He sighs again and I prepare myself for another blow to the gut. “Violet, I’m not sure how much you know about your parents, but back in the beginning of the case there were few suggestions that no one every really mentioned to you, simply because you were too young and honestly we didn’t want it getting out to the public. Keeping certain details a secret can better help us convict the right person. However, now I think you might need to know, but I want you to prepare yourself for it.”
“Okay, I’m prepared.” Biggest lie I ever told and I wouldn’t have had the guts to say it if I would have known what he was going to say next.
“During the first investigation of your parents, the lead detective on the case found some details about your parents—well, your mother anyway—that connected them to a few local drug dealers. It was a past thing, I think that ended a few years after you were born when your mother married your father.”
“No, my mother married my dad before I was born,” I say, but really I have no idea—I barely no anything about them, having lost them at such a young age.
“No, she married him when you were about three years old,” he says. “After she got her act together and got out of rehab, but her past was still chasing her and she owed the wrong people some money. The police were never quite able to track down the people in question and honestly all evidence pointed to a random burglary, but after digging into Preston’s previous records, I discovered he was living in Cheyenne area at the time and dealing drugs… and some of the pictures he had of you… you were younger.”
“No… you’re fucking lying.” I shake my head over and over until I get dizzy. “You’re lying, you’re lying, you’re lying. I didn’t live with my parent’s killer. That would never happen.” Unless it was done on purpose? Oh my God, was it somehow done on purpose by Preston?
“I’m not saying he’s their killer in any way shape or form,” he says in a gentle voice. “It’s more than likely that he might have developed an obsession with you since most of what we found points toward stalker behavior, which happens sometimes with public cases like these, but I want you to have the details now, just in case.”
Just in case what?
Just in case what?
Just in case what?
The words echo inside my head over and over again until suddenly I’m seeing Preston’s face in the memory, the one where I’m in the basement and he’s yelling at Mira Price while she sings and sings and sings. So clearly. But is it just because it was suggested or did I finally put the pieces together.
“No! My mom never did drugs… they were good people…” And to me, the six year-old with beautiful dreams, they were. They were perfect. And I want to remember them that way. I want to erase everything he said, forget I ever heard it, but I can’t.
“I’m not saying they were bad,” he tells me. “People that do drugs aren’t necessarily bad people. They just made some bad choices and your mother cleaned up her act. She just struggled to erase her past.”
Like mother like daughter.
“Violet, I’d need to ask you some more questions about Preston and what’s been going on while you’ve been living there with him.” A pause. “It’s important in order for us to track him down.”
I can’t breathe. Can’t think. Can’t see. Everything is spinning, round and round and round. All mixed up. All wrong. I can feel the truck pulling over as I gasp for air. As soon as it stops, I drop the phone seat, open the door, and fall out of the truck onto my knees. Gravel splits open my knees and the palms of my hand as I dry heave, gasping for air my lungs won’t give me.
Adrenaline overload. One I didn’t cause. But one that feels like it’s going to kill me. And honestly, I wish it would.
Chapter 16
Luke
She’s scaring the shit out of me. She won’t talk. Will barely move. I have to lift her back into the truck. Once I get her inside and get the door shut, I climb in the driver’s side then pick up her phone off the seat, which has been ringing since she dropped it.
“Hello?” I answer, my arm moving around Violet as she lowers herself down onto the seat and puts her head on my lap. She clutches onto my jeans, still not moving, barely blinking as she stares ahead into nothingness as if she’s completely and utterly lost.
“Who is this?” someone asks on the other end of the line.
“Luke… Price.”
“Oh…” He sounds uneasy. “This is Detective Stephner. Is Violet there with you?”
“She is but she can’t talk right now,” I tell him, smoothing my hand over her head, which seems to be helping, her breathing settling just a little bit, but her eyes are still so hollow. “What exactly did you say to her?”
“I’m not at liberty to tell you that.” He pauses. “Are you guys back in Laramie yet?”
I glance at the road in front of us. “No, we’re headed back now and are about halfway there... why?”
“Well, I would suggest turning around and taking Violet with you to stay somewhere just for a few days,” he says. “Just until we can get some answers about someone.”
I continue to run my fingers up and down Violets cheek and she nuzzles into my touch. “Does this have anything to do with my mother?” I ask quietly.
“You need to talk to Violet. That’s all I’m going to say,” he replies in a formal tone. “Have her call me as soon as she calms down.”
“Okay,” I tell him then we hang up and I put the phone on the dashboard and stare down at her; her head on my lap, her eyes so full of fear. “Baby do you want to talk about it?” I ask, fighting to keep my voice even. I don’t want to push her, but I’m desperate to know if this has to do with my mother.
She shakes her head and closes her eyes as my fingers brush through her hair. “No, not yet.”
My hand pauses in her hair. “The detective… he said maybe it’d be better if you stayed away from Laramie for a bit.”
“Okay, you can leave me on the side of the road.” She’s not joking either. In fact, she sounds hopeful that I’ll do it.
I’m not sure how long I stay parked on the side of the freeway, trying to figure out what to do—where to take her. Back to Vegas? I don’t want to do that, don’t want to go back to that kind of environment. There’s only one other choice, one I have to swallow up what little pride‘s left, before I take out the phone and dial my dad’s number. He answers after two rings and I sputter it out before I back out.
“Hey, I need another favor.”
Epilogue
1 day later…
Luke
My dad lives in the section of town San Diego where the streets are lined with tall, slender townhomes and the streets are sloped and lined with trees. The air smells like the ocean and by the time we arrive there, it’s veering toward the next night, the sun setting, the sky painted orange and pink.
Violet barely spoke the entire drive and only moved when she got out to go to the bathroom. I took the opportunity to call Kayden and get coaches number so I could talk to him about missing the first week of practice.
“You know he’s weird about that shit,” Kayden had said, reminding me just how much I might be screwing up my perfect schedule that I’d worked so hard to maintain.
“I know,” I’d replied. “But it is what it is… I can’t make it there.”