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“Where are who?” their father asked, a cagey look on his face. His nose was swelling now. Uncle Gerald had struck true.
“Don’t be an asshole,” Darcey said. Her temper was just as hot as Dixie’s, and a lot more noticeable. Dusty felt her own fire burning now. Enough was enough. He wasn’t getting away this time. “Daddy.Answer Dusty’s question right now.”
“Where are our younger sisters?” Dusty yelled, so loudly the dining room’s occupants pulled in a collective breath. Yelling seemed like a good way to get through to that man. Maybe theonlyway. “Or did you just take off and abandon them, too?”
“Sisters?” someone in the crowd asked. “There is more thanonemissing Talley girl out there?”
“Yes. There is more than one missing Talley girl out there! We just don’t know how many. They just left us behind and started right over again. I don’t know their names, or how old they are. Or anything. Because they mattered enough to them for them to keep. But we didn’t,” Dusty said. Ben’s hand landed on her shoulder. She’d always feel that hurt. Her parents had just dropped them off and walked away. Dusty looked at her mother, who was just standing there, looking overwhelmed and like the world was ending. Geena just looked so helpless and fragile. “Just tell us why. That’s all we really want to know. And their names. You owe us that much. Hell, just tell us how many of them there are!”
Her mother just stared at her, from tear-filled blue eyes. Then she looked at Darcey, Dixie, Dusty, and Daisy one by one. Like she was trying to figure out which was which? Because their own mother didn’t evenknowthem now. “I didn’t want to leave you. I never wanted to leave you girls. I didn’t. Please don’t think that I ever did. Never.”
“Frankly, we don’t believe you.” Dixie pulled Daisy closer, protecting her like she always had. Dixie and Daisy, and Darcey protecting Dusty. Like they had always done. Because…
“They are our sisters. Why did you take them away from us? You could have called Uncle Gerald. He would have come and gotten them, too,” Daisy said, tears running down her cheeks. “You didn’t have to even seeusagain if you didn’t want to.”
Darcey cursed, something she rarely ever did. She pulled Daisy closer, too. “Or…you could have at least contacted usonce. Just one time. Like when Dusty almostdiedfrom a heart attack at fourteen. Where were you then? Did you even know that she almost died back then? That she was so sick? Did you know how sick she was? You should have been there. Instead Fletcher Tyler drove her to the emergency room to get her help that day. Or when Aunt Jess died. Or Grandpa or Aunt Sherry. When Aunt Jess and Aunt Sherry were so sick? You werenothingto us after you just left us like we were old clothes you were donating to a yard sale.You were our motherand then you were just…gone. How could you do that?”
“Stop, girls. Stop it right now,” their father barked. Of course. Because he loved her. “Just leave her alone. Leave your mother alone! It’s me you should be angry with. Not her. It wasn’t her doing. It wasn’t her fault. Never her fault. It was mine. All of it wasmine.Never hers at all. She never wanted to leave you, and she was in so much pain, and she didn’t even really know what we were doing that day.Iconvinced her it was best. Idid.It wasmyfault. It broke her heart every damned day to not have you girls with us. Every damned day!”
“Sure it did,” Daisy said quietly. “Why would it? You just had a few more instead. Replaced us right away. You didn’t need us.You were just tired of dealing with us.That’s what your stupid note said.But that’s fine. We didn’t really need people like you either. Grandma and Uncle Gerald and Aunt Jess took care of us just fine.”
“I knew they would,” their mother said. She was just staring at them. Dusty fought the urge to just stare back. “I am so sorry. So sorry.”
“It was my fault,” their father said again. “I thought I could fix something that I couldn’t. And we had no choice but to leave. But we didn’t feel it was safe to take the four of you with us. And just keep living a life of running. Never knowing where you really came from. Knowing your family. We wanted better for you than the life of fugitives.”
“But it was okay forusto live that exact way? To hideus awayand then uproot us whenever you wanted? To just finally feel likewebelonged somewhere, got settled somewhere, and you yanked us away again and again?” An angry voice almost shouted from behind them all. “Why didn’t you tell us aboutthem,Daddy?”
Then another woman was there, pushing through the crowd. She just glared at everyone who got in her way. She had pixie-cut, curly, white-blond hair the exact shade as Marin’s that stuck out all over her head and big green eyes shaped just like Daisy’s. She was no bigger than their cousin Charlotte. No. She was even smaller than Charlotte. If she hit five feet, Dusty would be surprised.
Behind her, moving much more slowly, were her sisters. Dusty knew that was exactly who they were. She studied them quickly. Four of them. Her parents had had four. That number stung. “You just had…four…more, didn’t you? How…ironic.”
Like they didn’t want the first four, but had just replaced them with better options later?
Two had hair the same color as Daisy’s warm caramel brown. The eyes were the same shade of green as Dusty’s own and the rest of her sisters. But they looked the most like their cousin Meyra. A great deal like Meyra actually. They were only around five five. Apparently, her parents’ second batch of daughters were smaller than their first.
One was bruised, and her shirt was torn. Her hair was a mess. She’d been the one that monster had held. There were ghosts, hurts in her eyes. She leaned heavily on her identical twin. Who was slightly thinner and wore glasses. That was the only visible difference.
And then there was the one who couldn’t be much past eighteen or nineteen. It was like looking in a mirror to the past, looking ather. Except she was two or three inches shorter than Dusty. Twenty pounds lighter, maybe. She had an overwhelmed, bewildered look on her face. She was just a kid. And afraid. So afraid.
Well, Dusty definitely understood that. Nothing about this felt real at all.
“We wanted to, so much,” their mother said. “We just couldn’t. We wanted so much better for you girls,all of you girls,than we could ever give you. And I am so sorry.”
“Why is Daddy in handcuffs?” The one in glasses almost whispered. “What did he do? Is he going to jail forever?”
“He needs to answer some questions, at the station,” Joel said. “Girls, I’m afraid we can’t just stand around here all day. There will be time for this later.”
“Is our mother under arrest, too?” the twin with the bruises asked, looking directly at Joel. Dusty’s hands tightened around Daisy’s and Darcey’s. The four of them were holding hands—just like the fourothersisters were. “What exactly did they do?”
“How about we start with kidnapping?” Uncle Gerald said. He was still very, very angry right now.
There was confusion and pain on the younger women’s faces. Dusty suspected it was on her own face, as well. Just like it was on Darcey, Dixie, and Daisy’s. And everyone in the room waswatching.
Everyone was watching.
She’d admit it—she’d been angry at their parents for keeping these sisters, but she hurt for the pain this was causing the sisters she didn’t know. She, Darcey, Dixie and Daisy had been abandoned. But these girls had been lied to. Their entire lives.
There was nothingrightabout this situation at all.
