Page 60 of Our Lips Are Sealed
It had been nothing short of a nightmare.
Toby had screamed as Ben carried him out, expecting his Evie to save him like she always did. He’d sat crying in Trevor’s car, waiting for her to make it stop.
And then there was CeCe.
It had taken two full grown men to force her into that car. The little girl had fought with every ounce of strength in her, clawing at Ben like one of Haven’s feral cats.
The remaining pieces of Simone’s heart not already shattered by what they’d lived through, surely broke then. It took years before she could move on and forgive Ben for his part in the children’s removal. But even so, there were times Evie noticed traces of that lingering resentment holding on, appearing on rare occasions.
“How often did he visit you in Angola?” Cohen asked Nick, snagging her attention. “It’s not always easy to get visitors in there.”
Alone with Judy on the couch, she watched SamuelassistCohen with his questioning. It seemed Nick required prompting, and Samuel’s presence was apparently the encouragement the man needed.
“I’m not real sure,” Nick mumbled, giving Samuel side-eye. “About twice a year over the last few years, I think.”
“Do you remember the first time he came, and what he said about his relationship with my mother?” Jamison asked. She was over at the table, drilling Nick with her own questions that were coming off surprisingly relevant. “Or what he might have said about us?”
The questioning continued for a bit longer, and when they looped back around to things already covered, Samuel returned to her. “I need to call Nari,” he said, cupping her cheek. “Are you still hanging on?”
Evie leaned into his touch and nodded. “Do what needs to be done.”
He sat on the couch beside her, pulling out his phone to talk in a low voice so as not to disturb Cohen. “Nari, I’m sorry to bother you on the weekend, but this is an emergency. There’s an account run out of the North Carolina offices under the name Tobias Miller. I need you to pull transactions on it as far back as possible and send them to me.”
This phone call would have been best made in private, but she knew he didn’t want to leave her. Evie loved him a little bit more for it. There had been a moment earlier where she’d almost slipped off the cliff and into a place not easy to come back from.
“Don’t you find it odd that you’re with him?” Judy whispered in her ear. “The son of the man your mother was going to marry.”
Trying to listen to both Samuel and Cohen, Evie nodded. “We’re an unconventional couple, that’s for sure.”
Nari was saying something, and Samuel sighed. “I’m not surprised your access to the account is restricted. Use mine, and if that doesn’t work, I’m giving you permission to run my father’s codes,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “On second thought, get Rowan involved. I want what we’re doing kept as quiet as possible. No one in North Carolina needs to know what we’re doing. Especially my uncle.”
“What was that about Trevor?” Evie asked when he hung up. “Is it because of what we did to Claudia?”
“No, he knows his daughter screwed up. But with Charlie, he can be protective,” he replied. “He doesn’t trust my dad to not purposely hurt their brother, and when we investigated Charlie’s whereabouts after the break-in, we found heavy security around his accounts and the ones set aside for Toby and CeCe. Trevor is the only person who would have done something like that.”
Trevor’s fears weren’t unfounded. Evie highly doubted Ben could resist inflicting as much pain as possible upon Charlie if given the opportunity.
“We need to call everyone.”
Samuel’s gaze lowered to Judy’s sickly hand gripping her knee. “I’ll handle it,” he said, rising. “But I’d like to make the phone calls outside if you’re okay with that.”
Evie nodded, and Samuel stepped out. “You know, when I think about it, you two being together isn’t all that odd,” Judy said, eyeballing her again. “It reminds me of my noontime stories. Things like this happen in Salem every day.”
The absurdity of her life being compared to a soap opera had Evie volleying between wanting to cry and wanting to laugh. “Great.”
“Do you have any pictures of Toby?” Jamison asked. “I was too young the last time he was at Haven House to remember what he looked like.”
“Yes, I do,” Judy said, struggling to stand. “It’s in my dresser drawer.”
“I’ll get it.” Nick headed down the short hall to the bedrooms but returned empty-handed a minute later. “It’s not there.”
Judy’s brows knitted together. “I printed off the ones from Christmas and put them on my dresser. Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” Nick answered. “You must have misplaced them when you were going through all the photos of Laura Jean.”
With a curt nod at Jamison, Cohen stood from the table. “If you find it, please send it to Jamison,” he said. “We need to get on the road, but before we go, I’d like you to consider accepting a protective detail.”
Understanding Cohen wanted them out of there, Evie stood and made her way to the door.
