Page 185 of Papa's Bébé
“He tried what?” her brother yelled.
Tank let out a small growl. And she patted his head. “It’s okay, Tankie. He’s not mad at you.”
Another growl.
“Or me,” she added. “You need to speak in a calmer voice. You’re scaring Tank.”
Her brother nodded immediately. “Sorry. I just . . . fuck, Maya. I had no idea he was coming after you like that.”
She shrugged. “I thought I could handle him. Turns out, I obviously couldn’t.”
“We think he also spray-painted Maya’s garage door before I moved in,” Matthieu said.
“It was a few nights after you helped me,” she said to the detective. “I heard a noise in the middle of the night. Sat up all night with a baseball bat and the next morning, I found graffiti on my garage door. I can’t know for sure that it was from him. But it said ‘Frigid Bitch.’”
“Asshole,” Brody muttered.
“Yeah, he is,” she agreed.
“What did dad say when you told him about Vince trying to stick his hand up your skirt?” Marlin asked. “That he wouldn’t take no for an answer?”
“Oh, Vince told him that I was lying. That it had been the other way around. That I’d come onto Vince and took it badly when he said no. Kathryn has had years of making me appear like I’m a liar. So of course he believed Vince. The golden boy. Dad actually told me that he was disgusted by me and the lies I was trying to spread about Vince. God, you should have seen Vince’s face when he said that to me. He looked so happy.”
“I’m gonna kill the bastard,” Matthieu muttered.
“I’m going to pretend I never heard that,” Detective Reeves said.
“You do that,” Matthieu replied.
“I just don’t know why Vince would try to kill me now. That’s what he was trying to do, right?” she asked, rubbing her stomach with the hand that wasn’t petting Tank.
The painkillers were wearing off. She tried to pull more of the numb around her but it was disappearing too.
Crap.
That wasn’t good.
She had to be alone when it completely faded. She didn’t want to fall apart in front of anyone else.
Numb. You are numb. You feel nothing.
“I don’t know,” her brother said. “Where were you tonight? Was there any way he’d have known you weren’t home?”
She shook her head. “No, it wasn’t anything scheduled.”
“It was very last minute,” Matthieu added. “There’s no way he could have known unless he was keeping an eye on the place somehow. And why do it then? We are gone during the day, he could have done it then.”
“Does he know you have animals?” Detective Reeves asked.
“Yes,” she said in a strangled voice. “I’ve been scared he’d try to hurt them to get to me. I should have done more to protect them.”
It was her fault they’d nearly been harmed.
“They’re safe, Spitfire,” Matthieu said in a low voice. “You did all you could to protect them.”
“I should have moved. I should have left Billings.” She stared down into Tank’s hazel-colored eyes. She should have trusted in him more.
In herself more.
