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Day looked right at her, his cheeks going ruddy.
“Grandma,” he said, sniffing. “Grandma told me you’d always protect me from him.”
Moira was stunned into silence as she looked up at her son, tears welling in her eyes. She’d told me about her parents and how her dad had passed away when Day was just a toddler, and her mother passed roughly two years ago.
“What else did she tell you?” Moira whispered, her voice like gravel. Day didn’t respond, and he looked down at his feet, his lower lip jutting out as he began to cry. “Day, answer me—”
“That he tried to kill you and you had to go to doctor for a long time when I was a baby—”
“Okay,” I said firmly, rising to my feet. I put my hand on Day’s shoulder, leading him away from where Moira was currently falling to pieces. “Let’s take Honey back to house. Everything is fine.”
Neither of them were okay, that was clear. And to add insult to injury, Moira’s mother had gone behind her back to tell the kid the truth before Moira was ready.
And Day hadn’t said a word about it to her.
But he’d heard and seen her nightmares. He’d moved across the country more times than I could count.
He was old enough to understand what this was, even if Moira didn’t believe it.
I was ready to kill someone as I picked Day up and put him on Honey’s back.
“Moira,” I said, but she was looking out over the creek, her back to us. “Come back to the house. Everything’s all right.”
She said nothing, didn’t even look my way as I climbed on Honey’s back behind Day and took off toward the house. I needed to find George, and I needed to check my email and watch the security footage from the bar.
I also needed to make a few phone calls to my connections in California on the matter.
Day sprinted toward where Jenny was lying sprawled out on the back porch when I reached the paddock. George was inside with another of the new horses and seemed surprised to see me. That, or he’d noticed the look on my face as I approached him, and he stopped what he was doing and met me halfway across the paddock, his hands tucked in the pockets of his jeans.
“We have a situation,” I said, then I told him everything.
* * *
Moira cooked dinner, her stance and expression making it absolutely clear she was in no mood to argue. She silently served boxed macaroni and cheese, extra crispy chicken nuggets shaped like dinosaurs, and canned corn to Day, who had been allowed to eat it on the couch while blasting a movie about robots, or something of the like.
Moira ate a few bites of macaroni straight out of the pot before tossing it in the sink, a distant look in her eyes as she finally acknowledged my presence since I’d told her about Pete’s phone call.
I’d been sitting at the kitchen table for over an hour with my laptop poised and ready. I hadn’t watched the video yet. I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t watch it until she was ready, and I was silently praying that that moment was now.
She pulled two beers out of the fridge, popping them open and setting one down next to me before sitting down next to me, sipping from her beer.
“Ready?” I asked, and she nodded.
I opened the video, and Moira went rigid within seconds.
“If it’s one of his acquaintances, like you said—”
“It’shim,” she said, her throat bobbing as she tried to swallow. “That’s—That’s him. That’s Kirk. He’s on parole, Grant. He shouldn’t have been able to leave New Jersey. He shouldn’t have been able to come here. I don’t know how—”
“You’re safe,” I said quickly, knitting her fingers in mine and squeezing. “But you need to tell me everything.Now.”
ChapterTwenty-Four
Moira
Iran my fingers through Day’s silken curls as he slept with his head on my lap. I’d forced him to take a shower—a real one with soap and shampoo instead of being sprayed down in the backyard by Grant, which was apparently Day’s new method of choice.
Clean, full, and emotionally drained, Day fell asleep within minutes of curling up on the couch next to me while Grant finished up his evening chores. I heard the front door click shut, the deadbolt locking in place as Grant came into the front foyer.
