Page 109 of Hey, Daddy

So that was who it was.

Julia and I guessed her boyfriend.

The ‘son’ must’ve been the man who’d threatened me the other day when he’d been looking for Desi.

“We can’t take her back, because now we’re accomplices,” the man, who I assumed was Julia’s boyfriend, Rich, said. “We’ve had her for over two hours now.”

Two hours?

That explained the shift in the sun.

“Her phone’s been going off like crazy, too,” Julia said. “They know that she’s missing.”

“Why the fuck would he even bring the phone?” Rich grumbled.

“I brought it because I didn’t want to leave it on the ground and alert anyone that I’d taken her,” the third voice chimed in.

He was listening to it all, but he barely ever replied.

It was like he was disconnected.

Like he was a part of the conversation, but only peripherally.

“Why did you do this, Eddison?” Rich growled. “Jesus Christ.”

“You said that she was ruining your life, Julia,” Eddison said, sounding…lost.

As if he really couldn’t believe that he was having to explain it to her.

“I know, son. I know,” Rich said. “But what did we tell you about the private conversations that we have? We talk about it, but we’re not actually going to do them.”

“You talked about running over that dog, and Julia did it,” Eddison pointed out.

“That was an accident.” Julia tried to cover her tracks, but Eddison disagreed with her.

“No, I watched you from across the street. You tied his leash to the door handle and then made it to where he couldn’t go anywhere else when you started backing up.” Eddison sounded confused.

“Really, Julia?” Rich groaned.

“No one was supposed to see!” she cried out, as if that was an excuse.

The roiling in my belly hyped up at Eddison’s words.

Julia was fucking sick.

What kind of disturbed woman did that to an animal and lived with herself afterward?

What was she trying to do? Gain sympathy while ridding herself of a problem?

“I was just trying to…”

I didn’t hear anything more because a wave of dizziness overtook me.

At this point, I didn’t know what the dizziness was from—whatever they’d dosed me with, or low blood sugar.

I tried to remember how much of the Snickers I’d gotten to eat and failed to produce the memory.

Probably not nearly enough.

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