Page 88 of Little Buried Secrets

As soon as Grant saw me, he shook his head and said, “What is it with you?”

“I know how upset you are right now, and I just wanted to make sure Rae is all right.”

“She’s fine,” he said. “Why wouldn’t she be? What do you think I’m going to do—murder her for breaking up with me last night and ignoring me all day today?”

“You think I was ignoring you?” Rae asked.

“Sure seemed like it to me.”

She raised her hands in front of her. “Wow, Grant. I thought you knew me better. Or maybe I just wanted to believe you did. I can’t … I can’t deal with this right now.”

She turned and went back inside.

Grant huffed a slew of swear words and walked to his truck.

I almost went after him, but I didn’t.

Someone else had just parked in the driveway—someone I wanted to talk to even more than Grant.

CHAPTER 36

I stepped off the front porch onto the driveway and said, “I’m surprised to see you here.”

“I’m not staying,” Coach Warren said. “I just came to drop off some flowers for Rae. Have you been able to speak to Bronte?”

I shook my head. “There’s been a lot going on. I haven’t seen her since I talked to you last.”

“Where is she right now?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “She could be in her room.”

He tapped a shoe on the ground, thinking. “Do you think I should go inside, say a few words to Rae?”

“I don’t know. It’s up to you.”

“I can’t decide. I’m starting to think that maybe coming here wasn’t a good idea.”

In my opinion, it was a great one.

I had a few more questions to ask.

“I heard your wife left after I talked to you,” I said.

“Yeah … she did. She’ll be back. She does this sometimes.”

“Your wife leaves sometimes? Why?”

“She thinks I’m not concerned enough about serious issues when they come up in our life. It’s my personality, I guess. I don’t want to upset her, but what am I supposed to do? Pretend I’m as upset as she is even though I’m not? I’m a glass half-full type of guy. Things always work themselves out.”

Warren was perhaps the most passive man I’d ever met, so passive I was still having a hard time picturing him molesting and killing Margot. I thought about Skye and Elle, and how highly they’d spoken about him when they came to see me.

I didn’t know what to believe anymore.

I ran my hands up and down my arms, realizing how cool it had become since the sun had gone down. I tilted my face toward the sky. It looked like it might start snowing. Warren handed me the flowers he’d been holding, removed his coat, and wrapped it around me.

“You don’t need to … I’m fine,” I said.

“You’re not fine. You’re freezing.”

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