AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I can’t?”
“I don’t want him to hurt you.”
“He won’t,” he asserted.
I shook my head, wanting so desperately to believe him but knowing I couldn’t. “You deserve better.”
“I know what I deserve.”
He leaned toward me, and I kicked my feet to propel myself off the couch. “Trust me. You don’t want to be tied to me when he finally exposes me.”
“What is he going to expose?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Oh, but I do.” He lowered the coffee table and slowly pushed to his feet. “I want to know everything.”
My throat was dry, and my tears were all dried up from the shame sucking the life out of me. “You’re not listening to me, Scotty. You don’t want to know.”
“I heard you.”
“Then you’re not understanding.”
He got close but still kept some distance. “Then make me understand.”
“If you know, then you’ll be an accessory.”
“An accessory to what?”
“Murder.”
CHAPTER 16
Scotty
My boots were squishy on the slightly wet carpet, but it was as if I was in quicksand and sinking uncontrollably. “Murder, baby?”
There wasn’t a molecule on her body that wasn’t strained, but the rough edges of her eyes seemed to have smoothed out like there was relief in confessing. “It was an accident.”
“I’m sure it was.” There was no way this woman was a cold-blooded killer. I wanted her to know that, and I needed to hold her, but I couldn’t touch her because she appeared to be in another dimension. I was afraid if I did, she’d snap out of it and shut me out. “What happened?”
“There was, we had a nanny. Always had a nanny. I was thirteen, I didn’t need a nanny, but this one, she was… she was.” She grabbed her hair and tugged. Hard. “She was not nice. She spanked Austin with a belt, and when I tried to stop her, she did the same to me.”
“Paris, sugar. Let go of your hair.”
Her arms fell, and she tilted her head and zoned out, looking not at me but straight through me. “We were at the top of the stairs. She had a belt in her hand, and she was yelling at me because I wouldn’t let her get past me to Austin’s room. I was yelling at her. It happened so fast… she raised her arm to whip me, and I pushed her.” Her eyelids lowered, and she continued talking robotically. “She fell and just tumbled and tumbled and tumbled before she hit the bottom and didn’t move but was making these awful sounds. There was blood, not a lot, but it didn’t stop flowing. Suddenly, my dad came home and looked up the stairs. He rushed me, then crouched down and grabbed my arms.”
Eyes still closed, she rubbed her triceps but stopped talking. “What happened after that?”
“He shook me and told me to go to my room. He told me that he would take care of it. He told me to pretend it didn’t happen, but it did. I was crying so hard, and he slapped me across the face and told me to shut up. He said I had to forget it happened because if I didn’t, then someone would find out, and I’d go to jail. I couldn’t leave Austin. Who knew what would happen to him if I wasn’t there?” Her nails dug into her arms and made deep indentations. “He said it was all my fault, and I was a bad girl, but I was his little girl, and he would take care of me because that’s what family did.”
She sucked in a breath. Her eyes flew open, and she reached behind her and found the wall, then slid to the floor. I didn’t want to tower over her, so I squatted so we were closer to eye level. “It’s okay, Paris. It was an accident.”
“Please…” she pleaded. “Please.”
“Please what?”
“I don’t know!” A sob overtook her, but she forced it away with sharp inhales that I hoped didn’t feel half as painful as they looked. She stared at her fingers trembling in her lap. “He has the tape.”
