“Did you just say you understood why this motherfucker blames you?”
“Don’t call him that,” I whispered. “He lost his child.”
Luke’s eyes narrowed further and he took a step toward me.
“He did, Shiloh, but that doesn’t give him the right to send you nasty letters tearing you down. He lost his child but through that, he didn’t gain the right to call you a piece of shit. His daughter is dead and that’s a tragedy but you didn’t kill her.”
The area around my heart tightened like it always did when I thought about Penelope. A young girl whose life was stolen from the world. Snuffed out before she could do great things. A father left behind to mourn her loss.
I knew what it was like to be left, to mourn a loss—even if it was the loss of a dream. My father was trash, but that didn’t mean when he went to prison I didn’t feel it. My mother had been useless, but when she left I’d mourned that, too.
“Penelope left and—”
“No!” Luke snapped. “Penelope didn’t leave, she was murdered.”
“That’s what I meant.”
At this juncture, I was rethinking my stance on friendship. Rethinking why I’d allowed Luke in so easily. This didn’t feel good. This was what I had avoided. I didn’t want to talk about Penelope and Clive. I didn’t want to discuss how I felt about what happened.
“You do not identify with Clive Hutchinson,” Luke rasped. “What happened to him was not the same as what happened to you and your brothers. You’re not anyone’s punching bag.”
I felt it, the panic, the cold. It was seeping into my bones.
Luke was right, it wasn’t the same. But he was also wrong. I deserved to be called all the mean, horrible names Clive called me. I’d earned his anger. I’d failed his daughter.
I was a piece of shit.
And why shouldn’t I be Clive’s punching bag? I’d earned that, too, by being a bitch to so many people who had done nothing but try to be nice to me.
I was getting a taste of what I’d done to others.
I deserved that, too.
“Shiloh,” Luke called.
Soft. Sweet. Gentle.
Hearing that, my vision turned watery.
“Baby.”
More soft, sweet, and gentle.
“No.”
My voice wasn’t gentle. It sounded pained because it was.
So much pain.
“Baby, come here.”
“No. I can’t do this.”
“Yes, you can.”
“No, Luke,” I rasped. “I can’t. I cannot do this right now. Or ever. I can’t do this ever. It is what it is. You don’t get it. I fucked up and if he needs this I’m gonna give it to him. If he wants to write me a letter a week for the rest of his life telling me how horrible I am, I’m not gonna stop him.”
“No, I don’t get it. And it seriously fuckin’ worries me you’re all right with this.”
“Why wouldn’t I be? I fucking deserve this, Luke. He witnessed his daughter’s head explode!”
Losing my balance I pitched forward, stumbled, but before I could fall, Luke was there.
His hands went to my waist and he hauled me up then wrapped his arms around me. I struggled to break free but his grasp tightened. I did my best in the small space Luke allowed to shove at his chest but he didn’t budge.
“Let me go.”
Silence.
“Luke! Let me go.”
Nothing.
More silence.
More panic.
Please help her.
Clive’s voice sounded in my head. I dropped my forehead, hit Luke’s chest, and I closed my eyes as best I could.
But I could still hear Clive’s screams.
Nothing would ever silence those.
23
Shit. Goddamn.
My arms already tight around Shiloh got tighter when her body bucked and her legs gave out.
Shit. Fuck.
I shifted a trembling Shiloh and scooped one hand behind her knees. I lifted her into my arms and made my way to her couch while her body continued to shake. I sat down and she immediately burrowed in. Face to my throat, chest plastered to mine, hand fisting my shirt. She couldn’t get any closer but I still locked my arms tight and held on.
I fucked up huge and lost it.
I should’ve found a better time to bring the letter up but each word I read had my blood heating. The sonofabitch was a goddamn motherfucker, grieving or not. The man had no business writing to Shiloh and he certainly had no goddamn motherfucking right to tell Shiloh she was the reason his child was dead. But that wasn’t the worst of what he wrote. His closing sentence was what had set me on fire.
I hope you dream of my daughter’s last moments on earth until you die a miserable death.
Not an outright threat but no less fucked-up.
It was no wonder Shiloh had nightmares. She was reliving that day over and over and not because her mind wouldn’t put it to rest. Clive Hutchinson was twisting her head.
How many fucked-up letters had he sent?
Jesus, fuck me.
“I tried,” Shiloh whispered.
Coarse. Tortured. Pain-filled.
“I know you did.”
“It went downhill fast. Robbery turned into a hostage situation. We didn’t know it then. Not until it was too late. The suspect was out on parole. He was facing the rest of a twenty-year sentence if he went back in. His mom was sick, MS. She didn’t have twenty years waiting on her son to get back out. She also didn’t have anyone to take care of her. Simon Abbot. That was his name.”
Fucked-up situation all the way around.
“Shiloh, baby, even if you’d known the particulars it wouldn’t have changed the outcome.”
“All she did was go to work. Family business. A minimart. She worked there after school when she wasn’t playing sports, and on Saturdays. No Sundays, that was her day off to spend with her friends. She was smart. Straight A’s. Her friends loved her.”
Something was seriously wrong with Shiloh knowing Penelope’s work schedule.
“How do you know that?”
“He told me in his first letter. He sent me her report cards. Copies of condolence letters he’d received from her teachers, coaches, friends, neighbors. Everyone loved her.”
That wasn’t wrong—it was jacked-the-fucked-up.
“Shiloh, baby.”
“Simon Abbot looked right at me. Right in the eye, Luke. And pulled the trigger.”
Shiloh’s body jolted and her face pressed deeper.
From head to toe, Shiloh trembled in my arms.
I said nothing.
Not because I had nothing to say, but right then with my woman shaking on my lap she was not ready to hear what I had to say. She wasn’t ready to hear the truth. Simon Abbot killed Penelope Hutchinson and there wasn’t a damn thing anyone could’ve done to stop him. And Clive Hutchinson’s pain was not Shiloh’s to bear and his fucked-up letters would be stopping.
But right then, I wasn’t worried about Clive, Simon, or Penelope.
A person could only stand so much heartache.
And Shiloh Kent had been through enough.
Too fucking much.
In the silence, I thought about her nightmares. She hadn’t had any since she’d been in my bed or I’d been in hers. But there had been times in the last two weeks when Shiloh had been called out in the middle of the night and by the time she got home I was gone. Which meant she’d slept without me. She had not mentioned if she had them then.