Page 4 of Honest Neglect

“He was arrested,” he replied. “Looks like the charges are going to stick against him, too.”

“Arrested?” I repeated, stunned. No way would Warren have done anything that actually warranted his arrest. No, this stank of some twisted McCarthy game, where they were using the man I loved as a piece on the board.

But the whole police department practically worked for the McCarthys. They could point at anyone in this town they didn’t like and get them locked up for life, if the fancy took them, and it wouldn’t have surprised me if it did. Warren would be able to handle himself in jail, but what if they got him locked away for good? He was my biggest ally in all of this, my biggest source of strength, and I didn’t know what I would do without him. I didn’t know if I would be able to keep going.

Which was exactly what Tony and his father were counting on. I knew Warren wouldn’t have wanted me to give up. He wouldn’t have wanted me to stop, no matter what I was faced with. Even if he did end up out of commission for a while, I still had the women on my side, and there was strength in numbers. I was sure it wouldn’t take long for more of them to start coming out, showing their support, and maybe even a few of them would be willing to testify against Tony in court.

That was, if I was around to see it. Which, at this rate, I wasn’t sure if I would be. I tried to gather myself and looked up at Mark again.

“What has he been arrested for?”

Mark, clearly savoring the chance to give me the news, grinned widely. “Murder.”

Chapter Three

Lily

––––––––

“MURDER?”

The word rang out around us, filling the warehouse, filling my head.

“Yes, it looks like your boyfriend has been getting up to some very shady stuff behind your back,” Mark told me, delivering the news with an unearned glee. I wanted to shake the very thought of this out of my head, but I couldn’t. It had already stuck there, my mind rolling it around and around as I tried to work out just what the hell this could mean for me—or for him.

“You remember Marcy?” he asked me.

“Marcy?” I replied, furrowing my brow.

“The girl who took the restraining order out against Tony,” he explained. My eyes widened. That was her name. Marcy. We had something to work with.

“Turns out she had a habit of getting involved with men she couldn’t handle,” he continued. “She turned up dead a few weeks ago, and Warren’s fingerprints were all over her.”

No, this couldn’t be real. There was just no way. I knew Warren. I knew what kind of person he was. I knew he would never have done anything like this. I knew he would never have hurt someone, let alone an innocent woman, like that. And Marcy? Was Marcy really dead? If she was, it was a nightmare for all of us remaining. How were we meant to push forward with our case now, if one of our ranks had ended up dead? Everyone would be too terrified to carry on.

But Warren couldn’t have done it. I was sure he would have been with me. I could give him an alibi.

“And it’s not just her,” Mark went on, shaking his head as though he could hardly believe he had to say this. “The respected ex-military guy? Well, I guess he’s not the only one to go a little crazy when they come back from combat, right?”

“What do you mean, not just her?” I demanded.

“There are dozens of girls all over the country,” he explained. “Seems like he’s been pretty busy. You were probably next on his list. Well, once he’d finished with your mom, of course.”

I felt the tears well in my eyes. Not sadness, not fear, but rage. Rage that he would even say that about Warren, and rage that he would pull my mom into it. The worst part about this man was that he knew exactly how to push my buttons, and I had no choice but to just let it happen. It made me feel so stupid, so useless, tied to this chair and unable to do anything to help the people I cared about.

But...what if he was telling the truth? My head was still bleary from whatever they had given me, but I couldn’t help but wonder if this was another part of Tony’s sick plan. Send someone like Warren to live next to my mom, knowing I wouldn’t be able to resist, and knowing the kind of person he really was.

No, I couldn’t let this get to me. They were trying to sow the seeds of paranoia in my head so I would cut myself off from him. Until I was presented with some very convincing evidence, I wasn’t going to believe anything they told me about Warren. They didn’t know him like I did. And they could never hope to be half the man that he was.

“I don’t believe you,” I told him, managing to keep my voice steady as I spoke, though I didn’t know how. I felt like the world was tumbling apart around me, but it could all just have been the mind games Mark was spinning in my mind right now.

Mark frowned, the glee dropping from his face, and then grabbed my chin.

“Open up,” he ordered me, and he lifted a water bottle to my mouth and poured in a couple of gulps. Even though I was so parched, I knew I couldn’t risk letting him give me anything. It might have been spiked, and before I knew it, I would have been out for the count. And who knew for how long.

I spat out the water, and it landed on his shoes, the first little bit of revenge I had managed to take. He stepped back with a disgusted grunt and tossed the water bottle to the floor. I watched it leak out on the stone below me, wishing I could taste it, wishing I could drink a little without fearing for my life.

“Don’t worry,” he assured me, his eyes lighting up again as he watched me struggle against the bindings. “Someone will be here for you soon.”