AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Earlier, she gave Luke a grocery list, and he picked up everything we needed for gumbo. I sat in the kitchen and continued my Andy stories while they listened to every word. It felt good to share his memory since I’d hidden every part of him away while I was in Blue Beech.
“Boyfriend?” I ask. “Are we back to that?”
Luke left for work, so it’s now the two of us … if you don’t count the reporters camping in the front lawn. Most of them bailed after we shut the door in their faces and have retreated to Missy’s parents’ house.
“I mean …friend.” She shoves her face into her hands and shakes her head. “Why am I embarrassed? I mean, we’ve been sleeping together, but what exactly does that mean? I haven’t had a boyfriend since you, and come to think of it, we never hadthe talk.We both just knew what we were to the other. Not that I assume we’re dating,” she continues to ramble. “Let me reword this. It’s not exactly sane for a woman to tell her fuck buddy to go talk to his ex-wife.”
I lean into the table. “Look at me, Lauren.”
She slowly pulls her hands from her face.
“No need to have that talk this time either. You’re sure as hell not myfuck buddy. You’re my girlfriend, the woman I love, my goddamn everything. Let’s make that clear right now, okay?”
“Okay,” she draws out, a smile playing at her lips. “Glad we got that covered.”
“Ditto.” My vision starts to go blurry, and my throat feels scratchy as I think about what I’m about to say next. “I think you might be right about the Missy thing.”
She flashes me a surprised look.
Even though I can’t stand Missy, we need this closure. When she contacts me, it only brings the memories to the surface. It needs to stop. Her name, even the thought of her, is a reminder of what I’ve lost.
“Thank you for understanding this situation,” I tell her.
She stands and circles the table. I grunt when she pulls out my chair and plops down on my lap, wrapping her arms around my neck.
“You’re welcome. Give me a call if you need some reinforcement though. I’d love nothing more than to shove my heel into her throat.”
“As a man of the law, I’ll act like I didn’t hear you say that.” I lean in to whisper in her ear, “Although I can’t say anyone would stop you or arrest you for doing it.”
* * *
It’smy first and only time visiting her in prison.
A sour taste fills my mouth as I sit in Luke’s car and wonder if I’m doing the right thing.
I want to forget about Missy.
After this, she’s dead to me.
All evidence against her was circumstantial. She was charged with neglect, child endangerment, involuntary manslaughter, and assault for my stabbing. Her lawyers initially argued, no body, no trial. They claimed there was no cause or time of death, and we had insufficient evidence. Luckily, we had good prosecutors on our side.
They worked with what little evidence they had. They used the voice mails she’d left me. The first one that threatened to hurt Andy and the second that told me I was to blame for what she did to him. She had Googled different methods of suffocation on her phone hours before Andy went missing and none of the endless stories and alibis she told lined up.
Missy fought at first, of course. She claimed the birth mother had kidnapped him but that was disputed after Luke hired someone to identify and track down the woman. She’d been in an inpatient rehab facility at the time. Her second claim was that she had gone to shower, and he was gone when she came back, like Andy had wandered off and started a new life somewhere. In the end, her parents convinced her to take a plea deal. She admitted to suffocating Andy and said she dropped his body in a river close to her house. That river was searched for months and nothing was ever found.
She denied being near the lake where they found his body days ago, even though someone saw her there. I tried so many times to get it searched, but my superiors deemed it unnecessary since there wasn’t enough evidence. The real reason washer parentsdidn’t find it necessary because they knew there was a chance Missy was lying.
I grab my phone to listen to the voice mail. It’s the worst time to do it, but I need to go in there with the right state of mind and fight for Andy.
My head feels like it’s spinning, and my body goes cold at the sound of her voice mail. Her words are screamed out around cries.
“Gage!Gage! You’d better answer my goddamn phone calls, you hear me? I saw them. I saw all the pictures you had saved of that whore. That stupid cunt you love so much who left you. I’m the one who loves you, Gage, not her. Me! I’ve stood by you and done nothing but try to please you. Me! How could you do this to us? Andy wants his mommy and daddy together with him every night. That’s why we have him—to give him a family—and if you can’t, then we’re wrong for having him … If he can’t have that, then he has no family. A boy shouldn’t have to live without family … I’ll end his hurt for him. I’ll let Andy go to heaven where he can have a real family. Say good-bye to us, Gage, since you’ve decided we aren’t worth it. Andy won’t be here when you get home. Take that.”
I shutmy eyes to stop the tears. I’ll never forget the day I first heard that voice mail. I was on a fishing trip and never expected Missy would go back to my house in search of more Lauren evidence. We had a key to each other’s places for years. She’d started spiraling downhill the past few months. She’d begged me to move in with her, tried to talk me into giving Andy a sibling, and lashed out when I wouldn’t take the bait.
I never expected her to hurt him. Me? Sure. But not him. She loved Andy.
Anger can blind love.
