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I shrug. I don’t really think it applies in this context. In my home. With my woman. Facing her mother, who seems to have faked her death—or just lied about it—and has a gun.
“You’re a ghost, Mrs. Cameron,” I comment. “How did that happen?”
She waves her free hand. “A convenient lie. Melody, I’ve been searching for you.”
“Why’s that?” Melody’s palm lands on my knee.
All the bad things Melody once told me about her mother come flooding back. The body shaming, the hatred. The way Melody sent her father to prison.
A cold feeling trickles down my spine.
“You were in such a bad state.” Her mother tuts. “Your father wanted to make sure I followed up. He said you seemed frightened when you went to visit him.”
Melody shrugs. “I went because he called me, and I thought it would help me remember.”
“Memory is funny, isn’t it?”
Mel glances at me, frowning slightly. She looks scared. More than she did before. And I can’t help but wonder if her mother triggered a new memory.
“I think we need alcohol for this situation,” I murmur. “Jessica?”
She narrows her eyes. “If you try anything, I shoot.”
I hop up and go into the kitchen. I don’t really want to leave them alone, but I manage to type out an SOS to Knox before I return with two glasses and a bottle of whiskey.
“How did you find me?” Melody asks her.
I pour the whiskey into the glasses. It gives me a good excuse to stand between them. To block Melody from her mother.Just in case.
“Your father and I wanted to keep tabs on you,” Jessica replies. “After you left Henry. It just wasn’t right.”
I pause. “What?”
Her mother lets out a sigh, leaning back. She’sbored. Exasperated.
However she thought this night would go, it wasn’t quite like this.
“Your father approved of Henry. He came to the prison and asked for your father’s blessing before he proposed to you, you know.” She sniffs. “And then you divorced him and just disappeared? We advised Henry to fight for you, and we were so pleased when he sent word that he had found you again.”
My blood runs cold.
Melody seems to be feeling the same, because her expression is stricken.
“That whole time, you knew Henry was holding me?”
“Holdingyou?” Jessica laughs. “He was loving you.” Theduhis implied.
“He was abusive.” Melody jumps to her feet. “You don’t see that? He did the same thing to me that Dad did to you—”
Jessica leaps to her feet, too, and the gun waves dangerously. “Don’t talk about your father like that!”
I hold out my hands. “Okay, okay.”
“You wanted to keep tabs on me,” Melody repeats. “When?”
She waves her hand. “After you left him. Withnothing, mind you. You drained your accounts and disappeared.”
I laugh.
