Page 46 of Savior

Her voice cut off in a sob and I heard someone, I assumed it was Lauren, murmuring words of comfort to her.

If I was understanding Dakota’s ‘code’ correctly, Lauren was going to go after the biker gang that shot my father, and my mother had tried to talk her out of it.

“I’m sorry, Kate. I just can’t stop thinking about it. She said—she said that these men wouldn’t care if we were pregnant or not. That being pregnant made us a better target and that they would use their bodies to hurt us until— until we lost our babies. Kate, I think that happened to her. Just—just please call me, okay?”

Have you ever asked your mother for the truth?

I stood frozen with the cell phone still firmly gripped in my hand, even as the voicemail ended. Nan had spent years drilling it into our heads that my mother hadn’t wanted us, that she’d been an unfit parent. I’d become so familiar with hearing it that it became truth in my mind.

But what if it was all wrong?

I’d counseled rape victims and women who’d suffered miscarriages. Even as separate events, the trauma could leave lasting scars. If my mother had endured both, it would’ve affected her ability to parent. Hell, it would’ve affected every aspect of her life.

Had my father known?

The anger that had been directed at my mother shifted over to my father at the thought of him leaving her to carry the burden all alone.

My phone screeched against my ear, alerting me once more to another email. I stabbed at the notification with my index finger, wondering what was so important that it warranted multiple late-night messages. The email had come through six times just in the last hour; all from the same dummy account.

Subject: The truth

Secrets don’t always stay buried…

I clicked on the attachment at the bottom of the message and immediately went down to my knees on the vinyl flooring with a cry of surprise. For weeks I’d convinced myself that Comedian was wrong, sure that Nate knew nothing about that night other than what he’d already told me.

The truth was there, in grainy black and white footage from a hospital security tape. Nate, talking with a very tall someone in a hoodie, before sneaking him out of the hospital.

I tried to rationalize it, to tell myself that it was a coincidence until I saw the date and time stamp on the bottom of the screen.

January 1, 2017.

Tears blurred my vision as I pulled up my contact list and dialed. My hands shook as it rang. If my father had been shot like the doctors had told us, then surely, he wouldn’t have been able to leave the hospital on his own. I didn’t even know where to begin unraveling the lies.

“Hello? Kate, are you okay?”

I tried muffling my sob with the back of my hand before giving up. “Jeremy, I need help.”

Chapter Ten

Dakota

“Dakota, try to keep both eyes open this time and see how that feels.”

I gave Jimmy a thumbs up before raising the Glock again, feeling less like Black Widow and more like a Stormtrooper.

Who knew that aiming a gun would be so complicated?

The empty beer bottles mocked me from where they were lined up along the fence. Lauren nodded encouragingly to me before quickly moving back up onto Angel’s front porch. The older man had given us free rein over his house and yard while he helped Mike sober up.

“C’mon, Cap,” Little Ricky called out from across the yard. “Make me proud.”

“I’m trying,” I said, moving my hands over the gun until they were in position. My tongue poked out from between my lips as I set sights on my target.

Failure wasn’t an option.

I slowly depressed the trigger, instinctively squeezing my eyes shut. Instead of staying where I wanted it, the gun dropped down. The air was filled, not with the sound of breaking glass, but that of a bullet whizzing through desert grass.

I released a heavy sigh before lowering my weapon. “I did it again.”

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