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“The guy that robbed our store was wearing bright blue running shoes at the time, Brinley. I remember them clearly. I couldn’t stop staring at them as I lay face down on the ground, watching his every move. He paced back and forth in front of me. I wanted him to leave so I could save my mom, but he didn’t leave. Could that be what you meant when you wrote…Something I need is coming my way. But when, when will the blue go away?”
“I don’t know, I just–”
“Could you have been there?”
“Reed, stop.”
“No, think about it,” I say, feeling my heart shatter into a million pieces. “It’s destiny where the red water falls. Maybe that was all the blood dripping from the shelves. AndIt’s destiny where the black smoke swirls, that could be the gunpowder. And what about the line,It’s destiny when the blue won’t leave.Think about it, Brinley, we need to get to the bottom of this before we both go fucking insane.”
I put my finger under her chin, forcing her eyes onto mine, and it kills me to see tears streaming down her cheeks.
“Please, Reed, just… I can’t think straight. You’re suffocating me.” She looks around the room frantically, like she’s looking for an escape. “I know you need answers, but I just need some time to think.”
Just then, Brinley’s bedroom is filled with the wide sweep of headlights sliding over her walls and her parents’ car pulls up into the driveway. I hear car doors opening and then closing, and then I hear laughter and happy chatter when the front door opens and voices drift easily up the stairs.
Brinley meets my wide eyes, and her bottom lip starts quivering at the sound of her mother’s laughter. She knows as well as I do what has to be done.
And so I kiss her just once, my mouth soft and whispery against her lips, and then I hold her real tight against my bare chest, her tears dripping down my skin, her heart broken in so many ways she can hardly stand straight anymore.
“Go get your answers, Tink,” I say, kissing her again. “You deserve that much. Come find me when you’re ready to talk. I’ll be here for you. I’m not going anywhere.”
Brinley nods reluctantly, but I know we’re missing something.
I can feel it in my gut.
Reed
The next two hours are spent with me sitting outside on the front porch while Brinley talks to her parents in the kitchen.
I have every intention of giving them their privacy but screw it all to hell, this is taking forever, and I may have just maneuvred the wicker chair a fraction closer to the side window so I can hear a little better.
Brinley is crying, and I can hear her mother crying too.
It fucking kills me.
They’ve been talking for ages, and so far what I can gather from the bits and pieces I’ve been able to catch, is that Brinley was born in Texas. Grant is the one doing most of the talking. He goes on to explain that after Brinley was born, she lived with her parents until the day her mother ran away. Apparently she went to New York to start over and I hear Brinley cry even harder when she hears this. I’m guessing that information cuts a little close to the bone, being that Brinley herself did something very similar just recently.
Jean goes on to describe Brinley’s birth mother. She tells her that her name was Margaret, but she went by the name of Maggie. She says Brinley’s birth father was abusive, and that’s why Maggie left him, so that she might create a better life for the two of them.
Then she tells Brinley what they were told by the police in regard to the shooting at the convenience store.
Apparently, the paramedics found Brinley hiding under the front counter, frozen with fear to the point she didn’t speak for weeks after. Her mother’s body was one of the last bodies to be removed from the scene as the forensic team didn’t want her body moved until they’d walked the entire grid, figuring out exactly what had gone down that afternoon.
So, Brinley hadn’t been found until after the other victims had been taken to the hospital, and the entire time she’d been hiding in the cupboard, watching it all unfold through a small slit where she laid on her stomach with her cheek pressed against the cold, hard floor.
That part rocks me to the core.
I get up from the seat and walk the length of the porch, back and forth, my hands in my hair. I can’t believe Brinley and I were looking at the exact same thing, all those years ago, transfixed by the evilness of one single human being that took so much away from each of us.
Johnny Caddell denied Brinley growing up with her mother, and he took my mother away from me for months on end. He took a part of my mother away from her that she can’t ever get back, and I’ll never forgive the bastard that destroyed so much, and for what?
After ten minutes or more, I wander back in the direction of the kitchen window, and Grant’s explaining to Brinley just how sorry they are that they didn’t tell her all this sooner.
He says it was never their intention to hurt her. He tells her they love her so much. He tells her they always planned on giving her all this information at some stage, once she was old enough to fully understand. But when the time came, they just didn’t know how to go about it. With each and every day that went by, they were afraid of hurting her even more, and they couldn’t bring themselves to do it.
My phone suddenly rings and I scramble off the porch, not wanting to disturb their private conversation.
Glancing at the screen, I see it’s Quinn calling me, and I answer it as I walk across the front yard toward the garden.
