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He lifts his head slightly, his eyes barely meeting mine before darting away. But he nods, and Piper gasps softly.
“We can’t go into this. I don’t even know… just forget we ever talked about it.” He practically jumps up from the bed and crosses the room in three long strides. “I’m gonna go. Please, whatever you do, don’t tell anybody we had this conversation.”
“Wait a minute.” I’m cut off by my phone buzzing away on my desk. I wish I wouldn’t have turned it back on. I’m tempted to ignore it since it can’t be anybody important, anyway—I almost never get calls.
But I glance over anyway because isn’t that what you do when your phone rings? Even if you have no intention of answering, curiosity makes you look. And that’s what I do.
I only programmed her number into my phone just in case I had an emergency and thought she might give a damn for once. “It’s my mom.” Nobody could be more surprised than I am as I answer the call, holding up a finger in a silent plea for Colt to stick around.
“Mom?” At first, I can’t figure out what I’m hearing. “Mom?” I call out over the sound coming through the phone. “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”
“Oh, Leni!” It finally hits me that she’s sobbing.
Loud, gusty sobs. “Sweetie. I didn’t know. I swear I didn’t know! I’m so sorry!” Whatever she says after that is lost to another burst of sobs, louder than before.
By now, Colt is standing beside me, and I can tell from the look on Piper’s face that she can hear everything, too. It would be impossible not to, the way Mom is screaming.
“Mom, slow down. Please, I don’t understand what’s happening. Are you okay? Did he hurt you?” I mean, I have to ask that question. It’s what I’ve secretly been dreading all along. As much as she’s hurt me, I don’t want him hurting her.
“Am I okay? No, I’m not okay! Oh, Leni, this is all my fault! How did I not see it? And all the things I said to you, oh, my god! I could die! Can you ever forgive me?”
Now I’m crying because, for the first time in as long as I can remember, there is true, genuine regret in her voice. I believe every word of it, even if I don’t understand. “What happened? Please, slow down so I can understand. Did he say something?”
“I found what you wrote! I was going through your room, and your old laptop was sitting there, and I opened it up because… I don’t know why I did it,” she confesses. “But it was right there, all of it. Everything you wrote down. How did I not know? I will never forgive myself, I swear. My poor girl. My poor baby.”
“You didn’t know,” I whisper through my tears, sinking onto the bed. It’s all too much. I can’t cope.
“But there’s more than that,” she continues, the words pouring out. “I went to his computer. I don’t know what made me do it, but I told myself I had to find some kind of proof so we could nail the bastard. So I looked through his computer and, oh my god, you would not believe what I found.”
Fear freezes me stiff. He never took video, did he? What if he had cameras hidden somewhere in the house? “What did you find?”
“So many files. He didn’t hide them very well. Right there on his computer, saved to their own network like he was looking at them while he was at the office. I can’t even begin to imagine. Oh, Leni, can you ever forgive me? We’ve got to find out what to do about this. I swear, whatever you need, you’ve got it. Please, forgive me.”
“One thing at a time.” I can barely think. I’m so overwhelmed. She believes me. Maybe we can finally be a team the way we’re supposed to. All this time, I figured she wouldn’t care even if she knew the truth, but now I know. And so does she.
“Okay, here’s what I need you to do. Come here. Come to my dorm, and we’ll talk about it. But I think it would be smart for you to get out of the house.” Colt’s head bobs up and down, his eyes as hard as his expression. “Can you do that? Can you come here?”
“Yes, I will. Oh, honey, I’m so—”
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I reach out and grab Colt’s arm, my nails digging in at the sound of his father’s voice. That voice. I still hear it in my nightmares, but that’s nothing compared to hearing it for real.
And he is very, very angry.
“Mom, get out of there!” I don’t even know if she hears me because James is shouting, the voice getting louder like he’s coming closer.
“Put that fucking phone down!” That’s the last thing I hear before the line goes dead.
“Mom? Mom!” But she—or most likely, he—already ended the call.
“Come on. We have to go.” Colt practically has to pull me off the bed, but once I get moving, the shock wears off, and he’s the one who ends up having to follow me outside when I run past him, flying down the stairs and dashing through the lobby. Mom. What is he doing to her?
The tires squeal as we peel out of the parking lot and almost fishtail onto the road. Horns blare, and people shout at us, but none of it matters. Mom. What is he doing to her?
“She said she found files on his computer?” Colt asks as he tears down the road. I have no idea how he can focus on driving so fast while speaking.
“Yeah. I guess he saved them to their own network so he could access them from wherever he was. She didn’t say exactly what she found,” I whisper, and just the thought of it makes my insides freeze up. I don’t know what I’ll do if I find out he took video of everything. What if it got out somehow? What if he posted it online and shared it with his friends? What if, what if? The questions will never stop. Will I ever know for sure?
There I was, thinking I would never step foot in that house again. Just turning into the neighborhood is enough to make me tremble in fear and dread. “Should we maybe call the police?”
