Page 79 of All In Good Time

A spark lit in Mark’s eye, and Becca could have sworn she saw them flick to her before going back to Marty. “I hear you’re friends with my son, Derek.”

Becca felt the tingle of Marty turning to her in question, but she was too afraid to look away from Mark.

“We’re just classmates.”

“Just classmates, huh?”

Becca couldn’t explain how Mark’s triangular eye movements brought such terror over her. First to Marty, then to her hand on his arm, then finishing his focus on her. She connected the dots as quickly as he did.

“Interesting.”

She couldn’t feel Marty. She couldn’t feel the floor under her feet. She could barely see Mark. Her mind had shut down into a static, glaring red, warning sign. Nausea twisted in her stomach.

Derek had been found hiding at Marty’s house. And now hereshewas, clutching Marty like her life depended on it. That was no coincidence, and Mark now knew it. She had everything to do with what happened that week.

“I’ll let you kids get back to work.” He addressed it to both of them, but only looked at Becca. His heavy hand came up, landing on her shoulder the same way it had when he’d showed up to her house searching for Derek. He squeezed firmly, enough to be uncomfortable but not painful. Bile rose in her throat. “I’ll tell Derek you said hi, Rebecca.”

He left them there and continued on with his patrol.

Marty watched her, clearly unsure what to make of the entire interaction. She didn’t blame him. He knew only the surface of the story. He didn’t know what Mark Stokes did and what he had now confirmed for himself.

“Hey, you okay?” Marty said, but his voice was muffled by the ringing in her ears.

She dropped her hand and walked toward the closest restroom, waving him on weakly. “You go ahead and grab food. I’m not very hungry.”

“Becks,” he called, but she waved him off again and increased her pace as her stomach churned.

He couldn’t follow her into the restroom, and the heavy door slammed behind her.

Rushing into an open stall, Becca locked it and emptied her empty stomach into the toilet.

* * *

“What the hell, Derek?” Elaine Renfield hurried to tame her tousled hair as she clumsily followed Derek down the stairs of her house. His sudden departure left her fumbling to keep up. “You’re leaving?”

“I’ve got to get home.” A weak excuse, he knew, but he couldn’t drag it on any later. He glanced at the clock on the wall—an hour later than his father told him to be home. Good.

“We didn’t even do anything,” Elaine said, reaching out to catch his arm.

He paused as she pulled him to a stop on the stairs, and looked at her fingers sliding seductively over his skin.

Derek wasn’t fazed by the action, even though he so badly wanted to be. “I’m not in the mood.”

Her hand dropped once she realized it brought no reaction, and she glared at him. “Oh, okay. So you’re not in the mood to screw me, but you’re in the mood to beat the shit out of Scotty.” She rolled her eyes, the intense sarcasm as thick as honey. Her arms crossed over her chest. “What the hell is going on with you? You’re acting like a freak.”

Derek rolled his eyes and opened the front door. “And you’re acting like a bitch.”

He left through the front door in the wave of Elaine’s outraged protests, followed by a wake of curses and insults that flew right over his head.

Hewishedthey would affect him. Make him mad, make him sad, make himsomething.Like the last few times he’d done this with some random girl, or when he fought Scotty and a few other nosy bastards—he felt nothing. Completely numb.

He’d been so afraid at first, so fucking angry. And then…nothing.

His dad beat the shit out of him the day he returned, and then nothing. Like it never even existed. Derek had spent his entire life walking on eggshells around his father, worried how he would react to the smallest things, and now—because of the men Sheriff Wade had driving by the house multiple times a day—nothing.

Right when hewantedto feel something, there was nothing to make him feelanything. Even his asshole father.

It only made him want to provoke Mark more—to get any reaction from the man. If that happened, then he could be upset atherfor putting him in this situation. This home was as stable as a pane of glass. It was only a matter of time before it shattered and cut him bloody. The longer it lasted, the worse the fallout would be.

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