Page 31 of Waiting For A Girl Like You
Vivian blinked a few times. “What?”
“Selah is over at Parkland Grounds.”
“What?” Vivian’s hand flew to her throat. “What are you saying? How could—”
“Simone’s other son was also shot. I don’t know if you’re aware, but Simone and Devon have two other children. Twins.” A ghost of a smile tugged at Josie’s lips as she thought of Abe’s adorable face. “Abe is in surgery now.”
“Oh my God,” Vivian whispered. “Who would do such a thing?”
There was no going back. It was like being stuck on the tracks with a train barreling toward her. Ready or not, Josie prepared herself to change this woman’s life forever.
“Laura Jean Eddins was shot and killed.” Images flashed in her mind. A heap on the ballroom floor. The bloody sheet. Ben in agony as he rocked next to it. She shut her eyes, as if she could block them. “Ben is at the morgue identifying her body as we speak.”
Vivian’s legs gave out. She wobbled in place, ready to drop to the cold floor, but Aiden caught her. “She was pregnant,” Viv whispered to Aiden. “I ran into her and Ben at the new boardwalk in Port Michaelson two weeks ago. Laura Jean was so excited and so happy. Ben…h-h-he was happy. Ben is never happy. Aiden, he’s never happy, but he was happy, and it was almost scary how normal he seemed.”
Aiden whispered to Vivian for a moment before snapping at Josie. “What else? You said you came here for help. What the hell do you need help with?”
The nervous hum zipping through her body went silent, and Josie held Aiden’s stare. The way he cradled Vivian to him… he loved her. Charlie would have probably let her fall to the floor and perhaps helped eventually, but only if someone told him to do it.
“She needs to sit down,” Josie said, keeping her voice strong so they wouldn’t argue. “This next part isn’t going to be easy, and Viv needs to sit down.”
The foyer held a single chair with a pair of men’s running shoes next to it. Aiden looked like a runner. Lean and muscled, he looked like the type of guy that greeted the morning with a jog.
Viv continued to cry quietly as Aiden helped her to the chair. “It’s Charlie,” she mumbled to herself. “She’s here to tell me Charlie is dead. He was living out at that house.”
Well, that was a worry Josie could easily eliminate. “Charlie is alive.”
The look of relief on Vivian’s face was just one more heartbreaking thing to pile onto the millions of other soul destroying moments from tonight. “He’s okay?”
“No, but he’s alive,” Josie spat out. “He’s in the hospital, and the doctors say he’s going to pull through just fin—”
“We need to go.” Vivian was out of the chair and rushing for the door. “Is he at Hollingsdale General or the hospital over in Port Michaelson?”
Josie didn’t move, and neither did Aiden. Viv had her a smart one this time around. “Come sit down, honey, and let her finish,” Aiden said. “I think she has more to say.”
He was a good guy. Any other man would have been pissed at how fast his woman was ready to ride to the rescue of her soon-to-be ex-husband.
Vivian’s baby blue eyes flicked back and forth between them, realizing it wasn’t over. “Say it, Josie.”
“Do you know why he was living at Haven House?”
Returning to the chair, Viv nodded at her question. “Ben cut him off after he started having problems with drinking. Charlie wouldn’t get help, and Ben cut off his allowance, even though it wasn’t his fault. Charlie only started dabbling recently when I failed yet again to keep the baby to term.”
Dear God. How much psychological damage had Vivian endured? They would be lucky if she walked away tonight without her mind completely snapping in half.
“Charlie has been dabbling in drugs for over a decade,” Josie said flatly. “But do you know about the woman? I’m sure there were others, but do you know about the main one? Rebecca? He wasn’t staying at Haven House only because Ben cut him off. He was staying there because that’s where she lived. Charlie brought Rebecca to live at Haven House when she was barely seventeen years old. He was newly married to you, and he was sleeping with a seventeen-year-old child at the same time.”
That had to be the cruelest thing she had ever spoken in her life, but it was the truth, and damn it, Vivian deserved to know. Fuck the Fairweathers and theirit’s for the best if we keep things secretmotto. It destroyed people—real fucking people—who were just trying to live their lives.
The speech gained the expected reaction. Vivian looked ready to hurl her guts up all over the tile. Josie could relate, but now wasn’t the time to wimp out. Miranda needed her back at Parkland as soon as possible.
“And he…” Vivian swallowed a few times. “He kept her out at that house? No. Charlie wouldn’t do that.”
“Why wouldn’t he do that, Vivian?” Aiden hissed, already pushing through his shock. “You said that his brother hid a woman who he had gotten pregnant out there, so why wouldn’t you expect Charlie to do the same?”
Yep, a smart man. Viv probably didn’t know what to do with herself. “The first baby Charlie and Rebecca had together was a girl,” Josie continued. “They named her Olivia, but everyone called her Livy.”
Vivian quite simply lost control. It was like she was trying to rise, but didn’t even make it a fraction of an inch before sliding right down to sit on the floor. “A baby? What do you mean, a baby?” she rambled, her head violently shaking in denial as the hysteria bubbled from her. “Charlie had a baby with her? Ababy?”
