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Minutes pass in utter silence. Then Sgt. Daniels’s posture shifts and he’s letting out a huff. “You know, usually when my wife is pissed, I give her a couple of hours. Then I can track her by the credit card bill she’s racked up. Calls it retail therapy.”
Abram snorts what I assume is his agreement, but the sound is filled with only disgust.
Eli has been side-eyeing his father since his comment.
“So, is there?” Finn asks overeagerly. “A card statement.”
“That’s what that call was about, but it was a dead lead. No activity.” His brows dip, almost touching at the center. “On anything. It’s like she’s gone off the grid. Disappeared.”
Wouldn’t that make my life easier? I want to say but decide to bite my tongue instead.
“Someone like Lorna? Who constantly needs what others have?” Abram’s tongue clicks. “Impossible. She has to be getting it from somewhere else. She’d never go without.” His tone was positive.
Another beat passes and then Abram’s eyes meet mine over a monitor. They move from me to the window and back.
I don’t have to look over to know what’s outside or what he’s thinking. Both our minds on the same thought. The barn and the fire.
If Lorna’s capable of doing something like that so casually, who knew what else she'd do? She’s out of control, and that’s one thing I despise not having.
We have to find her before she has the chance to do something much, much worse.
Two more hours have passed, and we aren’t any closer than before. My patience is already, on a good day, as thin as the pointed edge of a knife. Today it’s been honed and sharpened that much more.
Officially, we’ve all been left out to dry, and everyone’s strung out.
How fucking hard is it to track down one psycho bitch? The answer, very. Her career should have been a professional sociopath and not a desolate housewife.
“Ah, Daniels, so glad to see you having a little powwow in here. Must mean you’ve figured out my ownership problems,” Silas aggrieves, padding inside.
His movements are formal, like his personality. Both unwelcome at the moment… orever.
“You must’ve found a solution. That can be the only reason you’re here and not working onmymore pressing matter,” my father adds, uncaring if he’s interrupting.
None of this is surprising, not for him. He believes the world owes him everything, not the other way around.
Sgt. Daniels’s teeth grind. His military background masks everything else. That’s the only sign he has of his discomfort, or is it resistance?
Doesn’t matter. Any sane person would rather walk over hot coals than be in the same room with him for minutes, let alone hours a day.
Try eighteen years.
Thenwe can talk.
“I’ve been working nonstop, getting less than four hours of sleep a night trying to figure it out, Silas,” he snaps back.
I don’t bother covering my hand to conceal my grin, and Silas sees it as I intended. My father intimidates a lot of people, but I’ve never been one of them and he hates that he doesn’t have that power over me.
He had it in title only and then after my mother died, that too went out with everything else.
That man doesn’t have, and will never have, my respect so why bother pretending? I refuse to kiss his ass like everyone else. Money may talk, but I’d rather go bankrupt.
Oh wait, we already did lose our half of Hardin.
My grin deepens into more sinister territory.
He stays unfazed, not because he cares, but rather the opposite. Silas moves deeper into the space. His back as parallel and straight as a ruler’s edge the closer he comes.
A true narcissist like that, taking up more of the already thinned air from the rest of us.
