He looked at her, the corner of his lips curving. “You’re too smart for my own good. So I’ll tell you what. I don’t know that I want to see her, but I’ll think about it.”
“Good.” Warmth spread through her at the possibility. She did what she did for a living in order to make a difference, and she wanted to be able to do that for the man she was falling for, too.
“Now I have a question for you,” he said. “Is this from experience? Did you hate Sam?”
She answered immediately. “No. I felt sorry for him. I was sad for him. I felt completely helpless. But I had to let go of all those feelings. He wasn’t a good dad. He wasn’t a good man, and there was nothing I could do to change him. I had to stop fighting all the battles with him. I couldn’t make him a better father. I couldn’t make him stop using.”
He nodded sagely. “You can’t make anyone hit bottom. They have to find it on their own. And man, am I ever glad I found mine. Even if it took collapsing in a race to do it,” he said with a wry note in his voice. “But hey, I’ve come far since then. Hell, I wasn’t even tempted when I saw those pills at your house today.”
She was glad to hear that, but still, she planned to throw them out tonight. She didn’t want to risk it.
* * *
Forgiveness was granted in all of a minute by the fourteen-year-old.
“He’s your brother?” Alex’s jaw dropped, and then he asked Colin for every last detail.
Colin gladly shared the story with Elle’s son over pizza at Gigi’s Pizzeria that night. Alex shook his head in amazement in between bites of cheese pie and drinks of soda. Organic pizza for Colin, of course.
When he was done, Alex said, “I guess I can let it slide, this time, that you missed my mom’s match. That’s a good enough reason. Even though there’s no next time. She’s out for the season.”
“You know what that means?” Colin said, as the waitress cleared the table. “When the Fishnet Brigade wins big, we need to plan an awesome celebration for her and all she did to get the team there.”
“Totally.”
Elle didn’t say much. She simply smiled, and nothing could have made Colin happier than seeing her relaxed and comfortable at dinner with him and the most important person in the world to her. She’d come so far. They’d made it past so much already. He’d never expected to knock down her walls so soon—or at all. But it had happened, and here he was, making his way to the other side with her.
When the check came, Elle reached for it, but he grabbed it sooner and paid. As they left the pizzeria, Colin tossed out a question to Alex. “Ever been to the Zombie Apocalypse store?”
“No,” he said, his eyes wide and curious. “What’s that?”
“Exactly what it sounds like. It’s over in Chinatown. It’s a small shop where you can work on your skills in preparation to do battle with the undead. It’s tongue-in-cheek, lots of novelty items, but it’s all good fun.”
“Mom, can we go?” Alex asked, looking like a dog asking for a bone.
“Only if we can go now,” Elle answered.
The three of them spent the next hour in the odd little store, where Alex plied the store manager for tips on how to stay ahead of the brain-eaters.
It was as perfect a night as a night could be, and Colin wanted to remember it as the start of this whole new chapter with the woman he adored.
* * *
After Alex crashed into bed, Elle grabbed the bottle of pills from her living room table so she could toss them in the trash. On the way to the kitchen, she peered through the orange case. Hmm. She could have sworn there was half of a pill in there from last night. But it was missing now. Twisting open the bottle, she reached inside and counted each one.
The half was gone.
Her stomach plummeted then twisted itself into knots. She winced and looked away from, then back at, the pill container.
No.
She told herself not to panic. He didn’t take it. He simply couldn’t have. She cycled back to last night, and bits and pieces of her own hazy memory played before her eyes. She’d reached for that other half, right? She couldn’t remember taking it. But clearly she must have.
Colin wasn’t Sam.
History wasn’t repeating itself.
This wasn’t déjà vu.
Besides, Colin had distinctly told her he wasn’t even tempted, so she refused to let her mind wander that way. Trust was a choice, and she was making this one. It was the right choice. No question about it.
Closing her eyes, she breathed in deeply, letting the air settle. No reason to worry. No reason to doubt.
After she got ready for bed, she sent Colin a good night text.
Elle: Had such a great day with you.
His reply landed in seconds.
Colin: Let’s do it again soon. All of it.
She closed out of the text app when a new message appeared. But it wasn’t from Colin. It was from an unknown number.
Hey, pretty lady. Don’t you be messing around with that new guy. WJ.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Ryan turned off the engine in his truck, hopped out, and headed inside the convenience store off the highway. He grabbed a bottle of water, walked to the counter, then nodded to the cashier.
His brother.
“That’ll be $1.21.”
“No family discount?” he joked.
Marcus smiled and shook his head. “Sorry, man.”
The convenience store was empty, so Ryan rested his hip against the counter, opened the bottle, and took a gulp. He tapped the plastic. “Can I treat you to a water? It’s hot as hell outside.”
“Sure.”
He returned to the cold shelves, grabbed another bottle, paid for it, too, then handed it to the guy who he used to think was stalking his family. Now he was getting to know the kid. They weren’t instant buddies, and Ryan hadn’t signed the two of them up for Kumbaya-with-your-long-lost-bro classes. But Ryan did want to get to know Marcus, so he was trying to do it in a natural way. He’d taken him to lunch yesterday, the day after they’d met, and Marcus had told him he worked here at this store, saving money for community college, and that he was living with friends.
Which made Ryan wonder if the kid was on the outs with his dad.
His dad was another reason Ryan was here today.
“Listen, Marcus,” he said, as a car pulled up to a gas pump in the lot. “I want to see your dad. I need to talk to Luke because I really want to get some info about the affair and about the pregnancy, and see if it played into why my mom killed my dad.” Those words—they tasted like dry stones on his tongue. For so long he’d believed his mom might be innocent, but he’d been coming to terms and to peace with her guilt. Still, he was determined to help solve the case, and do everything he could to help find the other men involved.
Or at least to learn what had motivated his mother. The better he understood that, the greater the chance the cops had of nailing the other guys. T.J. and Kenny Nelson hadn’t been found yet, and John had said he was still gathering evidence. By all accounts those two had left a trail of destruction behind them over the years, and Ryan’s chest burned with rage over the fact that two killers—as far as he was concerned, they were killers—were walking free.
If it were up to Ryan, he’d have knocked on Luke’s door already, banged hard with his fist, and demanded some fucking answers from the man who’d screwed his mother behind his father’s back then hid the kid he had with her. But he couldn’t do that now. It wouldn’t be fair to Marcus.
“You want to talk to him?” Marcus repeated.
“I want to see what he knows. But to do that,” Ryan said, gesturing from the kid back to himself, “I’d have to let him know I know about you.”
Marcus shook his head. Adamantly. “No. Please no.”