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“Can you make it in half an hour?”
“Likely.”
“Okay. See you there . . .”
* * *
“I don’t want to go to Grandma and Grandpa’s. I want to go home and be with you,” Owen said.
Now he wanted to be with her?
“I have one appointment. I’ll pick you up as soon as I’m done,” Delta told him.
“I want my blanket,” he said stubbornly.
She understood the reversion. She should have seen this coming. And Owen was adroit at picking up feelings. When she wanted to be with him, he pulled away. When she had something to do, he sometimes clung to her. Not as often now that he was older, but they were in uncharted emotional territory. It was gratifying in a way, that he was turning to her.
She said, “Okay, we’ll go home and get it, but then over to Grandma and Grandpa’s.”
“Promise?”
“Yes.”
It took her forty minutes, twenty minutes to the house from the school, another twenty over to her parents’ house, to make the full trip. By the time she was back, it was nearly 7:00.
* * *
Ellie was exhausted. Sitting in her car, not moving, watching Delta’s house . . . a terrible job. Her whole body felt shut down. Luckily, she’d peed before she came here; otherwise, she’d have to leave and take care of business. Where was Delta? What the hell was taking her so long?
She was half-afraid she’d fall asleep and this whole endeavor would be a bust. But luckily enough, her brain just wouldn’t relax, and while her body cried for sleep, her mind wouldn’t abide.
She thought of all the people who’d wronged her. Oliver, her stepfather. Mom, who’d married the fucker. Joey and Michael for just being the miscreants they were, though she would still do anything for them. Morons. If Nia were actually pregnant . . . no. She wouldn’t go there. She’d figure it out later. Alton and Coco . . . and Niedermeyer, the bastard, and Andy, that squirmy little rat fink.
And McCrae.
She wasn’t as clear on his transgressions as the others, but she always felt angry with him. He withheld from her, and he loved Delta. Maybe love was too strong a word. He cared about Delta in a way he would never care about her.
And she wanted him to care about her. Love her. Come in on a white steed and carry her away to a castle.
She snorted. Okay, he’d saved her today, although she was pretty sure she could have saved herself, if she could have gotten the gun away from Crassley, so she wasn’t going to give him too much credit.
Still . . .
She wanted Delta to be Tanner’s killer. That would get her out of the picture.
But is she? Really? Do you really think so, Ellie?
She wrestled with her conscience. She wanted it to be Delta so badly it was almost like she could will it to be true.
But it wasn’t.
“Damn it,” she whispered, feeling tears of frustration gather in her eyes.
She had hated them all, the Five Firsts, but especially Delta. Amanda was the meanest, but Delta was the best. Carmen didn’t count. She’d been gone so long and was so gaga over Tanner, she just never felt like a rival. And Bailey, she’d been small and wiry and tough in her way, but there hadn’t been the least bit of sexual energy coming off her that Ellie had felt competitive about. Zora, the same. She never challenged Ellie in the same way Amanda and Delta did. Still, she’d hated them for being in the clique and purposely keeping her out.
But now it was just down to Amanda and Delta, and truthfully, she didn’t actively hate Amanda anymore. Not at the same level as she had, anyway. Amanda was such a cold bitch and always had been, and everyone knew it.
Ellie thought about what Andy had said about her and pressed her lips together. Well, you had to be a bitch sometimes in her profession and Amanda’s. You had to prove you were “man enough” for the job.
