Page 68 of Mail Order Bride

Mona shot me a look of warning. “I think we should focus on you,” she said. “You have other cats to whip.”

“Mona’s right,” my father said. “Your life is a mess, princess. Nothing but lies.”

“What was I supposed to do?” I shouted, knowing exactly what he was getting at. “The cop’s wife was lying on my kitchen floor. Dead as a doornail. Joel was dead. The cop was dead.”

“So you lied,” he said. “I guess the mail order bride story was easy to come up with, thanks to me. Loner searches for woman, loner marries woman, loner keeps woman on a short leash. Woman is afraid for her life.”

“You only ever wanted his farm,” I said. “And now you have it.”

Mona shrugged. “So you lied. Big whoopee. Everyone knew Mr. Joel was a little strange.”

“No one reallyknewhim,” I said bitterly.

“Yeah,” Daddy replied. “Maybe not even you.”

Maybe not even me.He’s right, and I hate him for it.

My father shook his head. “All those secret powers and you still couldn’t see it.”

“I don’t have special powers, Daddy. I’m just an ordinary person.”

“You’re a lot of things, Gina. Ordinary isn’t one of them.”

It suddenly occurred to me. “What was I supposed to see?”

“You tell her,” my father said to Mona.

Mona put her hands up and backed away. “Leave me out of this.”

“Fine,” Daddy said. “That man you were so adamant about marrying… He helped put your mother away.”

“Joel?” I said. “That’s not possible.”

“I assure you,” my father said, “it is.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Would it have made any difference?”

“Of course it would.”

“Well, at any rate… I knew what he was the first time I laid eyes on him.”

“And still you said nothing.”

“By the time I put two and two together, you were already married. I was packing things up when I found the file. His name was on the bail bonds paperwork.”

“He would have been a kid back then.”

“He was young,” my father said. “But hardly a kid.”

I took a deep breath in and held it. “Well, it’s not like he killed her.”

“Maybe not with his own hands. But that’s exactly what he did, Gina. He felt guilty about it, and that’s why he married you.”

“That’s not true. He loved me.”

“When I confronted him, he offered me hush money, thinking I was going to die soon. Guess the joke was on him.”

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