Page 75 of Moonlight Feels Right
"How's Ocean Shores?" her aunt asked, changing the subject.
"It's great," Emmalyn said. "You should come and visit me sometime, Mom. You can see my apartment, meet my other friends."
"I would like to do that, but I don't know when, or how long I'll have to stay hidden. I'm sure they're looking for me," Sara said.
Emmalyn gave him a quick look, a question in her eyes. He shrugged, not sure what to advise her to do. It was her call.
She wiped her mouth and put down her napkin. Then she turned to her mother. "There is something I need to tell you. Jeremy came to my apartment. He wanted to know where you were."
Her mother stiffened, her eyes widening in fear while Linda's expression turned angry.
"I didn't tell him," Emmalyn added quickly.
"Did he hurt you?" her mother asked. "Please tell me he didn't hurt you."
It was the first time he'd heard Sara express any real concern for Emmalyn, and he could see that Em was as startled as he was.
"He tried to slap me, but I hit him with a vase and told him to get out. Then Hunter and my neighbor heard the commotion and came to my rescue."
"Not that she needed rescuing," he put in. "She'd already handled Jeremy."
"Nobody handles Jeremy," her mother said, shaking her head, worry in her eyes. "I should go back. If I don't, you'll be in danger, Emmy. He'll keep harassing you until you tell him where I am."
"Mom, stop," Emmalyn said, cutting off her mother's panicked ramble. "I'm okay, and Jeremy is in jail. The neighbor who helped me is a police officer. He ran Jeremy's name, and it turned out that Jeremy had a warrant out for his arrest. Ben took him into custody. Jeremy is being held without bail, and the entire group is now being investigated. It's possible that the commune was a front for a smuggling enterprise."
He watched Sara carefully as she processed what Emmalyn was saying. He was looking for shock or surprise, but what he saw was acknowledgment, regret. "You knew," he said.
Her gaze darted to him. "I didn't know, not for sure," she said hastily.
"But you suspected," he said.
"Over the years, I wondered," Sara admitted. "I saw crates of guns, but I knew that the men wanted to be prepared in case anyone tried to take our land away from us."
"That's just a story you told yourself," Emmalyn put in. "But you had to know more. You were there for so long, and you were with Elias and then Jeremy."
"They didn't share their business with me. That wasn't my role, and questions were met with punishment, so I stopped asking." Sara drew in a shaky breath, then said, "What will happen to the women and children if the men go to jail?"
"They'll be taken care of," Emmalyn said.
"By who?" her mother asked. "Many of them didn't have families; that's how they ended up at Haven."
"I don't know exactly, but I'll talk to my friend, Ben, about it. I'm sure they'll be offered services to help them start over," Emmalyn said. "And maybe some of them do have extended families who can give them support. The important thing is that they'll be free to make their own choices."
"This is so much to take in. All of this is happening because I left," Sara said in bemusement. "So many lives will be changed because I walked away, and Jeremy tried to find me. I'm a little surprised he did that; he has someone else now. I'm sure it was just out of pride. He couldn't stand that I would try to leave. He always liked to be in control."
"He also probably didn't want you to talk to law enforcement," Hunter interjected. "Even if you didn't ask questions, you could provide information."
"That's probably true," Sara admitted. "Not everyone there was bad. I worry about some of my friends. I hope they'll be all right."
"They'll be better than they were," Emmalyn said. She gave her mother a pointed look. "There won't be a Haven to go back to, Mom, in case you ever have second thoughts. That's not going to be possible. The police will shut it down. It's over."
"I knew once I left Haven, I could never go back," Sara said. "I do miss my friends. And that farm was my home for the last twenty plus years, so I have mixed feelings about it being gone, but I know that I'm sick, and I have been for a while. I even got up the courage to ask Jeremy to take me to a doctor one day, but he refused. He told me the herbs would heal me. They didn't. And he didn't care." Sara paused. "I was too weak to fight him. But Linda's strength and your support finally helped me leave. I've never been as strong as either of you."
He could see Emmalyn holding back. She probably didn't like her mother saying she missed her friends or that she knew there were bad things going on at Haven, but she didn't have the courage to do anything about it. Emmalyn could not understand her mother's cowardice, and he had a problem with it, too. But Sara had also been beaten down over the past two decades, and he had a feeling that her life had been very, very difficult.
Linda cleared her throat. "I'm glad Jeremy is in jail and the group will be no more. I hope the men in charge pay heavily for their crimes." She paused, looking at her niece. "But I am sorry you had to deal with Jeremy, Emmalyn."
"I'm fine," Emmalyn said. "And I just want to put all of this behind us."
