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When Nicole returned, Austin was staring ahead, and his eyes were narrowed, his mind clearly not with him. He rubbed the back of his neck when she started gazing at him too long.
“You are a strange man,” she said, and he stood and then started walking. She followed him.
“Many have said the same thing, said that I am a strange man, but I don’t agree that I am. I think, I am no stranger than the next man. What I am doing now is justified, and he knows it. I know it too,” Austin said.
“And what exactly are you doing?”
“Plotting the ruin of the family that took loyalty and labor from a family then discarded them immediately when they had no more use to them anymore,” he said
“What exactly did you do? How did you manage to put Ike McClellan in jail?” she asked.
“Are you offering to be my lawyer?” he asked.
“Why would you even do something like that and not have a lawyer in the first place?” she asked him, and he laughed a little.
“You know that I am a risk-taking man. What will it be, then?” do you want to be my lawyer and know the full story, or do you want to be left guessing and thinking that I am a strange man?” he asked. She kept her eyes on him for a while then she shrugged.
“Alright then. You only live once after all,”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
LENANNEE’S POV
Lenanee looked at the clouds and at the cat that was pulling into the driveway. They had decided to stay at the house of one of Ike’s friends who wasn’t currently in town, where Ike had been staying before he had been arrested. She stood on the front porch as he walked over to her, his broad shoulders slumped and his face pale like he had just seen a ghost. His face twisted in the ghost of a smile then he shook his head as she went to hug him.
“What is the matter with you?” she asked, her voice tinged with concern.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that something is off with you, and it isn’t just that your father was unjustly arrested. If that was the case, then it would have been an easy thing to get him out or did Austin make this go deeper? Did he…” she stopped, wondering if Austin could even do such a thing but the truth was that she didn’t know the man and didn’t know what he was capable of.
“There are things about this that I can’t tell you. Lee,” Hayden said.
“No. I’m starting to think that you should tell me everything and I mean everything. What are you hiding from me? Did Austin make and plant evidence? What is the matter, Hayden?” she said. She looked into his eyes, and she saw the sober look in them; then he bit his lower lip.
“The thing is that…what Austin said did happen. What he accused my father of? It isn’t entirely a lie,” he said, turning to look at the woman who stood by him with wide eyes.
“What are you saying to me?” she asked.
“What I’m saying is ….come inside, Lee,” he said, but she shook her head.
“No, tell me what happened. Did your father actually do what he was accused of?” she asked. She could already see in his eyes that it was true, but she needed the words to come from his mouth. He blew breath through puffed cheeks and shrugged.
“Yes, it was many years ago. There was this man who…he was mouthing off to my mom, and my father got angry at him. In a moment of anger, they got into a fight and my father… he killed the man, and that is the way it is. He burned the man’s body, and Austin was there to see it all, he and his father. There are people who can be questioned on this matter, but it will come out soon and when it does… my father might even get the life sentence,” he said.
Lenanee kept staring at Hayden, seeing a part of him and his family she didn’t even know existed.
“So that is what he did. I don’t…why didn’t you tell me! Why did you ever tell me that he wasn’t guilty of the charges that were brought against him?” she asked.
“I didn’t think it was something that would ever be brought up again. I mean, we swore to each other that we would never even speak of it and now here we are,” he said.
“If they go digging, will they find anything?” she asked, and he stared out into the distance then took a breath through puffed cheeks.
“There is a chance that if they go looking that they will find something, but I don’t know exactly what they will find, and I don’t even know how to begin going about it,” Hayden said.
“Did he have a family?” Lenanee asked. Hayden seemed to think about that for a while then he nodded.
“Yeah, he had a family. I didn’t know until a while later, but he had a daughter and a wife,” he said.
