Chapter 13
Abigail
SHIT. SHIT. DOUBLE SHIT. CRAP!
I have to go. I have to get out of here. If Tanner knows I killed my husband, he will have to turn me in. He’ll have to. He’s a Texas Ranger, after all.
Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!
It was so stupid of me to get involved with a Ranger. I didn’t escape my life with Brandon only to go to jail! And that is exactly where I will go if Tanner finds out. Or the electric chair. They still use Old Smokey in Texas, right? Oh God, I’m fucked. A whimper escapes my mouth and I clamp it closed, gritting my teeth hard. Now is not the time to fall apart.
“Hey, kid,” Russell says snapping me out of my trance. I look around and Ellie and Ari are sitting at the counter their untouched lunches in front of them, staring at me with concerned faces.
“What just happened, Abby?” Ari asks me.
“I killed my husband, that’s what.” My eyes go wide mirroring theirs. As soon as the words were out of my mouth I wish I could draw them back in.
“Wait, what?” Ellie asks quietly.
I turn to run but Russell grabs me by my arms. “Please,” I beg. “Let me go. You have to let me go.”
“No, girl,” he says firmly. “You have to get it all out now. It’s a poison, you have to purge to poison to heal.”
“I can’t!” I cry out.
“Yes!” he grumbles back. “You can. Get the poison out.”
“Maybe we should start at the beginning,” Ellie says kindly.
“Everyone out! Restaurant’s closed for the afternoon,” Russell shouts. “The toilets are all overflowing in the back! It’s shit everywhere. Run while you can!” he covers for the reason everyone has to leave.
“Well, that cleared the place pretty quickly,” Ari muses.
“Lock the door for me, would you doll?” Russell asks her as he tosses her his set of keys from his pocket.
“Coffee!” Ellie shouts jumping up. “I’ll just pour everyone a cup of coffee!”
“I’ll help,” I say. I owe my new friends—the people who took me in and were so kind to me no matter what—an explanation before I run again. Maybe this time I’ll head to California.
I help Ellie pour four mugs of hot coffee and then carry them over to a small four top table in the back where Russell and Ari meet us. We all sit down, and they seem to stare at me, waiting.
“Well?” Russell booms and the ridiculousness of the situation makes me laugh nervously. Is this what happens when you have a mental break? I hope not. Although the padded cell my be better than death row.
I sigh. “It’s like I said,” I tell them. “I killed my husband.”
“I think there’s more to it than that,” Ari says softly. I let out a sigh.
“I was eighteen, barely, when I met him,” I start. “I was dancing in a club to pay the bills because we were so very poor after my dad left us. It was just me and my mom for as long as I can remember, and we were a team. We did what we had to do to get by,” I smile at the memory.
“Go on,” Russell says.
I swallow before I pick the story back up. “She wanted better for me. She wanted me out of our trailer in our small town. She wanted me to have the life she had always dreamed of. And I was stripping to pay the bills while she waited tables at a dive of a diner. She hated it, I hated it. Every night was worse than the night before. There are clubs that treat the girls right and make sure they’re protected and paid well, this was not one of those clubs.
“I saw him when I was on stage and I was just drawn to him. He was dressed nice and had an in-control air about him. Later, I would find out he was in control of everything because he ran all of the shadier businesses in the area on top of his family owning the big coal mines.” I have to stop and take a breath before continuing. “He promised me everything I had never had before,” I whisper. “Not just the money and security, but a family. Someone who loved me . . .wantedme. Mama loved Brandon and all he had to offer. She told me one night, I either left as his wife and didn’t come back or I just left, but either way, I wouldn’t be coming back to her home. We were married a week later, and I was young and dumb enough to think that it was all a fairytale . . . but it wasn’t.”
“Oh honey,” Ellie whispers.
“A week later I burned an expensive roast. He had invited some business associates over for dinner and I was so nervous that I burned the roast. He laughed it off with them and joked about my being a new bride. He took them all out to dinner leaving me at home to fret about all that I had done wrong to disgrace him which he had laid out for me in painstaking detail. When he came home, drunk as a skunk, he hit me. It surprised me. It’s shocking to be hit.
