Page 109 of The Last One You Loved
Mila giggled as McK reached over her head and kissed me like it was our last chance to do so, and that fear inside me, that she’d never come back, welled again.
I grabbed her by the back of her neck when she went to move away, gaze meeting hers.
“I love you.” I infused it with every last ounce of love I felt in my heart.
“You’re my favorite thing. My favorite memory. My favorite gift. My favorite person,” she said, and it took my very worst memories of her saying those same words and turned them into the best. “In case you don’t get what that means, I love you, too. So damn much.”
“You have to put a dollar in the cuss jar, McKenna!” Mila said between us, and we both chuckled.
“Remind me when I get back, okay, Bug-a-Boo?” she said, and Mila nodded.
Then, my daughter and I watched her walk down the steps and get in the car and drive away as my heart nearly broke.
Mila skipped back into the house. “Daddy, you’re sad for no reason. McKenna isn’t leaving us. She’ll be back.”
God…to have that much faith.
? ? ?
The next day, I was at the station when the call came in?yet another demand from Sybil Lloyd. Ever since she’d recovered from her stab wound, she’d been hollering to see me, and for a week, I’d ignored her. But now, she was raising such a fuss they were afraid she’d end up busting her stitches.
I drove to the jail to see her, but it wasn’t because I gave a damn about her stitches. No, I went for a completely selfish reason. I wanted her to know she had no control over me or McKenna or Mila anymore. That her reign of terror was finally over.
When Chainsaw was in the hospital, they’d run a DNA test on him, and I’d gotten my proof?he was Mila’s biological father. When he died on the surgical table, I said a big ol’ thank you to the universe and didn’t feel an ounce of guilt. Even if he’d lived, I wouldn’t have had to worry about him in Mila’s life because the bullet he’d put in Sadie’s leg had been shot from the same gun that had killed Slider. He would have spent the rest of his life in jail.
Now, Sybil had nothing to hold over me, but I had a lot to hold over her.
She looked like hell when they brought her into the room and hooked the chain around her ankle to the floor by the chair. She looked even worse than the day I’d found her passed out in a sea of her own vomit with Mila screaming in the other room.
She crossed her arms over her chest, glared, and said snidely, “I’ve been asking to see you for days,Sheriff.”
“I have one question, Sybil. Did you kill Slider or did Chainsaw?”
I already knew the answer, but I wanted to see her response. I wanted to discombobulate her and put her on the defensive like she always had me. Her mouth dropped, and then she put her arms over her chest, face turning squinty. “I had nothing to do with that.”
“Are you sure? Because I think Slider threatened to give away your hiding spot. That you were afraid of losing your million-dollar payday.”
Her jaw ticked. “I didn’t kill no one. Slider was stupid. He went back to The Nest because he wanted his damn bike. I told him not to go. And what’s all this about a million dollars?”
I pulled a bag up onto the table from where I’d had it at my feet. It was a worn, black duffel with a partially broken zipper through which piles of cash peeked out.
She let out a blood-curdling scream when she saw it, immediately reaching for it. “That’s mine! Mine! Damn you.”
I pulled it out of her grasp, shoving her back into her seat with a palm and tossing the duffel toward the door. It hadn’t taken me long to figure out where she’d hidden it. It was the reason she kept coming back to McFlannigan’s even when she knew it was as stupid as Slider going back to The Nest. She’d hidden the bag in the place her daughter used to hide?the shed out back.
“I fucking earned that!” she screamed. “Years of barely scraping by. Years of being at their beck and call and raising their fucking babies.”
“Babies you were responsible for creating.”
She acted like I hadn’t even said anything. “Chainsaw is going to kill you, just like he killed Slider, once he knows you have it.”
“Chainsaw is dead,” I told her. “I shot him when he tried to use Mila as a fucking bargaining chip.”
It shut her up. Fury and hate clouded her gaze, but she didn’t have any cards left to play, and she knew it.
I rose. “The good news for me, Sybil, is I don’t have any other reason to come see you again. Mila’s mine. McKenna’s mine. I don’t know how a shitty-ass human being like you happened to create two bundles of joy, but they are…full of joy and love. No matter how you tried to beat and starve it out of them, they survived. They became bright, beautiful lights, and they’re going to live long, happy lives because I’ll make it my mission to make sure they do. While you…you’ll die here, alone and miserable. Enjoy the life you reaped.”
She screamed at me to come back, but I just walked out with the bag I would check back in to evidence when I got to the station. My heart was singing because I’d never have to see Sybil Lloyd again.
