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Lynn remained silent, and it was only when it went on too long that I finally looked up at him.
He could read the hurt in my eyes, even if I hadn’t put voice to it.
“I’ll come with you.”
CHAPTER 16
Sweatpants are not the devil.
-Lynn to Six
LYNN
“This surprises me,” I admitted as we walked up the front walk.
“What?” she asked.
I looked around the woodsy cabin that I never would’ve expected a person like Ivan Broussard to come to, let alone own.
“Why couldn’t his men come get his shit? Why call you?” I asked. “And your dad said that he’d been calling you all morning. You got one phone call, with no voicemail. If I’ve broken my leg and need help, I’m going to call you until you fuckin’ answer. Which is what most normal people would do. I wouldn’t call and hang up and not call back.”
She grimaced. “My father’s weird.”
Her father was proving to be weirder and weirder by the second.
I wasn’t sure that I liked all the anomalies that kept creeping up.
“Your father’s an ass,” I countered. “Why was he here? I thought he lived in a big house in Dallas?”
“He lives out here when he’s not working.” She shrugged. “I don’t know why he’s out here, honestly. I’ve asked him that before. This place is the middle of nowhere, Texas. There’s nothing here but a bakery at the top of the road, a diner just a little farther than that, and that’s it. I’m not sure what the appeal is.”
I hummed as we made our way down the heavily lined walk toward the front door.
The moment she used the key to get inside, I frowned.
“You said he was on a step-ladder fixing something?” I questioned, eyeing the short ceiling that I could likely touch with my hand if I only reached upwards toward it.
Everything in the small cabin could be reached easily without using a step-ladder. The blinds included.
“Yep,” she confirmed. “That’s what he said. Something about the blinds at the back door.”
There were no blinds at the back door. Only inner blinds that wouldn’t require him to be on a step-ladder. Hell, you accessed those blinds by a lever at the bottom of the door.
While Six was preparing him a bag for the hospital, I chose to walk around the house and study it, my gut churning.
The cabin itself wasn’t big. Likely about six hundred square feet or so. It was cute, but again, I never would’ve expected this place from Ivan.
Six, yes. Ivan, hell no.
“What is this?” Six asked from the bedroom.
I frowned and walked toward her, pausing in the doorway when I saw her holding up what looked to be a bag strap.
Only, the bag strap looked like it had a loop at each end, almost as if it was fashioned into a noose.
That sick feeling grew.
After what she’d told me the other day about her father being suicidal, this was definitely smacking me in the face as ‘you should probably call the damn cops and tell them he tried to off himself.’
“Have you, um, seen anything with a note on it or anything?” I wondered.
She looked at me. “No. Why?”
I licked my lips and continued my search, opening up drawers and cabinets, going as far as to do the same thing in the bathroom.
I hit pay dirt when I got to the kitchen.
There was a hastily wadded-up piece of paper in the trash amongst some coffee grounds.
I picked it up, worried that it might be what I thought it might be and unfolded it.
I grimaced at what I saw.
“There’s no other way. Either I do it, or they kill me for not following the rules. I can’t do this anymore. I could barely do it in the beginning with your life on the line. Now, with these kids, I can’t allow them to use you as leverage to make me do the things that I can’t stomach anymore. I’m slowly dying inside each time I have to do it. If I’m not here, they can’t use my city anymore. I wish that I had done this sooner. Way back when you were in grade school and I could’ve actually said no. I’m so sorry, Six. If there was any other way… Dad.”
I felt my stomach seize.
Son of a bitch. I needed to talk to Ivan.
Whirling around, I came face to face with Six.
“My dad tried to kill himself, didn’t he?” she asked, her eyes going to the note.
I held it out to her, and she shook her head. “I don’t want to know, Lynn.” She rubbed her face. “I just… fuck, this is what I’ve been living in fear of since as far back as I could remember. I wish he would’ve just…”
She trailed off, not quite going as far as she could have.
“He should’ve never put you into that position,” I found myself saying.
