Page 87 of Free to Dream
Mildred Lockwood is standing there, pointing a small gun at me. “You couldn’t stay gone, could you, you little snot-nosed brat,” she hisses as she moves toward me.
Holy shit.I step back, hoping against all hope one of my siblings is still listening through the earpiece. “Excuse me? Gone from where? The house?”
“You always were, you know. Even as a baby,” she continues, and advances on me. The look in her eyes is maniacal. This woman is more than drunk, and she isn’t just crazy. She’s so far past crazy, I don’t even know if there’s a word for it.
“I don’t know what you mean, Mrs. Lockwood. Perhaps we can sit down and you can tell me.” I hold her eyes, but gesture to the two couches in front of the cold fireplace.
“It’s all your fault. It always has been.” She’s waving the gun around. “If I had just killed you the first time instead of sending you to Jacksonville, I wouldn’t have lost my Jack. And then, much later, when my husband found out about my affair, thereby breaking our prenuptial agreement, the fortune that should have been mine was split between my two worthless sons and I was given an allowance to live on. He said I should be grateful. Fuck gratitude.” Her voice is demented and churlish, accusatory and bitter.
My face freezes. “Jacksonville?” I manage to choke out in a whisper of the only word that’s made any kind of sense to me. The word that terrifies me.
How can she know about Jacksonville?
“Yes, you stupid, pathetic piece of trash, Cassidy Freeman. Or should I call you by your real name, Riley, since you were sitting so close to your brother Keene tonight?” I can feel the blood drain from my face. “Ahh, so neither one of my know-it-all sons or his pathetic best friend decided to clue you in? You know? You look just like your mother, Riley, with your father’s eyes. But I knew who you were months ago.” She walks up close to me and slaps me across the face.
I only feel a slight burn, I’m in such shock.
“How?” It’s all I can manage right now. Deep breaths, Cassidy. Nothing she’s saying makes sense. It’s not even remotely possible. If it was, Caleb or Keene would have told me. Right?
She makes a sound that must be what the devil calls a laugh. “I have spies everywhere, little girl. The tech department at Hudson is very informative, and so is Caleb’s assistant. I know everything inside the file Charlie Henderson keeps up-to-date about you because I own his wife. Oh, yes.” My face contorts at her next words. “Even Charlie’s imbecile of a wife isn’t beyond corruption. She loves money. And as much as my son pays her husband, it isn’t enough to keep the men she’s fucking on the side happy.
“Did you know how huge the file is on the Freemans? By the way, how stupid was that name choice? You’ve never been free. Not since I knew where you were the whole time and could have had you taken. Again. Oh, I was content to let you live so long as you didn’t bother my life.” She pauses and caresses the gun. The next thing I know, it’s pressed against my forehead. I suck in a breath and begin to pray as tears stream down my face.
Caleb, where are you?
“Why the fuck couldn’t you just stay in South Carolina like the rest of the white trash? Nothing bad happened to you there, huh? Why the hell did you need to move back here?” Mildred screams in my face, tapping the gun against my forehead. I feel its cold brutal weight against the center of my forehead.
It sends me into full body convulsions.
“Now I have to decide what to do with you. Do I just kill you like I did your mother, or do I send you off again? A pity about the way those men had to take it with a bat. They’ll no longer be useful for this type of work, though they are eager for revenge. Do you remember them, Riley? I’m surprised, after being here all day. They’re related to most of our staff here, cousins and whatnot with a taste for the forbidden.” Her smile is nothing short of demonic.
“You killed my mother?” I whisper in anguish, unable to process the rest. The mother I never knew.
In the recesses of my memory, I remember Caleb telling me about Keene, “There are things he’s lost personally that made him who he is.”
A mother? A sister?
Me?
“Tell me,” I demand in a whisper at the cretin in front of me. “I want to know why. I deserve to know why.”
“You deserve nothing more than what I give to you, you stupid bitch. But as a last wish, I’ll indulge you. There’s nowhere for you to go.” She holds the gun on me as she walks over to the side table of liquor. Not taking her eyes off of me, she removes a stopper and takes a long swig of something clear directly from the decanter. Vodka, I presume.
Putting down the decanter, she wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. Moving forward again, I can’t help but despair at how steady she’s still holding the gun.
Caleb! I’m screaming inside. I’m never this late. Come find me!
“I was having an affair with Jack Marshall, Keene’s father. He was leaving your pathetic mother to be with me. I was walking out on this crappy life and those two brats. We were going to be together. What Jack failed to mention was that to not throw his wife off track, he was still sleeping with her.” She slides the gun over my cheekbone seconds before pistol-whipping me with it. I can feel blood flowing down my cheek.
“And along came pretty baby Riley. Jack was so fascinated by how fucking cute you were, he decided not to leave his wife! It’s all your fucking fault!” Mildred laughs again. “But you’re not so pretty now are you, Riley?” She smirks, indicating with pleasure her handiwork with the gun.
“How?” I swallow hard. It hurts to move my face. “How do you know I’m her? I don’t remember anything about that.”
I refuse to think about what must have been a flashback at the wedding, what my Aunt Millie did to me.
Oh. My. God. Caleb’s mother sent me away? To be brutalized and raped?
The horror of it starts to slam into my mind.
