Page 82 of Read With Your Heart

“I called you first.” Levi continues to stare at me.

“Trent, open this damn door. I know she’s in there.”

“Leon,” I whisper, releasing Levi and standing slowly. My feet somehow carry me to the front door, and I pull it open. The second I see Leon, he opens the screen, and I lunge for him. I hold onto him like I did just last night. Fear and relief wrap tightly around my chest, and I clutch at him.

“Okay, baby. It’s okay. What’s happening here?”

“Trent’s dead,” I mutter into his neck. Leon’s soothing hands still on my back.

“He’s what?”

I pull back but don’t look up at him. “He killed himself.” The words are so acidic on my tongue my throat burns. I feel sick, and Leon is lifting me by my waist to walk me back into the house. I slide down his body until my feet touch the floor and Leon closes the front door. His eyes scan the room, landing on Robert briefly before finding Levi still seated on the couch.

Levi’s head lifts, and he addresses Leon. “So you’re him.”

“I’m him,” Leon confirms. He’s the man I love. The man I live with.

“You beat up my brother,” Levi states, sitting straighter on the couch.

“Can I be real with you, kid? He hurt Tricia.” My breath hitches as Levi’s eyes drift to me and back to Leon. Something passes between the two of them, but I can’t read guy eye-speak. I worry Levi’s about to lunge at Leon and accuse him of all kinds of things. His own temperament is fragile at the moment.

Then Levi nods.

Leon speaks. “This your old man?”

Levi turns his head to his father and nods again, then shakes his head in embarrassment.

“Did you call the sheriff?” Leon questions, and Levi shakes his head.

“I called Tricia first.”

“Where is he?” Leon asks. Oh God, I hadn’t thought of that. Is Trent still out there? Levi holds Leon’s stare. “Okay, kid. We need to call the sheriff and get him out of here.” He pauses and turns to me, his eyes roaming my body for signs of harm. “What happened?”

I give him the short version of things, and when I finish, Leon turns back to Levi. He releases me and steps over to Levi. He hands him his cell phone. “Make the call. 9-1-1.”

Leon’s calm is almost frightening in and of itself, but I’m so glad he’s here because I can’t think straight. I can’t wrap my head around what’s happened here.

We wait out the sheriff, and the next few hours pass in a blur. Questions and more questions for Levi. A quick interrogation of Leon and me—which I don’t appreciate—and then the waking up of Robert Walker by Bart Wiggins, the sheriff, who delivers the news about Trent. Robert doesn’t even cry. He just picks up his bottle and stumbles to his bedroom.

“We found these two envelopes,” Derek, the deputy sheriff, gives them both to me. I glance up at him in question until I see one says my name and the other is for Levi.

“We think it’s best you to open them here,” Sheriff Wiggins gently speaks to me. “It might give us a clue to what happened.”

My envelope is a large manila one, and inside, I find my divorce papers ripped to shreds. A small slip of paper among the remains tells me Trent’s final thoughts.

You’ll always be my wife.

He’d refused to sign the papers, leaving me his widow instead. I hand the papers and the envelope to the sheriff, excusing myself for the bathroom. Once there, I gag, and I choke, bending over the toilet, but nothing comes up. I hate him with every part of my being while I struggle with the fact that once upon a time, I’d loved him. How did it come to this? How had I not been aware of who he would be? How did I not see signs that this is how it would end?

Leon finds me in the bathroom and helps me wipe my face. “We need to get you out of here.”

I completely agree. I want to go home—my home.

We return to the living room to find Levi sitting with his letter in his lap, silent tears streaming down his face. He’s already told the sheriff everything, and his letter must confirm what they already know of Trent’s end.

Levi looks up at me. “He told me he loved me anyway.” Levi’s voice strains. “I told him I hated him, and he told me he loved me.”

It might have been the first time Levi has ever heard the words from his brother, and I’m crushed. I fold to my knees in front of him and pull him to me once again. How much more heartache can I take this week?