“Oh, I have everything I want? How about daughters who love me and take care of me like real daughters should? I don’t have that. Instead, all my good babies got taken away from me, and I got left with two ungrateful little bitches who’d rather have their mom live on the streets. I brought you into this world! You owe me this! You. Owe. Me. Everything.” She backed down the hallway until she reached the living room, then spun on her heel and ran.
Shelby didn’t dare move. Katrina had been known to fly into irrational rages while on cocaine, and she was sure that was the drug pumping through her mother’s veins right now. Katrina liked it all, dabbled in everything, but mostly flipped between coke and heroin depending on her mood. The former made her manic, paranoid, delusional. The latter put her to sleep, which had always been the more preferable of the two. The last time she was hyped up on coke, she’d hit Shelby hard enough to give her a concussion. This time…Shelby truly feared her mother might shoot her if she tried to intervene. So she waited, flinching at each crash from the living room, until finally she heard nothing but a resounding silence.
Oh. God.
She exhaled the breath she’d been holding and bent double, hugging herself, trying to breath and keep it together. A molten weight settled in her stomach, and her eyes burned, but she was too damned exhausted by it all to cry.
How many times had Eva warned her their mother would never change? And instead of accepting it as a fact, she kept letting Katrina back in to destroy her heart, over and over. Every time was like slicing open old wounds and pouring salt into them. Must be she secretly enjoyed the pain, was as addicted to it as Katrina was to drugs. Why else would any sane human being continually put themselves through this?
Gathering her strength, she straightened and trudged out to the living room. The short walk felt like a trip to the hangman’s noose. Sam the Cat had backed himself into the corner of the room behind the entertainment stand and peeked out at her with wide, alarmed eyes. The coffee table was overturned, the couch knocked askew, and the cushions strewn across the floor. A lamp was shattered, drawers pulled open, and the paintings she’d yet to hang were gone.
Damn. That almost hurt more than having her mother pull a gun on her. Those paintings were virtually worthless, would get Katrina all of fifty bucks when she tried to pawn them, but they’d already had sentimental value. Reece had liked them, had enjoyed her efforts to make this place more colorful. For that reason alone, those paintings had been worth their weight in gold to her.
Oh, and the notebooks. Why had Katrina taken Reece’s notebooks, of all things? And his laptop. His checks…
She needed to call him before Katrina emptied his bank account.
Numb, she retrieved her cell phone from her bedroom. Only when she tried to punch in the numbers did she realize she was shaking. She could barely keep hold of the phone, not to mention see to dial with the sudden wash of tears filling her vision. She dropped the phone, curled into herself, and finally, she sobbed.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The door was open.
Reece froze in the process of digging for his apartment key and stared. It was only about two inches ajar, but still. It was open, and it shouldn’t be. With all of his recent problems, that was enough of a red flag to have a chill scraping across the back of his neck. He reached out, pushed on the door. The living room looked as if a tornado had hit it.
“Shelby!” His heart lodged in his throat, and he was moving through the apartment in floor-eating strides before his brain protested that the intruder could still be inside. His heart told his brain to fuck off, because he could handle anything an intruder dished out, and he had to find Shelby. Had to make sure she was safe. Had to—
A muffled sound from her room caught his attention, and he made a beeline for it. And there she was, curled up in a tiny ball on her bed, sobbing. Sam the Cat sat by her head as if protecting her, his tail swishing in aggravation. In the cage across the room, Poe squawked and waddled restlessly from one side of his perch to the other, obviously aware of Shelby’s distress.
But she didn’t look injured, and the knot in Reece’s belly loosened. He sat down beside her, placed a soothing hand on her back. “Shelby. Sweetheart, what happened?”
She peeked up at him, her eyes red and puffy from crying. “Reece?” she breathed.
“Yes, I’m here now.”
Without another word, she crawled into his lap and curled up again as if wanting to withdraw from the world.
She’s…fragile. So much more than she lets people know…
Cam’s words haunted him as he wrapped his arms around her and hugged her close. “It’s okay, sweetheart. I’m here.”
“She took your notebooks.”
Her voice was so muffled against his chest, he wasn’t sure he heard her right. “My notebooks?”
“For your video game.” She sniffled. “And your computer. The book of blank checks in your desk. My ring…” She held out a shaking hand to show her empty finger. “Why’d she take my ring? It wasn’t worth anything to her.”
“Who?” Reece asked, although the sickening feeling in his gut told him he already knew the answer.