Page 17 of Waiting For A Girl Like You
“Evie, please!”
Samuel had Evie in his arms once she was out of the camera’s view. Cradling her to his chest, he comforted his wife as she cried. “You are so fucking brave, Evangeline.”
Toby’s shouting halted when he heard Samuel’s voice. Throughout what felt like endless days and weeks of his trial, the two men glared at each other, with Toby’s lawyers vigilant about keeping their interactions limited, or else Toby would fall into a frenzied, nonsensical state.
Not that her brother needed to interact with Toby. Jamison didn’t doubt Samuel would kill him if given the chance again. Witnessing her brother’s own darkness come out that day in the graveyard would remain forever etched in her memory.
“Let me see you, Sammy!” Toby roared, straining as he battled the guards. “Let me see you.”
Rubbing Evie’s back, Samuel met Liam’s gaze over her head. “It wouldn’t matter. It’s over, and you owe me this.”
When Liam didn’t move immediately, Jamison came over to take his hand. She understood the battle raging in his big brain. Good versus bad. Right versus wrong. He was weighing each outcome on how allowing Samuel to interact with Toby could play out.
“Hey.” She tugged on his fingers, and his midnight brown gaze focused again, meeting hers. “If it were me.”
That was all she needed to say. Since the night the women came, Liam had taken to overthinking everything. He was angry at himself for allowing it to happen or for missing something that could have prevented it. But to place him in Samuel’s shoes, to make his mind accept that if things were reversed, he would want to send one last parting shot at the man actively ruining their lives and the lives of so many others.
“Go ahead,” Liam said to Samuel, moving out of his way. “But make it count.”
After handing off Evie to her, Samuel made his way to the laptop. Jamison held her sister tight as everyone waited to see what he would do.
Will stood suddenly when he realized Liam wasn’t going to stop this. “Samuel—”
“Show your face, you bastard,” Toby raged, his screams drowning out whatever Will was about to say. “You think you’ve won? You haven’t won. She’ll never be yours. Evie will always love me, and you can’t erase that!”
The muscle in Samuel’s jaw ticked, and the resolved look that came over him had Jamison holding her breath. He didn’t move to stand in front of it, but instead leaned down so his face filled the prison’s visitation room screen.
Seeing him for the first time in years, Toby went absolutely feral and fought the guards with a newfound strength. Kicking and biting, he struggled to get free, growling like a beast trapped in a cage.
Samuel watched it all with a sinister gleam in his eyes and a condescending smirk growing on his lips, especially when a guard struck Toby directly in the gut with a fist so the four of them could regain control.
Locked in tight, Toby wedged his head in a way that allowed him to see the prison laptop through the arms of the guards. “Listen to me,” he snarled, aiming a finger at Samuel. “This isn’t over. I’m coming for you, fucker.”
Samuel rested a hand on the laptop, prepared to snap it shut, and cut the feed. “Not if I come for you first.”
Chapter 4
“Mr. Fairweather, perhaps next time you could refrain from antagonizing the serial killer on a live feed,” Agent Klausen stated as they gathered in the media room. “That meeting took considerable effort to make happen, and far too many eyes were watching.”
“Noted,” Samuel replied, staring at the movie screen showing Evie and their girls in the parlor talking to Simone and Josie. Every room at Haven House stood on display, with Rowan leaving nothing to chance. Privacy wasn’t something they could afford anymore, slipping right out the window with their sanity. “How long is this going to take?”
Jamison went to stand with her brother, wanting to offer comfort while everyone prepared for the post-Toby meeting. Samuel wasn’t the touchy-feely type, and she wasn’t quite sure how to help him. They had all been functioning in a haze for the last two weeks, putting one foot in front of the other as they tried to unravel this nightmare.
“The parlor door is engaged,” she said, trying to keep him calm. “Holden is with them. You know he won’t let anyone get past him.”
Holden had made it his personal mission never to let the girls or Evie out of his sight. He went everywhere with them, not that they were allowed much freedom right now, and he was personally overseeing the installation of new security doors throughout Samuel’s home. Every room would eventually have security doors like the one in their main bedroom, and a secondary panic room was being added to the first floor. Once that was done, Samuel wanted their new home in Georgia to beoutfitted with identical measures, and wasn’t moving the family up there until the work was complete.
Haven House was undergoing the same treatment. The hand-carved, heavy oak double doors welcoming people to Haven House? Gone. The kitchen rear entrance that used to be left open to allow for a cool afternoon breeze? Gone. All replaced with the best security doors money could buy.
“I know Holden will keep them safe,” Samuel said. His trust was limited, but Holden had it in spades. “But I think he should be in here.”
“I’m a big girl and can read the notes later.” Izzy joined them at the screen, the noise level in the room rising behind them. “I can go be with your family while Holden comes in here, but only if you’re okay with it?”
The reigning hero of Haven House could’ve asked to sit on the roof naked, and no one would object. They owed Izzy everything, even if she had ignored orders to stay put when the women made a run for the house. Strong-willed and capable, she’d come rushing to the rescue, and because of that, they could piece together what happened on the lawn while the rest of them were barricaded upstairs.
“They fell like dominoes,” Izzy had told them. “One right after another, all of them clawing at their throats and convulsing.”
Two women made it inside, but two more would have if Izzy hadn’t intervened. One had a handheld sickle bought from a Home Depot on the Florida-Alabama border. She managed to slice Izzy’s forearm before collapsing from the manchineel toxins.
