Page 124 of Savage Surrender

When he never returned, I called him nineteen times. Then I called the hospitals. Then Winston, who called back with the number for county detention.

My phone rings on the table now, making the shells jump.

“Tell me you’ve spoken to him.”

“No. I have somebody working on it, and I sent you three attorneys. Did you call⁠—”

“One has a conflict through Emmett’s foundation, one has an assistant who keeps promising to call me, and the third needs to check whether he is allowed to speak to me. Your father is still in a cell, unless they’ve moved him somewhere else without telling us.” I hear a scrape on his end, then the hard knock of a crutch. Clara says his name, low and warning. “Why are you walking around?”

“I’m sitting down. Clara, I am. I was getting water.”

“Winston Theodore.”

“Mom, please don’t start. It’s been a long few days.”

“What happened?”

“Dad got himself arrested. That’s what happened.”

“What else?”

I can hear the soft murmur of Clara’s voice.

“Honey. Is it Bianca?”

“She’s fine, Mom.”

The peanut in my mouth turns to paste. I can’t swallow it.

“Winston, she’s my daughter. I need to know.”

“I need you to listen all the way through before you⁠—”

“For god’s sake, just tell me.”

He sighs. “After they ran from the estate, some men found her. She ended up in the water trying to escape. Tristan pulled her out. I’ve been checking on her. She’s okay.”

“Was she examined? Her lungs, Winston, if she inhaled water⁠—”

“They know what to watch for.”

“They? The same people who let these men find her?” I close my eyes. Maybe that’s not fair. “Where is she?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“This is bullshit, Winston. Wait until you have your own child, and you’ll understand.”

“I hear you, Mom.”

“Do you? Because everyone seems very comfortable letting that mean I get the telephone call afterward. I was understanding for five years, Winston. I didn’t show up in those woods and snatch her away when every part of me wanted to. I took one careful call a week and one visit and told myself she needed the distance, because she said she did and I was trying, God, I was trying not to make what happened to her about what I needed. But she almost drowned, and you’re giving me crumbs.”

“She asked me not to give anyone a route to her.”

“So she doesn’t trust me?”

“I don’t know,” he says at last. “She just found out that Montgomery is her biological father, and that he was a part of your relationship with Dad.”

The grandfather clock in the corner chimes.