I was, even then, to be angry with women for finding Ren as handsome as I did. Little did they know I still had his kisses on my mouth and his orgasm inside me.
Those were my secrets, and I clung to the knowledge…doing my best not to fear what we were driving to, and what would happen when we got there.
Martin Murray, who introduced himself as we pulled away from the police station, was quiet in manner and talk, leaving his fellow officer, Steve Hopkins, to fill in the gaps.
Not that there were any gaps to fill as no one was in the mood for conversation.
Ren and I shared a few lingering looks, a few whispered sentences, but silence had infected us, too, our thoughts already in the past—the past we were driving across country to.
When we finally arrived in some quiet country town with a bedraggled Main Street, sparse unloved houses, and a church with a wonky cross, Officer Murray drove straight to the small satellite office of the local law enforcement, and together, we all sat down with Bob Colton and Remy Jones—two more officers who were the first to the scene of my parents’ death—and chatted about tomorrow’s adventures on no sleep, lots of coffee, and a long journey.
Bob Colton had already collected the keys for the Mclary farmstead from the bank who were looking at possibly demolishing the house and sub-dividing the land—seeing as no one was interested in buying such a big place that needed so much work.
Then again, we were there to enlighten everyone on what truly happened at that farm. And it would be yet another reason it wouldn’t sell.
On the drive over, Martin had filled me in on what he’d told Ren.
About what my mother did to my father.
About the empty house where two corpses had lain rotting for weeks before someone reported the stench.
About how, when the forensic team combed the house for clues on why my mother had murdered my father, they hadn’t found a single shred of missing children, malicious abuse, or a barn full of bought employees.
That worried Ren. I could tell.
The crease between his eyes never stopped frowning. His eyes dark and turbulent.
If they’d been alone when they’d died, where were the kids? Had they sold them or killed them?
Those questions squatted in my mind, making sleep impossible as we were put up for the night in some dingy motel with only cold water in the shower and a single towel to share.
At least, they’d given Ren and me the same room.
There was no talk of what we were to each other, or if it was illegal for us to stay together, or what the hell all of this meant. For now, everyone was focused on finding out where we’d truly come from and just what Ren had endured.
A policeman sitting outside our door was the only sign we weren’t just guests on this little foray and Ren was still a suspect.
When Martin had surveyed our room and stepped outside to leave us to it, he pointed a finger at Ren and said, “I’m trusting you not to run, boy. You came here freely. Continue to be cooperative and this will be smoother for all of us.”
Ren nodded as the door closed, and I whispered under my breath, “His name is Ren…not boy.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
REN
2020
THE FIRST STEP onto Mclary’s property filled me with a complex recipe of emotions.
Hate.
Horror.
Rage.
It felt as if I’d only left yesterday, yet the house was smaller than I remembered, the tractors not as scary, the barn not as huge and hungry for tiny children.
With our entourage of two officers from home, two officers who’d overseen the murder/suicide, and another two for good measure, Della and I were as popular as we’d ever been.
We all moved down the muddy driveway past rotting bales of hay and around a pile of scrap iron to the front door where I’d bolted with a baby Della clinging unseen in my stolen backpack.
Della slipped her hand into mine as we crossed the threshold into the house, and just like that, I was a ten-year-old kid again.
My world narrowed to terror.
My throat constricted.
My body reacted.
Bruised and beaten, starving and sad. Ghost images of a screeching Della ripped my head toward the kitchen. Long ago echoes of a TV program showing what a real family was wrenched my head to the decrepit lounge.
Della felt my tension and squeezed my fingers, dragging me back to the present.
Coughing, I gave her a grateful look, forcing myself to stay in the now.
“How do you want to do this?” one of the officers asked. I didn’t know which one, and I didn’t care. I merely drifted forward, clutching Della’s hand, taking comfort in the thud of my boots and the reminder that I wasn’t ten anymore.
No one could hurt me again.
They were dead.
Good fucking riddance.
“Where’s the box of evidence that you guys gathered in the murder/suicide investigation?” Martin Murray asked, leading the officers into the kitchen where notepads came out, and a box was brought in from a cruiser and placed on the well-used bench.