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“Will you just listen to me for a damn minute?” I plead. “You need to believe us. Theresa was pregnant with Senator Rollin’s baby! Which means Monty has a half-sister out there somewhere. And Mali and I both think it’s Riley.”
Cam rolls his eyes while Hayes looks kind of tired of it all. “Under what grounds? That they’re both girls born around the same time? Those two things only rule out like half the population, and that’s saying she even still lives in North Carolina.”
I put my hand out for Mali’s phone, using hers to pull up the Instagram photo with the caption “only baby picture I have of myself, but at least I know I was adorable.”With mine, I open the picture I took of Theresa’s baby’s photo. Holding them side by side, the resemblance is uncanny.
“Tell me these two don’t look like the same baby.”
Hayes glances at it for a second, but still doesn’t look like he’s swaying at all. “It’s a baby, Lai. All babies look like other babies.”
This is getting frustrating. “Why are you so adamant on protecting her?”
“I’m not, but I’m also not going to accuse our only employee of being a psycho stalker who lives to torment us based on something that could just be a coincidence,” he says.
“You want to talk about coincidences?” I argue. “It’s not just a coincidence that there’s a half-sister of Monty’s out there somewhere. It can’t be.”
“He probably didn’t even know about her,” Hayes reasons. “Lord knows that guy was the epitome of only child syndrome.”
Stepping away for a second, I turn around and tug on my hair. I get what he’s saying. It took them a while to find someone they wanted to hire, and Riley is perfectly trained at her job at this point. And for the most part, she’s been very supportive of them. She always shows up for work and gives them extra help when needed. She might be a thorn in my side, but not to them. But still, I just can’t shake the feeling that I shouldn’t let this go.
I take a few deep breaths and spin back to face Hayes, knowing that I have a better chance at convincing him than I do Cam.
“Babe, listen,” I say calmly. “I need you to trust me here. We’re in this situation because I didn’t trust you when you had a bad feeling about someone. I should’ve listened to you about Monty from the start, but I didn’t. Because of that, we ended up here and it almost ruined us.”
I take a step closer to him and wrap my arms around his neck, staring into his eyes so he can see how important this is to me.
“Please don’t make the same mistake that I did.”
Stress hasa way of catching up to you. When you go through something for so long, it’s only a matter of time before it starts to break you down. And let’s just say the phone call from the doctor earlier saying that they needed to up my mom’s pain medication didn’t exactly make matters any better.
I’m worried about her.
I’m worried about us.
And there’s nothing healthy about walking down the street and wondering if anyone that looks in your direction is the person causing you so much mental turmoil.
I lean against the corner of the bar, letting my head fall back and my eyes fall closed. A part of me wonders if shit would follow me if I tried to take a vacation. Would a note show up in my hotel room? Would my rental car end up rigged to self-destruct?
As if any of that is even an option. I’d never leave my mom. Even Devin is having a hard time with it. She comes to visit any time she gets, but it’s not enough. And the daily video calls just aren’t the same.
It’s another reason why I’m trying so damn hard to figure this shit out—so my mom and sister can have more time together. It would kill me if I had to keep her at a distance until the end of my mom’s life. Sure, I’m just trying to keep Devin safe, but it’s not fair to either of them.
“Everything okay?”
I jump at the sound of her voice and my eyes fly open to see Riley standing in front of me. “Shit, you scared me.”
She giggles softly. “Sorry. You just look a little stressed.”
“I am,” I admit.
She looks worried. Genuinely concerned for my well-being. “Anything I can do to help?”
I shake my head. “Nah, but thanks. Just some personal shit.”
She leans her side against the counter, looking like she wishes I’d confide in her. I think about what Laiken said—how she thinks Riley could be behind the anonymous texts and all the torment, but I still don’t see it. I’ve known her for over a year now, and she’s never given me any reason not to trust her. I’ll never be what she wants me to be, but she’s a great employee, and I’d even consider her a friend.
But Laiken considered Monty a friend, too.
“You know, I can be pretty good at personal shit if you gave me the chance,” she tells me.
