Page 264 of Sin Bin

“Your uncle Flynn died recently.”

Meadow remained silent, offering no condolences, no words of sympathy.

“We moved to a different house a few years after…after your parents died.”

Meadow swallowed hard and closed her eyes tightly.

“Will you please say something?” her aunt whispered beseechingly. “Talk to me—”

“Why should I?” Meadow lashed out. “I don’t owe you a damn thing. You left me!”

“I did you a favor!”

“How? By abandoning me to foster care? By turning me into a ward of the state?”

“Yes!” her aunt cried. “Do you have any idea how differently your life would have turned out if I’d kept you? Your uncle was a monster! We fought all the time and money was always tight! If you’d stayed with us, you would have grown up poor and abused—”

“Do you think foster care was a picnic?”

“No, but it was better than the life I could have given you! You were in the system for only three years before—”

“Only three years? Those three years felt like a lifetime!”

“But it wasn’t a lifetime! Harris Ryan rescued you! He bought you a nice house, raised you in a good neighborhood, put you through college. He gave you the kind of life your parents would have wanted for you. So yes, baby girl, I did you a damn favor!”

Meadow was shaking her head from side to side. “I don’t understand you. If your husband was so horrible, how could you stay with him? How could you choose him over your own flesh and blood? How could you let your niece—an innocent child—become a fucking orphan?”

“It’s not that simple—”

“Yes, it is! You said yourself that he was a monster! Why didn’t you leave him?”

“Because I loved him!” her aunt exploded.

Meadow went still, incredulity warring with disgust.

Her aunt broke down sobbing. “I’m not proud to admit that, but it’s true! He was my husband, and I loved him!”

“Well, then, I’m sorry for your loss,” Meadow said with scathing courtesy.

“I just wanted to protect you,” her aunt choked out between sobs. “That’s all I ever wanted!”

A tiny knot of fear twisted in Meadow’s stomach. “Protect me from what?”

Her aunt sniffled hard. She didn’t answer.

“How did Uncle Flynn die?” Meadow asked slowly.

There was a long pause. “He had an accident.”

“What kind of accident? A car accident?”

“No. He was drunk and he fell down the stairs at our house.”

Something in her voice sent a chill through Meadow. As an unthinkable possibility occurred to her, she whispered, “Did you…did you push him?”

Her aunt was silent.

“Oh my God,” Meadow breathed.

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