Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 78227 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78227 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
Donny smiles. “Under any other circumstances, I’d say you’re right. But I’ve never seen Brock the way I’ve seen him since he’s been with you. He’s a different person. It’s like he’s allowed his emotions to come to the surface for the first time in his life.”
My neck and the tops of my breasts join my cheeks in the warmth. “You think so?”
“I know so. Remember who you’re talking to. I taught Brock everything he knows about women. The one thing that set him apart from Dave and me was that he truly knew how to suppress emotion. He never let it get involved. It was all physical for him. Until you.”
“Why in the world would I be the one who reaches him?”
“The most beautiful woman in Snow Creek?” Callie says, her eyes rolling. “Gee, I have no idea.”
“Second-most beautiful.” Donny brings Callie’s hand to his lips and kisses it.
Callie blushes.
I’m so happy for my sister. She deserves everything in the world, and she seems to have found it with Donny Steel. All those years when she thought herself ugly just because of some stupid comment Pat Lamone had made a million years ago.
I’m almost angrier about that than anything else he’s done to us. How dare he put those thoughts into my sister’s head? Callie is much more self-assured now.
“I’m going to check in with Brock.” I rise. “So please excuse me. Then I should get to bed, since we’re apparently leaving early in the morning.”
“Good night, Ror,” Callie says.
I walk into the kitchen, throw my beer bottles into the recycling bin, grab myself a glass of water, and then stride to my bedroom. I flop down on the bed and whip out my phone.
Nothing from Brock yet.
In fact, I haven’t heard from him in a while. That’s a bit strange. But he and his father are probably busy.
I text him quickly.
Hey you. Turns out I’m leaving early in the morning to go to Utah. How’s everything going in Wyoming? Love you.
I close my eyes, stretch my arms over my head, and wait for him to reply.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
BROCK
“Brittany, leave,” I say as calmly as I can.
Dad is still cold as ice. He hasn’t moved the gun. Nothing fazes him.
And that scares me more than almost anything else.
“Leave,” I say again.
“Daddy?” Brittany says through trembling lips.
Doc says nothing.
“Why are you doing this? Please don’t hurt him.”
“Go,” I say. Then I turn to my father. “Dad?”
“Leave, Brittany.” From Dad this time.
“Please don’t hurt my father.”
“No one will get hurt as long as everyone does as they’re told,” Dad says. “And that means you leave this room. Now.”
Brittany glances at her father. Opens her mouth. Closes it. Makes a sobbing sound, and then leaves, closing the door behind her.
“Dad,” I say. “I need to go after her. She’s going to call the police.”
Dad nods. “Go.”
I head out the door, closing it behind me as well. Brittany stands in the hallway, holding her phone. I run toward her and smack it out of her hand. It clatters onto the hardwood floor.
“Don’t,” I say.
“Are you kidding me, Brock? Your father is holding a gun.”
“For good reason,” I say.
“What the hell kind of a good reason is there ever to hold a gun to another person’s head?”
“Brittany, your father’s in with something nefarious. And if you know anything about it, you need to tell me now.”
“I need to tell the police.”
“Listen, if your dad is doing what I think he is, you don’t want to call the police. Sure, they can arrest my dad and haul him in for assault with a deadly weapon, but they’re going to get your dad on something a lot worse.”
“What could be worse?” Brittany asks, again her lips trembling.
“Homicide. Human trafficking. Child molestation.”
Brittany’s hand goes to her mouth. “My father would never.”
“I hope you’re right. For his sake. And yours.”
“I did it,” Brittany says. “I did it. I stole the tranquilizers and the syringes from my father’s clinic, and I injected Callie and Rory. It was me. And I’m sorry.”
“We’ve gone way beyond that,” I say.
“The atropine. My dad, he asked me to get it out of the cabinet for him.”
“You said Pat asked you for some.”
“He did, but I refused. When my dad asked, of course I got it. He uses it all the time.”
“Did he tell you what it was for?”
“Why would he? He just asked me to get it.”
“If my suspicions are correct, it was used to poison my uncle. But that’s not even the worst part.”
“You said something about a baby.”
“The atropine was left for the nurse in her baby’s diaper.”
Brittany falls to the floor. I’m still holding her phone. I help her up, walk her to the living room, and set her on the couch.
I have no love for Brittany Sheraton. She and Pat Lamone have made Rory’s and Callie’s lives hell. But at this point, I believe her. I believe she trusted Pat, and I believe she trusts her father.