Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 84075 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84075 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
I slowly straighten up and stand over her.
“Talk to me like that again and find out what I’ll do to you.”
She stares back at me and the fear in her eyes is the most delicious thing I’ve ever seen in my life.
Slowly, she shakes her head. “Okay, Katherine, I understand.”
“Good.” I walk past my cousin and leave her on the floor with a bloody nose.
I’m going to get in so much trouble for that. Grandfather’s going to kill me, but as I head into my room and slam the door and stand with my back against it, I suddenly don’t care about anything else except the look in Sara Lynn’s eyes.
The utter and total fear.
Elation tears through me. Excitement and joy, and I can’t help it as laughter bubbles up and breaks out. I should be sobbing right now but instead I’m cracking up, doubled over, howling with pleasure. It felt so freaking good to stand up to Sara Lynn, and I never really believed I’d do it, but I finally punched her right in her stupid smug face the way she’s always deserved. Maybe violence isn’t the answer and it definitely wasn’t the mature thing to do—
But my god, it felt so good.
I wish Ford were here to see it.
And that thought slowly drains all my excitement away.
Grandfather’s going to kill me when Sara Lynn inevitably runs and complains to him. I’m trying to ingratiate myself to the family again, not give them more reasons to get rid of me.
But for one glorious moment, I felt free. I felt good.
I’m going to hold on to that for a while because I’m not sure when I’ll get to feel like that again.
Chapter 27
Ford
The old private investigator hands me the file. It’s stuffed with black and white photographs of the rundown cheap motel we’re parked in front of. The place is a dump: weeds in the parking lot, a van on blocks in the far corner, the sign straight-up missing a letter so that it reads Good est Inn instead of Good Rest Inn.
“You sure about this?” he asks me. Don Lamon came highly recommended: discreet, reliable, and obscenely expensive. I was on the fence when I called him but now I see why he charges so much.
The man gets results.
“I’m sure,” I say, flipping through the photographs. They were taken with a high-powered lens and at a distance, but they all show the same woman. Older, wrinkled, worn down and tired. But the eyes and the nose are so familiar it kills me.
“Just so you know, she keeps some heavy company.” Don shifts in his seat and pats the gun he keeps under his simple black jacket. “I’d be happy to provide some backup.”
I smile and shake my head. “No, thank you. I’m going in alone.”
“Can’t promise she’s in there by herself, kid. You sure about this?”
“I’m sure. If you hear screaming and gunshots, consider your contract finished.”
He laughs and shrugs. “All right, your call. Good luck then.”
I hand him back the photographs and push the door open. The air smells like gasoline and car fumes from the highway on the other side of the trees. Traffic is a dull groan. I walk toward the stairwell that leads up to the second floor, my shoes crunching over gravel.
It took Don two weeks. Those were two painful weeks, but right now it feels like all that time and money was worth it. I climb the steps and the railing is cold under my fingertips. We’re up in Oklahoma, about an hour south of Tulsa, and the only things around here are cattle and meth labs.
I stop outside of room 207. It looks like any other cheap motel: teal door, burnished brass handle, thick white blinds over the windows. The smell of beer and cigarette smoke sits thick in the air. I knock twice and wait.
There’s nothing. No response. I knock again, and again, pounding on the door. I’m starting to wonder if maybe she’s not here, or if maybe she moved on already, when something peeks out from behind the curtains. It’s barely a movement, barely a glimpse of an eye.
“Jackie Stockton,” I say loudly. “I know you’re in here. All I want to do is talk.”
“Yeah? Who the fuck are you?” The voice is gravelly and low, but definitely feminine.
“My name’s Ford Arc, ma’am. I just want to talk.”
There’s a pause. More silence. I think she’s gone away and I’m fucked, but suddenly the door unlocks with a loud thunk and it opens a crack, the chain still in place.
A woman stares out at me with narrowed eyes. She’s frowning, looking bleary and weathered, but that’s the same woman from the photograph.
Katherine’s mother. I finally fucking found her.
“Ford?” she asks and tilts her head. “Kat told me you two split up. What are you doing here?” Her eyes widen a touch. “Did she ask you about the money?”