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“Oh my God.” I cringe. That sounds like something Eden would do, but the fact that they might have her leave terrifies me because I don’t know that she’d do anything to help me. “Are they going to kick her out?”
“Not until Kodiak gives them the go-ahead. But I’m not gonna lie. She might end up getting murdered by one of the wives if she tries to pull that shit again.”
“I need to see her,” I plead. “Is there any way you could bring her here? Or convince Kodiak to take me there—”
“Honey, that’s on you,” Birdie says softly. “I can’t betray his wishes. After everything you just told me, I understand that this situation is really difficult. But I think you need to find a way to soften him up a little.”
“You mean… trick him?” My eyes widen.
“No, of course not.” Birdie shakes her head. “I just mean, beneath all that anger he’s directing at you is a storm that’s been brewing for a long time. I know it might be hard to believe, but he’s a victim in all of this, too. He paid the ultimate price for Adam’s death. He lost everything and everyone he ever loved. His career went up in flames. His name was slandered by every media outlet around the world. They locked him up and tried to throw away the key. And throughout all of that, he never really got a chance to grieve.”
“I can see his pain,” I admit. “But he has so much hate for me that I don’t know how to deal with it. Sometimes it seems like he doesn’t even know what he’s doing.”
Birdie offers me a sad smile. “I can promise you, he’s just as angry with himself about this entire situation. When people tell a man he’s a monster over and over again, they learn to carry that shame as a constant companion. And if the divide between reality and fiction becomes too blurry to differentiate, you actually start to wonder if you are.”
I study her, and I can see she’s speaking from experience, but I know she’s not talking about herself right now.
“Does he question whether he hurt her?” I ask.
Birdie nods. “Whether or not it was your fault, that man has been through hell. For the past five years, he’s done nothing but look for you. Every time they found a body, he’d disappear for days. He’s gone back to Texas to search for you countless times. And then, one day, out of the blue, he sees you, and you don’t even remember who he is. I think that smacked him right out of his grief and into a world of resentment. Maybe if you could try to see his side of things and open up to him the way you just did with me, you two can find some common ground.”
I sink back into the sofa and try to process everything she just said. This whole time, I was convinced there were only two options. I could either run from this the first chance I get or let it play out however it will. But where has it gotten me?
Birdie’s right. I need to do something. I can’t just sit here and let him go on believing that I’m doing this on purpose. I need to make him understand. But the thought of facing this situation petrifies me. I’ve tried to blank out the photos. I’ve tried to forget there’s a man who died or that Kodiak’s convinced I was involved somehow. When my past is nothing but a gaping hole, I have no way of proving anything to him… or myself.
I wring my hands together in my lap, considering my next question carefully. “Could I borrow your phone?”
Birdie looks at me in question. “For what?”
“I want to look it up,” I tell her. “I want to read the articles, and not just the ones he’s curated for me. I want to try to understand.”
She blows out a breath and glances at the door again. “He’ll be pissed if he finds out I did this, you know.”
Even as she says it, she’s handing me her phone. As I study it, it occurs to me that it’s familiar, but I don’t know how. It’s more advanced than the burner phone Eden and I managed to buy. Most of the time, we don’t even have data for that one. But this one is an Apple device, and I must have used one at some point in my life because I recognize the buttons.
“Here.” Birdie pulls up the screen for me and taps a search bar. “Just type whatever you want in there.”
I look at the keyboard, and that’s when I realize I don’t even know what to type in.
“What’s Kodiak’s last name?”
Birdie stares at me in disbelief. “God, you really have no idea, do you?”
