Page 69 of A Step You Shouldn't Take

“Take a seat,” he told Kim, and she looked to me.

I shrugged and sat down, and the way she squashed against my side suggested that, like me, she didn’t remotely want to be there.

“Okay,” I said. “Speak. What the hell happened that night?”

CHAPTER 21 - REED

WAS I FINALLY about to find out the truth?

“First, you need to understand that I didn’t take keeping her secret lightly,” Wyatt said. “But that thing with your father hit her harder than she ever admitted to you. Even ten years on, she still cried herself to sleep while she pretended everything was fine on the surface. That was why she started taking the drugs—as an escape.”

“Why didn’t she just talk to me?”

“Because she didn’t want you to think she was weak.”

“But she talked to you?”

“Yeah, she did. Whether you like it or not, Emma was my girl. In my head, she always will be.”

His voice hitched, and just for a second, I remembered the old Wyatt and Emma. Happy, laughing, thick as thieves. Then I pushed that image out of my mind because he’d betrayed both of us.

“Still, you had no right to keep that from me.”

“When I found out, I told her I’d only keep quiet if she quit. If she got help. And she did. Those two weeks you thought we were in Florida three years ago? She was in rehab.”

Again, that didn’t add up.

“She had photos of her on the beach. Of the two of you swimming with dolphins.” All over fucking Facebook.

“Photoshop. We were in Virginia. I stayed nearby while she was at the treatment centre.”

Treatment centre. At those words, Kim shivered beside me, and I felt beyond guilty for dragging her into this mess. She was supposed to be my client, not my sidekick. Although she felt more like a lifeline at the moment. I squeezed her free hand, something that didn’t go unnoticed by Wyatt.

“If you were so close, why did she leave?” I asked him. We needed to keep on track.

“I caught her snorting a line in the kitchen, and I’m not gonna lie—that fucking hurt. I guess I’d suspected for a while, but it was easier to keep burying my head in the sand and pretend everything was fine. Anyhow, that night I told her it was me or the drugs, and we got into an argument. Then she walked out.”

“You didn’t go after her?”

“She needed time to cool down. We both did. Emma was always wild—you can’t deny that.”

“How did she even get the coke? She had debts with every dealer in town. I’ve spent the past two years paying them off.”

Wyatt’s eyes widened. “They came after you?”

“Yeah, they did. And I paid because when she comes back, I don’t want them or their associates going after her.”

When she comes back…Right now, I was terrified that would never happen.

“But you were a police officer,” Kim said. “Why didn’t you just arrest them?”

“Not that simple, sweetheart,” I told her. “The guys at the top, the ones holding the markers, they’re smart. They distance themselves from the whole operation. Legit businesses as a front, mules to carry the drugs around… We’d never have got a conviction, and not only would Emma still have owed them, they’d have been pissed at me too.”

“And that’s why you’re sleeping—”

“Yes.” Wyatt didn’t know I was homeless, nor did I want him to.

“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry this happened to you.”

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