Page 17 of The Last One You Loved
The most I could expect was that Maddox would allow me to apologize, to selfishly ease some of my guilt for cutting not only him but the entire Hatley gang out of my life. It had been the only way I’d survived—by pretending they didn’t exist at all, by burying my good memories along with the bad.
The thought of seeing Maddox again?of seeing all the Hatleys?sent a flurry of something I thought might be hope wafting through my veins. Hope I damn sure couldn’t afford. Just like the hope I’d had as a little girl that Mama would change, Trap would somehow see the truth, or we’d become a “real” family. Hope had only ever done one thing, and that was to splinter me in two every time reality ripped it away.
CHAPTERSIX
MADDOX
THE BEST PART OF ME
“Something takes over me,
Every moment you hold my hand.”
Performed by Lee Brice
Written by Gelbuda / Lammonds
My stomach cringedas I headed down the hall of the women’s rehab clinic in the next county over. I didn’t want to be here, and I damn sure didn’t want to talk to Sybil, but I always felt like I had a knife at my throat when it came to her. While my sensible brain knew there was no way I could lose Mila to her, my panicked heart always made me jump when she snapped her fingers so I didn’t rock the boat. It was easier this way.
When I’d gone to pick her up after the dispatcher had called me a week ago, she’d been handcuffed to an ER bed, screaming profanity at anyone and everyone around her. Her ugly expression and wild eyes, high from drugs and alcohol, were the norm. What hadn’t been normal was her clean body, expensive haircut, and designer clothes. Instead of being dirty and grimy, she’d been layered with enough real jewelry to buy a car, reeking of money she’d never had before. It had raised the hair on the back of my neck, and I was ninety-five percent sure her newfound wealth didn’t bode well.
When she’d faced the judge on Monday for her drunk and disorderly charge, he’d let her slide with a stint in mandated rehab when he could have ordered prison time for violating her parole from her last encounter with the courts. Since then, I hadn’t heard a word from her until today. Even if I’d been inclined to ignore her call, my police-officer instincts were nagging at me to figure out where her sudden inflow of cash had come from.
I knocked on the door of her room and opened it when she called, “Come in.”
When I entered, she was eerily calm. With her serene expression, she looked so much like McKenna it hurt. If I squeezed my eyes and washed away Sybil’s age and weathered skin, I could see McKenna in every line. The slim nose with the slight curve upward at the end, the large wheat-colored eyes that flashed green, and the straight black brows that were a contrast to the blonde hair. They even had the same slim frame with full, round curves. They were so much alike that when McKenna had been a teen, people used to mistake them for sisters. I supposed having had McK when Sybil was only fifteen herself had a way of doing that.
Mila shared their hair, eyes, and brows, but that was it. The rest of her had come from a father who’d never been identified—a father who would be able to reclaim his parental rights he hadn’t knowingly given up if he chose to. That was the real threat that hovered over me like a noose. The real reason I was there.
“Maddox Hatley, looking stern and saintly as always,” Sybil said, fidgeting with the intake bracelet on her wrist and tugging at a silk shirt she shouldn’t have been able to afford.
I could read it in her already?the desire to leave, to get a hit, to have a drink.
Some days, deep in the dark, secret spots of my heart, I wished she’d pass out and never wake back up. I hated that she could make me feel that way, make me feel less human. Less of a cop. Make me feel like I was a bit of the monster I’d always considered her to be.
“What do you want, Sybil?” I asked, tossing my cowboy hat from hand to hand.
“Besides out of this hellhole?” She laughed as if she’d said something hilarious, and when I didn’t join her, she pouted. “How’s Mila?”
“You don’t care. That’s not why I’m here,” I said, refusing to talk about my daughter with her.
She gave me a grin, and I swore it was the evilest thing I’d ever seen. “Just checking in and making sure that bitch isn’t back in town.”
“By bitch, you mean your eldest child? The one you abused until she had to be taken away?”
Her eyes narrowed in on me. Her fingers fidgeted as if she was uncomfortable without the ever-prevalent cigarette she’d had in her hands since the first moment I’d met her. I’d only been eight to her twenty-three, but I’d already been able to see her fiery ending written in the darkness around her.
“Don’t take that tone with me,” she said, glaring. “I’m just holding you to your word so I don’t have to make a call.”
“Nothing’s changed, Sybil. Nothing at all,” I said before thinking,including your abusive ways.
“I need outta here,” Sybil said when I didn’t add on anything else.
“You’ll have to take that up with your court-appointed attorney and the judge.”
“But you can make the charges go away. It was your dumbass deputy who arrested me. If that shithead at the bar had just done what I’d asked, none of this would have happened. He insulted me when I had good money to spend.”
She’d broken a glass and threatened the bartender with the jagged edge if he didn’t let her buy another round?a round for the entire house?on her. Ted knew Sybil didn’t normally have that kind of money. I didn’t blame him for thinking she wouldn’t be able to cover the bill. He certainly hadn’t known she’d had five thousand dollars on her when we’d arrested her.
