Part of Carson’s charm. “Wonder what he wanted.”
“Exactly. Because, thing is, once I started thinking about it, I realized I’ve seen the detective and Chelsea together before—when I was dropping off campaign stuff for my mom at Bay’s office. Chelsea looked really unhappy. What could he possibly have wanted to talk to her about? Do you think he knew something was going to happen?”
“Miss Cross, Miss Tate.” Lauren’s English teacher walks past us, her Band-Aid-colored panty hose rubbing together. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?”
Lauren rolls her eyes and leans closer to me. “Hey, look, I’m going to be out of school for a few days—maybe a week.”
“Your mom again?” Lauren sometimes misses school to care for her, but it’s been months since she’s had to.
Lauren nods. “Yeah, but maybe this doctor will actually be good.”
Unlike all the others hangs between us.
“Anyway,” Lauren says. “I’ll see you later?”
“Definitely,” I return, and sit through my morning classes in a blur of Chelsea Martin. Why would Carson want to talk to her? Had to be because of her connection with the judge. As his assistant, she would see everything. It would make her an excellent resource.
Griff said I should think about how Carson was willing to use me and how he might be willing to use other people. Could that extend to Chelsea?
Like someone flipped a switch, the word leverage strings across my brain in Christmas lights. If he was pressuring the judge’s assistant and she ended up dead . . . maybe there’s something I could use against him. In the middle of calculus, I start to grin, and even though I should be thinking of Chelsea, I’m now thinking about my family, about Griff.
He’s right. If I could get leverage on Carson, we could go free.
I go straight home after school. There aren’t any other “study guides” waiting for me on the hall table and the whole house smells like vanilla. Like complicated, delicate desserts.
Which means something’s happened and Bren’s upset.
I edge farther into the kitchen, trying to quietly assess the situation. There’s a Julia Child cookbook lying open on the counter, about twenty ramekins of something buttery scattered across the island, and both ovens are going. Yep, Bren’s upset.
I am so not good in these situations.
Bren sniffles and I flinch. There’s no way I can leave now. I force myself into the kitchen, hop onto a bar stool. “Hey.”
“Wick!” Bren swipes at her eyes. “You scared me!”
“Sorry.” And I have to bite my lip to keep from repeating it. There’s something I need to say here and I don’t know what it is. My adoptive mom isn’t crying, but she has been. Her eyes have red smeared around their edges. “You okay?”
“Yes. No.” Her gaze searches the ceiling, comes down to meet mine. “I will be. I had to stop by Lily’s school today and I ran into another mother.”
It’s the way she says “mother” that makes me wince. I know where this is headed and I want to tell Bren to stop, to not tell me because I don’t want her to have to relive it. Only there’s no way to say that without sounding bitchy.
Or maybe it’s because it feels like exposing her marriage’s rotten underbelly is something else I’ve done to her. I’ve lied. I’ve hidden things. I’ve pretended to be someone I’m not.
She didn’t deserve any of it.
“She was so nice,” Bren continues. “We talked for a few minutes because her daughter cheers with Lily. She had already invited me to come to lunch with some of the other moms and I thought she was lovely until they called my name . . . and she just . . . shuddered. She looked at me like she finally realized who I was, what I was, and she was horrified.”
“It wasn’t your fault.” It was mine.
No. It was Todd’s.
“I trusted him,” Bren adds, the words piling together in her rush. “I loved him. I should have kept you safe and I didn’t.”
“It turned out okay. No one got hurt.”
“You did.”
I start to say that ten stitches and a concussion isn’t really getting hurt—it isn’t permanent—but then Bren will bring up the nerve damage in my arm. No matter how many times I tell her it’s fine, she doesn’t believe me. It’s the only lie I’ve ever told I couldn’t get her to buy.
“You were worth it,” I blurt. It’s true. Maybe we do have a fairy-tale ending because in every fairy tale there’s always a villain and ours was Todd.
I’d sound like a lunatic if I say that, so instead I add, “Please stop blaming yourself.”
“I can’t . . . you should probably know . . . child services is making a few inquiries.”
My heart double-thumps. “Why? The adoption papers are final.”